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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. 

 

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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A Night at the Museum

A Trip to “The Queen Victoria Museum” or QVMAG

While I was on holidays with my friend Phillip we decided that we would go to the Queen Victoria Museum in Launceston to see the dinosaur display. We had seen a poster about it on a wall while we were shopping in Launceston one afternoon. When I told Vanda about our plans she mentioned that they were having some special night openings that we might enjoy. This appealed to us as we like going out at night and let’s face it there isn’t much to do anymore unless you like current movies or fine dining. Phillip and I are not into either so it’s a band if we are fortunate enough to find one or a pub meal and the pokies. We embraced the chance to do something out of the ordinary.

Years ago now we had wanted to see a display of dinosaurs and jumped into our car to go to one we thought was in a place called Mount Monster. It was a long drive and we did not see any signs pointed towards the dinosaur park we had heard about. We drove on several kilometres and no dinos to be seen anywhere. We would have been happy with just one in the end but we had to abandon the idea entirely. After driving what must have been close to one hundred kms from Adelaide it suddenly hit me that they had really meant Mount Monster was some ruddy great hill and not a dino park at all like Phillip had been told by some friends. Well we had a nice drive and a laugh about it at least. The day was not wasted. So fast forward nearly thirty years and we finally got to see some.

Well I have to say we were both very impressed. The dinos moved and roared and really looked authentic. They even blinked. They had done a wonderful job in creating them and making them move. Below is a slide show of the dinosaurs. I apologise for not knowing the correct names of the dinos. I did not write them down.

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There was a lot more going on at the museum apart from the dinosaur display. There were telescopes outside and we were able to view Jupiter and Saturn. I was amazed that I could actually see the rings around Saturn when it was billions of miles away. The astronomers said they were hobbyists and were only too happy to answer any questions put to them about their interest. It was a full moon too so we were treated to the beauty of the moon as well since it was a very clear night. It was freezing queueing for the telescopes so we went to the cafe inside the museum afterwards and treated ourselves to hot chocolate and cake.

Other things going on were lectures on the stars and science and planetarium shows. I would have loved to have seen the Apollo 11 display but it was not on that night and since Launceston was 113 km from my house I did not want to drive back again as we had already been there for shopping and the casino. I should say that all of this was for National Science Week and was well worth the long drive there and back. Below are some images of the program I saved from the event for anyone who would like to see what else was on at the museum during National Science Week last in August of this year. I think you can just about read the little writing on the program.

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A Visit to Reliquaire

Reliquaire

One day during our holidays Phillip and I visited Reliquaire which is a very interesting gift shop in Latrobe Tasmania. Reliquaire sells a very good range of gifts, toys and home decor items and we were surprised at the size of the store. It was huge and even had a cosy coffee shop tucked away in the back. There were some surprises to captivate adults as well as children in the way of displays. I took several photos of these and plan to show them to you today as well as giving you the link to their website. Those of you visiting Tasmania in the future might like to visit this fantastic shop. It is well worth your while no matter your age because you are sure to be thrilled with what you find. Latrobe is an easy drive from most places and only a short distance from Launceston. In fact we are lucky to still have this store as it burned down only a few years ago and has arisen from the ashes. It is as good as I remember it being and Phillip and I really enjoyed our visit there. 

Here are some links to the website.

http://www.reliquaire.com/

Here are some articles about Reliquaire

https://www.examiner.com.au/story/4970929/reliquaire-announces-reopening-date/#slide=26

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-24/latrobe-reliquaire-doll-shop-gutted-by-fire/7052380

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-24/latrobe-reliquaire-doll-shop-gutted-by-fire/7052380

Here are my photos from the new shop.

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These are just a few snaps I took. They had all sorts of stuff including stuff from Dr Who, Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland etc. It’s well worth the look and Latrobe is a lovely town to visit. Reliquaire is on Facebook for those who are into social media so check it out soon. Thanks for reading my post today.

AC DC 1973 Tour Bus

Today my friend Phillip and I decided to go to Willow Court. Those of you who visit our site regularly might remember my post featuring old cars for sale there. They are mostly very old cars and trucks largely in poor condition. I call it the car graveyard as the cars are wrecked but people buy them for parts or to fix up I guess. As there were a lot of different cars I hadn’t seen there I decided to get a few photos. Among them was a big surprise. The sign on this bus said it was the original AC DC tour bus from 1973. I was very surprised and took several photos and here they are.

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I’m not sure if Angus would find this very comfy to travel in now. It was full of junk and most of the seats had been pulled out. It really would be a long way to the shop to buy a sausage roll in this old bus. Still quite exciting to find it at Willow Court. Compared with the other cars, trucks and buses this one was in great shape. I was pleased since it was the AC DC bus. It’s part of rock and roll history. 

