Author: human59

I came to Australia with my mother and sister Vanda in 1966 from the UK aboard the Sitmar liner Castel Felice. We settled in South Australia I lived in the western suburbs of Adelaide for most of my life. I became very interested in retro items in my twenties. It was always a dream of mine to have an old house and fill it with retro items. I have done it twice now. My main interest is collecting old things. They do not have to be valuable, only interesting. There is something reassuring about old retro items. I have all sorts of things including doll related items. My other interests are my beautiful pets, art and going for drives to who knows where. I also enjoy board games or doing a scenic jig saw puzzle on a wintry afternoon by the fire. My goal is to travel a bit more as there are some places I would love to see

The Big Day Arrives!

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Our Move to Sisters Beach Tasmania:

Well the big day is tomorrow Thursday November 21st. I will be driving from where I live in Oatlands to Geeveston to pick up Vanda and Polly. I live in the Southern Midlands which is almost in the centre of the state. It takes around two hours to drive to Geeveston. It’s strange to think it will be the last time I go to that house. Of course I have to time it right to avoid movers, cleaners and anyone dropping by to say farewell. I am taking my two boys Toby and Teddy for the drive so we will aim to get there for around lunch time. From there we will drive back to Oatlands where we will have a break. Vanda will grab us a snack and make tea while I repack the car as I will have to put some of my own things in there including a folding lazyboy to sleep on as we will not have a stick of furniture until Friday. Of course the reason for the repacking of the car is to ensure that Wazza’s space is used efficiently and to give poor Polly some air as it is a very long trip. She may want some water before the next stretch to Sister’s Beach which will take us three and a half hours. We are all of course quite excited and can’t wait to get there. There has already been quite a lot of excited chatter about what we will do while I have a little time off work. We hope to explore a bit and take some photos of the surrounding areas and of course choose some paint for painting our home’s interior.

Last Friday I took the boys and went to collect the keys so we would have them ahead of time. It meant no stopping and waiting in Wynyard for them at the real estate office. We had a lovely day at the house just looking around. I did a bit of cleaning and made some notes on what jobs would have to be done. I noted we would need the services of a sparky but we could do the painting ourselves to save money. The boys explored the garden and ran into every room of the house. They were puzzled by the stairs and poor Toby struggled with them at first. They have not had a lot of experience with stair cases and this one is fairly steep. It was fun to watch them sniffing new smells and making their own discoveries as they trotted about. While I was there I took a few snaps of the empty house and the beautiful garden while in full bloom. It certainly had the “Wow” effect on me after my boring garden. I put together this slideshow as a sneak peak. So welcome to our new home and see you all again soon.

 

 

Whole Town Garage Sale 2019

My Garage Sale Finds

Well today was one of my favourite days of the year. Whole Town Garage Sale Day. I love it and hate it when I have to work that particular Sunday. In fact nothing pisses me off more than missing out on this day. Today there were 16 sales listed on the town map that you can purchase at the Bargain Centre for a dollar. It’s very handy as you can plan your route out a bit. I did all the side streets first and then the main street as there seem to be less stuff on the High Street this year, Some people were only taking the opportunity to move on their children’s outgrown toys and clothes while others had a lot of plants. I was lucky to find a lot of people with used household goods and retro items. I always go for the retro items. I try to get out early enough as I have to try to beat the local antique dealer to the best items. He goes around in the morning and opens his shop up just before lunch time. As for myself I did quite well. I emptied my wallet but ended up loading Wazza up. So here is what I bought today.

  1. Vintage Potty Chair for Vanda’s dolls
  2. Ideal baby doll and pushchair for Vanda
  3. Vintage General Electric hair dryer for my appliance collection
  4. Nest of tables for our new house
  5. Brass “Toilet” & “Bathroom” door plates for new house
  6. Vintage teddy bear for me
  7. Two vintage bottles for bottle collection
  8. Small cabinet for new house

