Deux vieux paysans de Provence

Greek interlopers in little Macedonia

Yesterday we had breakfast in Macedonia!

Well,we had breakfast in King Street Place which is a section of King Street, Rockdale which has recently been made into an attractive, popular little mall by our council and into a little piece of the Balkans by the local Macedonian population.

It has a very European feel with old men clustering on benches and in cafes to (as my dad used to say) 'chew the fat'. Presumably, politics, national, international and familial, their latest gripes and grumbles and their latest get rich quick scheme. The old women cluster on other benches - after they've shopped at the green grocers and delis. Freshly scrubbed fathers and sons in shorts and scuffs breakfast together over Borek and strong coffee and families with "four wheel drive" prams and beautifully dressed children tumble over each other like multi-generational litters of puppies.

When I first came to work for Telstra I was a rookie field technician very out of her depth. I was put under the wing of a crew of pit and pipe workers who'd come out to Oz in the sixties from Greece, Macedonia and Serbia. I was adopted as an honorary 'wog' and was privileged to enjoy the high point of each morning which was a sumptuous morning tea of fresh Macedonian bread sliced lengthways and crammed with cold meats and home grown tomatoes and cucumbers all eaten off the back tray of the compressor truck by the side of the road. It all struck a very earthy, ethnic proletarian note in an otherwise twee Anglo-Celtic Balmain (mind you I do love Balmain passionately!)

There was a, mostly but not always, harmless rivalry between the Greek and Macedonians in those days which I believed had historic and traditional roots. So it was both gratifying to revisit the culture yesterday and enjoy its difference and its familiarity but also amusing to think I had joined the other side in marrying Alexx, a Greek-Australian.

We had Borek, which is a light flaky pastry "pie" filled, in our case, with spinach and cheese. Not as substantial as Greek spanakoppita but very delicious and a great accompaniment to good coffee. Under our cafe umbrella I let it wash all over me while outside rain washed the morning and the mall fresh and clean. Our cafe was called the "Balkan Oven". It came to me then that my dad, who was a great lover of both European culture and "chewing the fat' would have really enjoyed all this. Alas, my dad and me seemed to have always been a couple of laps apart in life and never quite managed to be in the same place at the same time.

Here is my very own European man at the Balkan cafe:

Developers deal Art Deco decline for dollars?

Yesterday, Alexx and I went to the inner city Sydney suburb of Dulwich Hill to see an exhibition by a photographer friend of ours. Neither of us had ever really stopped off in Dulwich Hill before.

At one point I went for a walk through the streets and laneways which I find is always a good way to get the feel for the essential nature of a place.

In a back street I found this small run-down block of Art Deco flats. The frontage was quite interesting and very art deco I thought. Ironically, the name Silverdale conjures up ideas of beauty and riches perhaps which is at odds with the down at heel back streets of Dulwich Hills.

As I stood and relished the Art Deco style I imagined I could smell the developers gathering like vultures, scenting a killing, building their mansions, always somewhere else, on the bones of local texture and the past's riches. I didn't really know but, given past performance, seemingly relentless, it seemed highly possible.

People, I think, can be divided into those who value what is and has been and wish to fit themselves into and around it, recycling and transforming but retaining connections and continuities and those who see themselves and their concerns as the immutable point of it all and seek to sweep everything away for illusory gain.

Oh! I know nothing is black and white and I do see the value in the new and know that the way of the world is change but a natural environment changes over time, incorporating the past into the present into the future, doesn't it? What happens to a tree when it becomes rootless?

Ironically, as we clear fell forests of Federation and Californian bungalows we hold a much touted Art Deco exhibition in Melbourne.

Of course, we not only lose Art Deco style but also somewhere where someone with less that a combined income of $200, 000 can live. And we lose the rough and ready but fertile environments where upcoming artists and writers and thinkers and changers and savers can grow - like our friend and his friends.

Beware council makeover plans that do not include waste land and the unrenovated, the unimproved and the underutilised!

Oh! I have become a lover of faded, drab walls and weedy lots along rusty rail lines and the old shopfront no one has ever done anything with!

Mmm! Maybe I'm wrong about Silverdale? Maybe this old girl has years left in her yet?

Earth, sea, wind and sky!

Wind surfers on Botany Bay. Of a Sunday evening we often drive up to Nick's Greek cake shop at Brighton-le-sands and get some great coffees and spanakopita and then park bayside at Monterey.

We often see wind surfers, their kites like great birds ducking and weaving while they skim across the water. How do they do it? It's a major achievement for me to just not trip over my own feet!

Can this be minutes from the heart of Sydney?

Winter evening - looking north along the pale sands of Lady Robinson beach at Monterey across Botany Bay to the Sydney skyline.

How did we come to be blessed with this? Talk about landing on your feet.

During our honeymoon we talked about the feasibility of moving to the north coast. Hey! We just brought the north coast to us!

Last day in the old home

Alexx had come to find it almost impossible to negotiate the steep stairs to the old Coogee family home where he had lived for 61 years (barring his months in Nimbin and Japan). So while I rushed around making last minute preparation for the removalist, he went "next door" to the main part of the house and spent what would surely now be his last hours in the old house, sitting in the sunny little kitchen talking with his brother George.

Originally, the kitchen of the main house was the sun veranda. When Alexx's dad died in the fifties, his mum had the house split to take in boarders. the real kitchen became the kitchen of the "flat" and so a little kitchenette was made out of the sun veranda for what remained of the main house. Although narrow, it enjoyed the veranda's north facing position and was a delightfully sunny place to have brekky on a Sunday morning.

Not long after, while our furniture was moved out to the waiting truck, Alexx made the difficult struggle down the stairs for the last time. A sad end but a joyful beginning.

Ours!

Well ours...and the credit union's! Who would have thought. We're home - at last! Our very "own" patch of mother earth (well stata title anyway!) to push down roots!