What's foooty without a barbie?

There's a canteen and barbecue to run for the hungry spectators and to raise funds for the club (great steak sandwiches, sausages in a roll, hamburgers or chicken burgers for only $3.50)

Wedding cake fountain

This week I'm away enjoying the beauties of the NSW South Coast. And I'm urging you to take a meander around Sydney's streets with 93 year old Alan Waddell, who has set himself the task or walkign every street in Sydney's 227 suburbs! Go one - Walk Sydney Streets with Alan!

Barbecue footy

These people keep a BBQ footy in their front yard.

This week I'm away enjoying the beauties of the NSW South Coast. And I'm urging you to take a meander around Sydney's streets with 93 year old Alan Waddell, who has set himself the task or walkign every street in Sydney's 227 suburbs! Go one - Walk Sydney Streets with Alan!

Classical windmill

I'm away on the beautiful NSW South Coast for a few days, so I've set Blogger to automatic. Hope it works.

For the next few days, let's take a peek into a few front yards and have a look at some of the weird and wonderful ways people express themselves to the world (or their immediate neighbours).

And if this small taste whets your appetite, you've just GOT to visit Alan Waddell's website, Walk Sydney Streets , especially his Surprises and Secrets. Alan is a sprightly and wonderful 93 year old who has set himself the task of walking EVERY street in Sydney. Bring on retirement, I say! I'm not paying any attention to those straighteners and tighteners who want us all to keep working til we're 132! There's too much to discover in the world to keep your nose to the grindstone, and Alan is my hero. And he and his sons (who maintain the website) think of much wittier captions than I ever could. My only gripe is they haven't walked past my place and come in for a cuppa - YET.

In fact I'm thinking of giving up taking pictures and just pinching Alan's! (Just kidding Alan!)

Saturday sport

The agony of a missed kick for goal (never mind, there were also successes!)

Chances are if you're a parent, you're familiar with Saturday sidelines ...

Mouthguards in, last minute words from the coach, and we're back on after quarter time:

Australian Rules footy is only played in, well ......Australia. It's a fast flowing, running, kicking game. If you're a visitor to Australia from late March to September you should try to catch a game.


... and if you're not on the field yourself, there's usually some action BEHIND the posts

Swings 'n ' ladders

Looks like a scene from an idyllic rural hamlet; in fact Turrella is a semi-industrial suburb (with some good bushland on its doorstep) 8.5 kms from the heart of the city. So, not all our houses are close together like yesterday's! Suburban sprawl is a feature of Sydney, which is now as spread out as London with about a quarter the population! There's lots of apartments replacing traditional suburban blocks in many of the inner and middle distance suburbs. This will PROBABLY disappear under medium-denisty redevelopment one day.

Can anyone spot something traditionally Australian under the house? You may need to click on the pic and enlarge it to see...

Hot Summer Night

As I write this, my son is playing video games with his friends in their open-doored garage across the road. A great place to be on a hot summer night!

Boxing Day (aka St Stephens Day) - the view from my couch

For an Australian, Boxing Day means many things, including:

• a public holiday to get over the excesses of the previous day and eat leftovers as sandwiches and salads, and/or hangover nursing;
• if you're in Melbourne, perhaps attending the first day of the Boxing Day Test cricket match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground - this year the Test series is Australia v India. Elsewhere, taking it in from the couch (where you could stay for the next 5 days, as a test match could last that long - the next one always starts in Sydney on New Years Day);
• a trip to the beach or a picnic or barbecue in a park;
• the release of new blockbusters at the cinema;
• visits to the relatives you didn't see yesterday (in-laws often alternate between Christmas and Boxing Day in successive years);
• the start of the Sydney-Hobart yacht race (see my 24 Dec blog) - perhaps baggsing a spot on a headland round the harbour to watch the start of the race;
• pushing and shoving your way through the opening day of the sales at major retail stores;
• getting away early for the drive to your summer beach holiday. I always think of Boxing Day as the "real" start to summer hols.

Boxing Day is usually thought to have its origins in the practice of giving gifts between peers, and amongst the upper classes on Christmas Day, with servants dancing attendance on the guests in the grand manors, and then the servants receiving gratuities the following day, Boxing Day. Or perhaps on large estates, all the serfs could gather together for family festivities, and the day after Christmas was a convenient one for the lord of the manor to dispense the yearly stipends.

Here's a number of theories about the origin*.

* Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable says: "Boxes placed in churches for casual offerings used to be opened on Christmas day, and the contents, called 'the dole of the Christmas box' or the 'box money', were distributed next day by priests. Apprentices also used to carry a box around to their masters' customers for small gratuities."

Backyard Sunday

Sunday barbecue lunch at my place. Tom was the youngest guest...and the only one aware of the camera.

Grand Pines Tourist Park, Ramsgate

The last thing I expected to find in the middle of a suburban area, where property values have increased astronomically, and medium density re-development is proceeding apace, is a cabin and caravan park. But there it is, its entrance in a suburban street in Ramsgate.