A quiet place.
A bit of research on Google revealed that this ad for Abbots Lager was painted near Tobruk, Libya, in January 1941 by the 6th Division of the Australian Army. (‘Journey to Tobruk: John Murray – Bushman, Soldier, Survivor’ by Louise Austin).
My father wrote under the photo: ‘Australian beer is best’.
I looked through the album for anything that triggered the thought ‘down’. There are resting camels, soldiers downing grog, sinking ships, broken planes, a fallen propeller, and this one, a skeleton picked clean. The seat can still hold a pilot!
The caption in the album is ‘Wrecked Bomber’.
This clock tower is in Beirut. The caption my father wrote under the photo gave the town of Tripoli as the tower’s home, but a search for it on Google images showed me where it really is. It was built in 1934 and survived the troubles in Lebanon in the 1970s and 80s. Four new clock faces with Roman numerals have replaced the faces you see here. The tower is no longer encircled by concrete, but flower beds.
The Australian troops trained in Palestine on their way to Egypt and Libya. In the war album there are a number of photographs from Lebanon, indicating they must have had rec leave in Beirut.
I received a few gifts on the weekend. One of them was this candle holder from one of my sons. The candle is also new. I took several shots of it burning: lights on, lights off, flash on, flash off, a compact digital camera, a larger DSLR. This photo is with the latter, lights on, flash off. I couldn’t hold the small camera steady enough and ended up with blurry candles. The DSLR shutter was quicker so the image isn’t bad.
The candle was about twice this height when I began shooting it…
8th Feb – A neighbour working on an old Jag removed the muffler and took it for a test drive. He roared it round a corner where a woman was pushing a pram. She jumped back a few feet.
9th Feb – I drove in a storm today for the first time in years. Doesn’t rain much here.
10th Feb – A friend who does no gardening, not even pot plants, showed me four full buckets of peaches from trees in her back yard.
11th Feb – Driving from Queanbeyan to the coast, there’s a strip of several kilometres where people nail teddy bears and other stuffed toys to trees. It’s hard to stop for photos because it’s a highway, but I did capture one crucified teddy:
12th Feb – My son who has no cameras who is engaged to a photographer with many cameras gave me for my birthday a disposable camera.
So many of the photos we took on the weekend are studies in blue. This one shows that blue does not always mean down. When you’re beside blue water, under a blue sky, in front of a blue lamp post, and it’s your birthday, blue means up.
Today’s theme is a curious one for me. We don’t use the word closet in Australia except to speak of someone with secret habits. We store our clothes in a wardrobe. Since I’m at the beach for the weekend and I have no access to mine, I thought of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and that magical piece of furniture that one can step through to find a land of dreams and terrors. If I could step through my clothes and the back of my wardrobe, I would come out into this land:
I was walking here this afternoon. It was about 5 pm and the sun had finally shone for the first time today. The water clarity and temperature, the warmth of the sun after yet another cool summer day (global cooling), the absence of people, the eternal rolling of the waves; all of it is perfect. These beaches on the south coast of New South Wales make me VERY happy.
This week’s theme has me questioning what are appropriate photos for a blog. My submissions for this weekly photo challenge are all coming from my father’s war album, and this morning I had to choose between a number of photos that tell a story of regret. In the end, I couldn’t put them on my blog. It’s enough to say that my father regretted volunteering to defend Australia in the Middle East. It’s also true, though, that those who were defended didn’t regret his contribution and were very thankful for the servicemen and women of the AIF (Australian Imperial Forces).
This photo, however, makes me wonder what the driver was thinking.
3rd Feb: My son and his fiancée just ordered their wedding rings from a country in the other hemisphere. The new way of shopping. I’m still getting my head around this.
4th Feb: When leaving to walk the dog, the couple in the Housing flats called out: ‘How are ya?’ This is the first time any of the tenants have voluntarily spoken to me.
5th Feb: Bought an antique chair for my son’s fiancée. I saw swirls etched into the seat, but she showed me they were hearts.
6th Feb: I just bought fabric from a country in the other hemisphere. Never say never.
7th Feb: Translating a passage about a dying abbot, I paused for a moment to search for a song online for background music, and found several covers done by Amy Winehouse. I wouldn’t have let her into my personal space, but when I played her version of Billie Holiday’s ‘There is no greater love’ all the grimness of the abbot’s death was forgotten. I never learn to never say never.