Stuffed

I set off for a fabric shop today. None of their buyers is red headed. The locals seem to prefer slinky fabrics. The shop had three floors of cloth and the messiest collection of haberdashery. Nothing tempted me whereas I could easily have bought a length in most of the tiny shops we visited in Port Louis, Mauritius. There the fabrics are displayed unrolled which is much more appealing.

Then I went to the Museum with about a hundred squeezing kids. I had not realised how big hyenas are. You never see film of a person standing beside a hyena. They are almost as tall as a lion. 

Stuffed but cute

Then I went to the Malay part of town which has painted itself a riot of colour. (I suspect that the paint is donated to attract tourists.)

We dined with a group from ANU.

Cape Town

We arrived yesterday afternoon and got settled into our hotel, registered for the conference and attended the opening ceremony complete with a government minister. All necessary but forgettable. I, at least, got a sock knitted on the plane.

Today Jo went off to his sessions and went to find the SA Art Gallery having first confirmed that it is in a safe part of town. It is. There are "security" folk on most blocks and scads of happy looking tourists enjoying the warmth and sunshine. The locals would enjoy a good rainfall. They haven't had their winter rain this year and the drought is now 3 years old. The grass is still greener than Sydney's. 

The Gallery is beside the Company Gardens which are lush European with grey squirrels and local geese with goslings. I thought to sketch the park but every bench was occupied. Eventually I found one with a view of what started out as the tool shed of the gardens but later was converted into some  official's residence. (So said a passing tour guide.) 

Lesson learned: White buildings behind white fences are too hard for me. Passers-by, including school girls, were sympathetic.

The Art Gallery had some fabulous fabric.

This is raffia cloth made for a King

This afternoon I visited the Victoria and Albert port area. It is like Birkenhead + Darling Harbour + the Rocks on steroids. The yachts that are racing around the world are resting there for a few days. The advertising said they "are people just like you" . . . . not an iota like me. 

It must have been a fascinating area before it was gentrified.

Old friends, Oct 28

We spent the day with erstwhile colleagues of Jo. 

The first, who drove us over the mountain to Port Loiuis is still on the ball and teaches on line courses to UNstaff. 

On top

The old fish market was degrees cooler than outside.

Which one is the vegetarian?

The second lost the plot on an ashram and believes he can diagnose on sight and cure with his magic hands.

The third is sorting out a beastly spouse who made hay while she solved problems in third world countries

This is a small island. It is smaller than Sydney with 1.3 million people so the pot to pick out leaders is small too. And tight so that relationships tend to get tricky.

Prone in Blue Bay, Oct 27

Jo had carefully organised a colleague for today but she couldn't make it. So we had an unplanned day off. We missed the morning snorkel boat and the afternoon boat was fully booked. Which meant that we spent the whole day lying on banana lounges under a palm tree, in a soft breeze, with the sound of the waves breaking over the reef  500 m from shore. . . all day long. We both read a book and I finished a sock but was too slothful to take a photo of the heavenly sea.

This resort was suddenly depopulated today. A bus load or two of French folk have gone home, perhaps. We anticipated a quiet dinner (breakfast and dinner buffets are included) but another bus load of Chinese locals arrived and a large group of drummers/singers are having a picnique just over the fence in the public park.

We are expecting three separate colleagues to visit tomorrow.

PS : thanks to hours of jet lagged awakeness, I finished listening to "The Vicar of Wrexhill" by Frances Trollope. The ending rewards hours of turgid prosetilizing by vanquishing a thoroughly nasty villan.  

Weather vagaries, Oct 26

It has rained, been cloudy, in full fun. . . a dozen times today. I asked what the weather was likely to be and got a shrug and "whatever". And Melbourne thinks that they have dibs on the most variable weather! At least here it is uniformly warm.

We snorkeled the"marine reserve" adjacent to our resort. Unfortunately the powers that be did not declare it a reserve until after the tourist boats, local fish hunters, etc had damaged the coral. It was rather like snorkelling over a cemetery. But I did see a very big schnapper at a cleaning station. . . at least an arm's length.

Our resort is full of enthusiastic French speaking guests and staff. The staff talk incomprehensible patois to each other. They organise lots of activities for the adults and children with background music so that even if only lying on a banana lounge you are part of the action.

