Autumn to winter 2017

Velvet soap

I found a couple of desirable cottages when I went walking round Soldier's Hill this weekend.

Just look at that velvet soap ad! My Grandma used velvet soap, my Mum used it, I use it.

Clothes, floors, hair, dogs - Velvet soap washes all.

The packaging has changed from yellow and blue to patriotic, but there's a 1901 baby on each block.

Escape from Ballarat

Today I took a break from work and study and took off in a mini van with fellow members of the Sebastopol Historical Society. I'm going to make several posts of this trip, but tonight I'm posting a pub in Dunolly which I fell in love with and would like to live in.

I want to live on this top floor and have beers on this balcony and go to sleep with the wind in these palm trees late at night.

Isn't it a beauty?

You'll need to click on the pictures to see them properly. 

Spring garden, Dunnstown

 

Some beautiful gardens around Ballarat are opened to visitors on Melbourne Cup weekend. Some years the gardens are mostly town gardens, but this year they were all in the country.
I went out past Warrenheip, through Dunnstown, to see this one.

The garden wrapped dense shrubs and trees around an old bluestone house, with small clearings full of sunlight and brilliant flowers appearing and disappearing as I walked around.

Careful planting allowed magical views into the hilly paddocks around the house.

French bread!

For the last three months this beautiful little French bakery-cafe in Creswick has been baking REAL bread. Ballarat is bereft of good bread - it comes in from Geelong (La Madre) or Trentham (Red Beard) or Castlemaine (Himalaya) or Melbourne (Babka) ......
I can bake sourdough and wholemeal and flat breads, but I can't manage the perfection of a traditional French baguette.  It seems that you have to have a French baker to get traditional French bread.

Sorry about the fuzzy photos but I got a bit excited, having brekky in such style this morning.

It was so delicious to be inside in the warmth of an open fire, the scent of baking bread and coffee brewing around us, gazing at the rainy street outside.

We took a baguette and brioche home but Yin ate most of it while I was still fiddling around on the computer.

This is what's left, just before I make up a tomato roll for lunch.

I love good bread and good coffee.You'll find both at the Peche Gourmande.

On the buses


These last few weeks, apart from writing (and working and cleaning the house and walking the dog...), I've been travelling about on the buses from Creswick to Sebastopol.
The landscape and streetscapes change radically over such short distances.Twenty minutes on the bus going north and I'm in Creswick.

 

Fifteen minutes on another bus going south and I'm in Sebastopol

Both were goldfields in the 1850s, both grew into little townships in the 1860s and were mining, farming and producing the machinery, clothing and essentials for their region.

No, it's not the weather - on a cloudy day Sebas looks just like this and a clear day Creswick still looks quite different. 

By the Yarra

Off to Fed Square on a hazy, grey Saturday.
Going to the gallery with a friend.

Lots of folk taking photos so I took out my camera too.

We sat on a bench under an umbrella with a cuppa (yes, just one cup each) and chatted all morning. Then we went down to the riverside with the picnic we'd brought along and talked more.

A hot breeze puffed the scent of lemon gums all along the walkway.

We moved on up the path to the winebar in the old bluestone warehouses overlooking the river. They used to hold the bananas from Queensland a hundred years ago. Had some cool white wine. 

See - some people take their plants out for a drink.

We watched the ferries go down the Yarra to Williamstown.

But we were supposed to be going to the Potter to see the Western Desert artwork.

Have to do it next time!

Just got to the station in time.

Victoria Park Spring 2011

 I walked the 4 or 5 kilometers around the big park at the end of my street. It is one of Ballarat's special places. Some native wildflowers still survive among the formal plantings and the huge mown spaces.

There were three parties of anglers along the side of the big pond, lots of dogs and kids running about and picknickers sitting around the tables or on the grass, but it didn't feel a bit crowded. You can see I had no trouble taking a picture without anybody in it.

There was a competition at the Riding Club and dozens of horses and riders sweating a bit in the heat, but they were over the hill, behind the fences and hedges. Just a whiff of sweaty horse and dung, a few horsey noises.
.

 I counted seven cricket games going on, but the park is so big it swallowed them up. I heard the occasional shouts of crickety triumph roaring out and admired the white clad players against the green grass. There was plenty of quiet for me.

Roller Door

Travelling in to the state archives in North Melbourne

is made a pleasure by a trip to Roller Door.

It's just around the corner and down one block from the North Melbourne station.

It's the best coffee in the smallest of spaces - a back yard garage with a roller door and a tiny courtyard.

 Coffe that's worth a trip in just for a for a cup, a few perfect sweets or a delicious organic savoury something.