Ants Blog

Aspen Island

It’s been tough, but we’re getting there…

I guess the biggest gripe people level at Canberra is the impression of it as the most boring city in Australia. I’ve never seen it this way. It has heaps of galleries & public spaces &, um, ok, so it’s a little boring. But I kind of like it. It’s architected streets & lamp lit bridges have a stately feel to them. And best of all, it’s been designed to complement Autumn with it’s deciduous trees lining the streets. As you hit Autumn, the place becomes aflame with the seasons dying colours. It’s a nice time to pull on a sweater & head out into it all.

We have a nice music store five minutes down the road at Manuka which stocks lots of classical & Jazz. While I’m not buying at the moment, its great to park the car & browse the shop, walking through its air vibrating softly at the speed of Baroque through Isles of Portrait faced CD’s. Further down the road are some of the tree lined shores of lake Burleigh Griffin. We stop there & let the long necked swans glide towards Naami’s chubby hands. At the walls of the lake, deep layers of rich brown leaves are suspended in its clear edges, making for slow kaleidoscopes changing invisibly at the speed of tides. They lap forward their brown slabs while the sky bursts blue above & families tear at pieces of bread, scattering them to the ducks. We walk through the day, the three of us.

It’s nice to get into a car in such nice weather. To put the seatbelt on & wind down the windows both frames the current experience & rounds it into another little diamond precious memory. I don’t really want to go home but we’re doing nothing & have nothing more to do. It’s time to go.

Looking towards Black Mountain

With a job & some perseverance, we found a place to live. We couldn’t get into Canberra proper. There is just not enough housing to go around, dozens turning up for inspections, but we did find a bright sunny unit in leafy Queanbeyan right next to a country river of draping Willows & tall shimmering poplars, just turning their leaves a golden yellow for the coming season. In front of our block of apartments are the lazy greens of Queanbeyan golf course winding its mounds & sand traps under the feet of men in their day off pants. I don’t play golf, but it gives a sense of freedom under those blue skies & its white clean clouds.

Our apartment is freshly painted. It suits our stuff. There are lots of nails which have been painted over more than once on which to hang the history of our wanderings. The carpet is new, the bathroom clean tiled. Our second floor balcony opens to air & space, before hitting flats across fences & over clotheslines. From the second bedroom window you can see the sharp steeple of the little stone church over the flat green river. All our belongings have been delivered unbroken. We lost our elephant dung photo album through customs it seems, but they delivered the photos. All this stuff to find a place for. We stop in empty rooms. No curtains. Exposed. For a time we will fill this space with our little lives.

Time to unpack!

Here she comes
Silent in her sound
Here she comes
Fresh upon the ground
Come gentle spring
Come at winter's end
Gone is the pallow
from a promise that's nature's gift
Waiting for the colour of spring
Let me breathe,
Let me breathe
the colour of spring
Here she comes
Laughter in her kiss
Here she comes
Shame upon her lips
Come wanton spring,
come for birth you live
Youth takes it's bow
before the summer the seasons bring
Waiting for the colour of spring
Let me breathe

                  Mark Hollis. The Colour of Spring

Looking better than it sounds…

It was the first one I went for in the A.C.T. The guy who interviewed me seemed like a nice guy too.  I had my first week of work in Australia for around 6 years!

To celebrate, the weather came out nicely for us so we bundled ourselves up into our little car & drove to tiny Aspen Island on lake Burleigh Griffin to have a picnic under the bells of the Carillion. They played wildly out of tune tunes while we sat by the pretty banks of the lake & watched nothing go by.

Now, for a place to live… 

We had a bit of a bad start. The week we left for Canberra was a week in the midst of parliamentary sittings. This meant that all temporary accommodation was booked out to the hilt by parliamentarians descending on Canberra to (I guess) do their job. In short, we had to drive back to Sydney & return a few days later.

While things weren't greatly better on the accommodation front, we did find a place to stay this time. At $110 bucks a night for a small room, a shower & a microwave, we weren’t exactly holding the winning hand, but it had to be. We booked ourselves in for an extendible period until we found a place to rent, which meant i had to find a job first. Well, at least we don’t have to sleep in the car & Canberra does have those amazing afternoon clouds. Roll on thou GFC.

This time from Sydney to Canberra. Bundling everything we have into our little Honda Civic ‘85 model we hit the motorways that lead to the Australian Capital Territory. With no know job, no known residence, towards a city only one of us has visited once we dive head first into the darkness of destiny, whatever that is…

We’re finally here. I can’t believe it. After 5 years of wondering what it would be like to be back living in the Great Southern Land, almost dreading it in fact, it comes as a nice surprise to feel that the city is in fact refreshing to be back in. So many new glistening buildings mixed in with the old colonial architecture. Busy people walking around the streets. Trees – Trees! in the city! Yeah I could get to like this if we were not heading off to Canberra for work. But that’s ok; Canberra is another adventure. Sydney can wait. It has done for five years.

of Hyde park…

I knew of its existence but not having lived in the area for five years plus, it was sheer chance that we came across the organic markets.

We saw it from the road & took a detour to park in the grounds to walk past stalls & marquees selling organic meat, jams, vegetables, a flower stall, some spices & one young new start with exotic dips to try. There was also an essential oil seller who would rub lavender on your skin should you look his way. There were dozens of other sellers selling their thing. We didn’t really want to buy anything. It was just one of a day’s little detours. I bumped into an old business partner with whom I set up a web site selling hemp clothing. We met some Japanese mothers now living in Killarney Hts & I tested my rusting Japanese on their poor pitying brows. Naami found a chain merry go round & on she went for a grand $4. Strolling out of the place we met a nice couple, a woman married to a Kashmerie selling wonderful sticks of fragrant incense. I exchanged some coins for a small clutch & we headed home as rain began spitting softly in the warm air.

Since we’ve been back in oz there’s been no less than three shark attacks in Sydney & the worst Bushfires Australian has ever seen! Victoria has practically been reduced to ashes by fires that have been burning there since late January! Around 170 people have been killed. 170! Holy crap! Give me Tokyo earthquakes any day!

or so it would seem…

Wow! I would never have imagined it but I guess it makes sense in the context of scraping cultural paint off the wall. I’ve become a full on unabashed, take no prisoners, make no excuses consumer. I love cruising the seabed of culture, that being Coles. It’s fascinating – no - satisfying. They’ve now got their own brand of everything. But what really got me was the way things are being marketed now. Day glow shampoo bottles, Six, let me repeat, Six bladed razors & Toothbrushes that have a footprint that looks like the sole of a Reebok shoe. It’s bizarre. The toothbrushes even have rubber scourers on the other side of the bristles to clean the insides of your cheeks. Wattltheythinkuvnext? It’s like marketing has hit the wall & pushed on through ramped up on steroids. The shop isles are so damned bright with packaging!

But hey, who am I to complain. Adjust those sunnies, sharpen the credit card &  throttle that trolley. Here I come!

of Australian sky…