photos, drawings, paintings from Peceli and Wendy about Geelong and the Bellarine Peninsular
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Darren's dress-ups
Darren's dress-ups locked up
Darryn's dress-ups now locked up.
GEELONG mayor Darryn Lyons’ beloved robes and chains have been locked up at City Hall.
The mayor can no longer don his robes and chains where and when he wants, and must now sign a register before he checks out the clobber.
City of Greater Geelong chief executive officer Kelvin Spiller has written to councillors advising the mayoral chain has been transferred “from its usual storage location” at City Hall to a locked safe in his own office.
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Darryn Lyons loves dress-ups, and joyfully flaunts the mayoral robes, even with his girfriend dressed in the Geelong Advertiser. But now he has to ask for the key from the CEO cloakroom attendant. Hmmm.
Happy birthday Andrew Jnr who is seventeen today. Best wishes Andy. Top picture is of George, Andrew and Robin in 1972. Second one - Andrew at the recent Pako Festa fundraising for the Fiji Cyclone Appeal.S Third photo was taken at Pacific Harbour many years ago - Andrew on left, Linlay his cousin in the centre, and Jordan his brother on the right.
This morning our small writing group met in a new cafe - Winifred's Corner Cafe (open 6.30am-4pm Monday to Friday and 8am to 3pm-ish Sunday at 26 Garden Street, East Geelong.) corner of Malop and Garden Street opposite the Botanical Gardens and the stern Queen Victoria in her greyness. A lovely modernised cafe that used to be a pies and chips space. When we lived at Shenton in the 80s our boys had a friend they called 'Pommie' and his Dad ran the corner shop then. Pommie used to rap-dance with the boys in the hall behind our manse. Anyway today I was there with two friends and we ate muffins, or salad with our coffee - very good - and did some writing. It was full of people so already it is popular. Winifred was a pet dog who unfortunately met with an accident. Winifred's Corner Shop is on facebook so check it out.
A couple of years ago our Geelong East Uniting Tennis Club members were appalled when the head office property fellas sold our tennis courts to pay a Melbourne muck-up. So here are photos to show what is currently happening to that land - from tennis courts to ten units - two bedrooms in each. Denman Street is a quiet street of excellent homes and the ten units seem to be a little out of touch with such an environment.
Peter Moore: Narrow bridge reminds of when manners matteredMarch
3, 2016 12:00am Peter
MooreGeelong AdvertiserTraffic must wait its turn on the single-lane Queens Park bridge.
IN the words immortalised by Monty Python’s John
Cleese, “And now for something completely different” — Queens Park Bridge.
I normally reserve this column for weighty reviews on
politics, with particular reference and focus on the local variety. Given the
hiatus the commission of inquiry is imposing on our local representatives, I thought
I might leave any further discussion of the vagaries of local government until
something happens or is actually said.
Last Saturday I was returning home from my weekly game
of golf and came home via the Queens Park Bridge. Reaching home, Sue showed me
a picture of what had happened earlier in the day on said bridge.
Apparently just after 11am a late model Subaru struck
a railing and flipped onto its roof on the heritage-listed single lane bridge.
Spectacular, slightly bizarre but fortunately a non-fatal incident. The next
day, I looked the bridge over and there were no signs at all of the previous
day’s crash, with the 1930s structure damage-free.
All well, but what it did do was cause me to reflect
on just what a strange thing the bridge is by managing to retain its single
lane status in this day and age.
When road rage reporting is almost a daily feature of
our lives and driving behaviour and inconsiderate, boorish road manners a daily
occurrence, the Queens Park Bridge stands alone as a beacon of all that used to
be. A time when good manners were the norm and not a rather grudgingly conceded
second thought.
The bridge can and only does work because drivers are prepared to do the
right thing. Let a few cars through, be patient and wait for the appropriate
moment to cross.
Over the 20-odd years I’ve been in Geelong, I have
used it on many, many occasions and can barely think of examples of someone
blatantly “not playing the game”.
For those with a historic bent, Wikipedia gives us
this information:
“The single-lane Queens Bridge
carries Queens Park Rd, which links Highton and Newtown. The location was
originally the site of a punt, with a wooden cattle crossing being provided in
1861. Those crossing the bridge were charged a toll. The bridge collapsed in
the 1870 flood, and a new wooden bridge opened in 1872. The toll ended 1877.
The bridge was wrecked by the 1909 flood, but was rebuilt. The current one-lane
steel bridge was opened in 1930. A water main and footpath were added on one
side in 1963, and the height and deck have been modified in later years.”
Sue, my wife, a Geelong girl, tells me that the
reasons given in her younger years for the bridge remaining a single lane was
that the residents of Highton were reluctant to have it widened because they
were worried it might make the suburb too accessible and encourage drivers from
other suburbs to use it as a shortcut or thoroughfare. Shock, horror.
Whether apocryphal or not, it does have a certain
charm to the thought and reminds me of another similar type story about the
Queenscliffe borough.
I’ve always been told that the reason they avoided
amalgamation was that there were many powerful politicians and powerbrokers
with holiday homes in the little township and quite simply they wanted to stay
outside of the new super council and control their own destiny.
The fact that Queenscliff is the smallest local
government area in the universe and can’t even provide the most basic services
without contracting them out to CoGG was, and is still, apparently irrelevant.
But I digress.
So, yes, I like the old the heritage-listed, single
lane Queens Park Bridge. It is an anachronism but having said that it is also
gives us more than a passing nod to times long gone.
It speaks of those decades when life was at a more
gentle and more tolerable pace. It speaks of less rushed lives and
consideration for others. In fact good old fashioned road etiquette.
To my regular readers, I’m stopping taking those
“nice” pills the Doc prescribed. Immediately.
Comments7
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Jill
I
love this bridge! It gives me the opportunity to thank a driver for allowing me
to proceed. Road courtesy at its best. A dying art!!!
Babasiga (pronounced bambasinga) is the dry land of Macuata in northern Fiji - our place in the sun in Fiji. Peceli is from Fiji from the village is Vatuadova and the beach is Nukutatava. Peceli Ratawa passed away on 27th December 2015 so this is Wendy's blog now. Wendy is an Australian and today live in Geelong, Australia.