Feel Free to Use this Badge

A site called Tygpress.com has been harvesting blogs from many WordPress bloggers and publishing them on the site. There is very little that can be done to stop this sort of behaviour but blogger Fandango has come up with this badge which can be inserted into a post to make it less attractive to these people. Fandango is happy to share the badge with anyone who wants to use it.

This, That, and The Other

With all of the unauthorized harvesting of our posts that is going on at tygpress.com and seemingly not much that can be done to stop it, I created this badge that I will attach to all of my blog posts going forward.EDC343BA-4E67-4F78-BDFB-02FE6D5C0A26Please feel free to grab this image and post it on your blog. By doing so, this image should show up on your posts that have been stolen by tygpress.

You’re welcome.

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Memories of a Booth Worker

In a previous post about the election, I mentioned the people you see at the polling place handing out How-to-Vote cards. What kind of people give up their Saturday to do this seemingly boring and thankless job?

A long time ago, in a suburb far, far away from here, I was one of those people. I can’t recall exactly when I first did it but it would have been some time in the 1980s and as surprising as it may seem today I did it for the Liberal Party. I was a Liberal voter in those days and for a few years even a member of the party. In my defence, they were not such a right-wing party then as they are today.

I think that the first time I helped out was outside of my own electorate, the mother of a friend of mine was involved in the party and she asked or maybe I offered to help out on election day. Prior to 1984, the names of political parties did not appear on ballot papers so it actually was useful to have a card to look at if you were not certain who some of the candidates were.

I have to admit I was a bit apprehensive about it the first time I went but I found that it was mostly a positive experience every time I did it and not always for the reason you might expect.

Liberal How-to-Vote, Divisions of Melbourne and Melbourne Ports
It was quite interesting to see how people would react as they arrived at the polling place. Some made it quite obvious who they were voting for or who they were not voting for by their treatment of the volunteers. Some would very pointedly refuse to take a card from one party or make a big deal of taking one from another. Others would hurry past trying not to make eye contact with any of us. Some people would take a card from everyone, either to be polite or so there would be no clue to their intentions, while others would politely refuse, saying that they had brought one from home or that they already knew how they were voting. The vast majority of them were civil, at least in my experience. I don’t know if other volunteers had people who were rude to them. I daresay it did happen. Although people were not as waste conscious back then quite a few did come back to us after voting and return the cards to be reused rather than throwing them away.

During the 1990s I worked at my local polling booth in Hallett Cove a couple of times. That was always interesting because I would see people I knew. I never made a big issue of my political leanings so probably seeing me there wearing blue was the first time some of them knew which way I voted. The only negative experience from those years was actually not at the polls but when  I was letterbox dropping for a local candidate that David and I knew quite well. A workmate of David’s who lived near us commented that he was surprised that David let me volunteer for the Liberal party. I was more offended that he thought that my husband had a right to tell me who I should support. David put him straight about that anyway.
Labor How-to-Vote, Division of Melbourne

One of the things that I did not expect was that the volunteers who were working for the different candidates would get along so well together. The two larger parties usually had a team of volunteers that changed throughout the day but the smaller ones often only had one or two people. Sometimes when those people took a break they would leave their box of voting cards unattended but one of the volunteers from the other parties would nearly always point it out to incoming voters in case they wanted one.

It was a friendly atmosphere, a bit of good-natured banter but also some good discussions between opposing factions which never got nasty. I enjoyed listening in on those.  One of my favourite memories is from that first time. It was a wet miserable day and a couple of the people handing out the Labor cards decided to get some hot chips which they shared with my friend and me.  Maybe it was because we were young but it was a nice gesture.

I found this photo online showing a group shot of volunteers from each party at a Victorian polling place during the 2016 election so it seems that it’s not so uncommon even today.

Group photo: ALP, Greens, Liberal and AJP booth workers with Liberal candidate Kevin Hong - Fawkner #Wills2016 #Ausvotes
Group photo: ALP, Greens, Liberal and AJP booth workers with Liberal candidate Kevin Hong – Fawkner #Wills2016 #Ausvotes Photo by John Englart (Takver) sourced from Flickr Attribution CC BY- SA 2.0

At the end of the day, you hoped your candidate would win but aside from the feeling of being a part of something I also felt hopeful that if we, the rank and file, could see the other’s point of view then maybe the politicians could as well. Some do, there are politicians who will put party politics aside to work for the greater good but sadly these days not as much as they should.

Further Reading:

http://www.prsa.org.au/htv_cards.htm