Jo's toes are pseudo goutish and he fears he might be getting a cold. He hopes that the aspirin for the former will nip the later in the bud.

Breakfast with Penny

I will jot down the family news before I get on a plane and it is all left behind.

Penny has 5 grandkids. Josephine has two daughters, 15 and 13, Jasmine and Indy. Both are brilliant. The older is already looking at which uni to attend as she has skipped ahead two years at school. William has a son (?Cameron), 11, and two daughters, aged 9 and 7. The nine year old has a horse. They moved to his wife's parents small town further south because the mother-in-law developed a serious muscle wasting disease 4 years ago. They will be there another year and then move back to Perth. William works in Perth 3 days a week then goes home to his family.

Josephine will build a granny flat in her backyard that Penny can move into, eventually.

Doug had 4 kids and has 8 grandchildren, including 1 boy(I think). His eldest hasn't had any kids.

Mary's Tom has two daughters, 5 and 3. They have just moved to be closer to Mary. Jonathon's operation was a success. The lesions in his liver and gut are nothing to worry about (at 84!)

I tried not to show my ignorance.

Guild visit

Ann Miller took me to the WA HWS Guild today as this is their weavers get together morning. The tapestry weavers were all busy elsewhere (cataract op, grandchild being born, overseas, sick. . . All had good excuses). They are working on four panels on their very wide, high tapestry loom. It is a lovely design.

We sat around and chatted to the 5 other weavers . . . very pleasant. One of them got one of my tea towels in our anniversary exchange and another didn't quite got hers finished so was glad to learn that we are doing it again.

Ann is not confident driving in downtown Perth (she lives in Fremantle), so she dropped me on the other side of Government House and the gardens were open for me to walk through. The smelliest rose was the President Lincoln. . . . smelled just like rose water. The roses are fabulous in every front yard. 

Ever heard of a naked burger? I hadn't until dinner tonight.

Free in Fremantle

There is a long term advantage in being overlooked . . . if you are a small town. Fremantle has retained its boom time (late 1800s) buildings which have now been lovingly restored by young trendies. 

The statue in the foreshore park that was put up to celebrate some local explorers who heroically died while tangling with the "natives" has a recently added plaque that says, in effect, "don't forget the people that they killed." All very PC. 

The Norfolk Island pines are very tall and healthy.

We visited the Maritime Museum (didn't see cousin Doug's name anywhere). It has a special exhibition of the last day of Pompei which was good. Otherwise it rather reminded me of the Broome museum. . . . crammed full. I had not realised that Fremantle was a submarine base in WWII. it is hard to remember that Perth is closer to SE Asia than the east coast. 

Here you are reminded of that by the number of Malaysian restaurants, not to mention that the majority of tourists from that region. 

Free in Perth

The best laid plans are not immune from senior moments. Cousin Penny thought that wer were coming next Sunday. The only time she has to slot us into her busy life is on Wednesday for breakfast before we catch the plane to Mauritius.

So, with a free day, we explored the Perth Cultural precinct. The museum is closed. It will open with a huge glass annex stuck onto the grand old brick edifice in 2020. The Art Gallery has already been "done". It used to be the Police Court 

and now has a pentagonal annex with all the bells and whistles. I am delighted that there are heaps of women artists on the walls.

Across the plaza is the state library which featured a show about Hairy McClary's nemesis

Scarface Claw.

Tonight we plan to go to Miss Maud's for a smorgasbord. Haven't had an excess of herrings for years.

And I finished my Shropshire dicky. It started out as a small bag of white fleece. I spun it, dyed it ( the colours are more olive and grey between the orange and blue) then knit it three times. Now I am done because I used all the yarn to the last 6ins.

To Perth

The flight was uneventful. . . which is the best thing that you can say about any trip in an aeroplane.

We caught the local bus into the city and the lovely lady bus driver said "no charge for you lot on the weekend". She charged some locals but not other obvious tourists. Must be a thing here. 

Our hotel is around the corner from the Law Courts in a quiet corner of downtown. We found a good Japanese restaurant for dinner, Edosei. They were very nice as was the food especially the Japanese rice. 

Now we are in bed at 8:15 local time but 11:15  Sydney time . . . well past our bedtime.