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    I had such a good day today. I got some good bargains. I had gone out setting myself a limit on what I could spend and I stayed well under it. The nest of tables will probably get painted in a nicer colour. I’ll discuss that with Vanda later. The potty chair will probably get restored and possibly get some pretty baby type transfers put on. It should be painted in bright cheery colours since it is for a tot. Vanda will clean and tidy the doll. It has an issue with its eyes. I think someone has coloured over them. It looks rather surprised. Anyway that is up to her. It has an old vintage outfit on which is rather nice. I had a nice chat with several friends I met enroute around the town. I was surprised to see a couple of people since I didn’t think they went to garage sales. Others were just out for the fun of going around for a look and others were hitting the trail trying to find certain things. I met a few friends who were of course having their own sales and I was happy to be able to buy something from most of them.. The only disappointment was not getting a nice cake from the market. Even though I got there about fifteen minutes after they started I missed out on the best cakes. There was only ginger or pineapple bars left and I wasn’t too keen on them. There was a sausage sizzle outside so got one with sauce. Come lunch time it was time to head home and get lunch and walk the puppy dogs. 

 

Vintage Wrecks at Willow Court

Another Trip to Willow Court 

During my holidays in August my friend Phillip and I went to Willow Court New Norfolk.It’s a place I love to go as it has antique shops, interesting gardens, a nice cafe and lots of old wrecked vintage cars awaiting new owners to restore them. I always feel both sad and excited to see them. Sad because they are in such a state of disrepair and excited because I love to see old vintage cars anytime. I’m really into old stuff so I just love Willow Court. For those who don’t know Willow court used to be a hospital. I’ll leave a link at the bottom of the page because it does have some very interesting history of its own. Now onto the cars. I hadn’t been here in a long while so there were a lot of different cars, trucks and buses including the AC DC tour bus I posted a few weeks ago. After visiting the two antique shops and having a nice cuppa in the cafe I walked around and got photos of most of the vehicles, mostly the ones that interested me. In some cases there was more than one of the same make. So here is my slide show of the many vehicles there that Saturday in August.

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https://www.willowcourttasmania.org/

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-21/willow-court-asylum-converted-into-artist-studio/11228708

https://newnorfolkonline.com/listing/willow-court-antique-centre/

Here are a few links to check out if you are interested in Willow Court or antiques in general or maybe just check out the cars. If you do an online search you can find plenty to read about Willow Court and the old Derwent Hospital.

Snapshot Sunday

Teddy is Tired.

It was very late one night and I thought I ought to get ready for bed so let the dogs outside to do their business and went to the bathroom to wash and clean my teeth. I went back to the bedroom to set my alarm for the work the next morning and turn down the bed covers as I always do every night. Both of my dogs had come back inside but Teddy had already curled up and gone to sleep on the end of my bed. In fact he was out like a light very quickly as I  had heard both of the dogs come back inside. I thought that Teddy looked rather cute so I sneaked out of the room practically on tippy toes to get my camera. He must have had a really big day because he never as much as flickered an eyelid. He was still in blissful dreamland dreaming his doggy dreams. He did open his eyes when he heard the camera go off.

Toby was tired too and also ready for bed but he was awake when I came into the bedroom but he looked very comfy curled up on my bed.

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Sometimes my cats come in and get on my bed too and there is no room left for me. They do this more in the colder months. I don’t know where they expect me to sleep! Never mind though. There is something comforting and reassuring about having the animals close by during the night. I never sleep as well without at least one of them. Have a great Sunday.

Snapshot Sunday

A Dalek on a Winter’s Day

Well I suppose even Daleks feel the cold and it was quite cold the night I went to the QVMAG museum in Launceston to see the dinosaurs. After we had seen them we wandered around for a bit before deciding to go and look at Jupiter and Saturn through the huge telescopes on the lawns outside. On our way we passed this fellow rugged up for a cold night also. I thought he should have had a glove for his plunger too.

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Mural at New Norfolk

Real Street Art V Graffiti

Now something I do not accept as art is graffiti. I hate seeing paint plastered over the sides of buildings, under bridges, on buses and trains, at railway stations and so on. People try to defend it saying it is street art. Vandalism is not art and there is no place for it in society.

I was in New Norfolk recently and we came across the back of this building which had been painted probably by an artist with these colourful murals. I was very taken with it and thought it looked fantastic. I expect they were having trouble with graffiti artists messing up the back of their business and got sick of cleaning it up. It would be a great shame if someone messed this up. I would much rather see this than so called street art everywhere. This is much better than the boring grey besser blocks too.

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