It’s a shocking day here today. It began raining overnight and we have had a fair bit throughout the day. it cleared a bit after lunch but I wouldn’t bet on it going away completely. I’m trying to see from my bedroom window how much water is in my rain gauge and it looks like there has been a bit. Can’t really see how much though.
Whilst it isn’t particularly cold the air has just enough nip in it to keep us honest. I have a jumper on and Linda was freezing as usual so I put the heater on. It warmed up quite a bit to the point of being uncomfortable so now she is out for a little while I have turned it off.
Visited the “Not just Ned” exhibition at the National Museum today and enjoyed it. Linda and I took my Mum and Dad. It’s unusual for my Dad to show any interest in such things but I think he feels some pang of kinship with the Irish through his great-grandparents although he never shows the same sympathies towards our English ancestors from who we inherited our surname! I guess our Catholic upbringing causes the Irish blood to run deep.
The Irish have been a remarkably resilient people and their fingerprints are all over Australian society of course and I guess the exhibition allowed just a little glimpse into Ireland’s Australian legacy. It’s hard to imagine as I sit here in 2011 that Irish Catholics could be discriminated against as they were in Australia although as one of the articles at the exhibition revealed, there were very few Irishmen once transplanted in Australia who wanted to return home.
There was a quote from an Irish immigrant who believed the dogs in Sydney ate better beef as scraps than most people in Ireland could manage for a meal. No wonder they wanted to stay! Plenty of them made it big here of course but it wasn’t that long ago that sectarianism still permeated some sections of society. My parent have told me stories of such things.
One reason I wanted to go was because the four suits of armour worn by the Kelly Gang at Glenrowan were on display together for the first time outside of Victoria. Of course the Kelly boys and Steve Hart and Joe Byrne were all born in Australia and considered themselves sons of our great land but I suppose you can’t deny the link to their Irish heritage. It was impressive to see them all together.
I think the most poignant thing for me though was a massive quilt that had been sewn by Irish convict women en route to Van Dieman’s Land whilst they had been on board ship. It was a magnificent job and their names and ages and county of origin were on the wall beside the display. Nice. The material for the quilt had been supplied by a women’s group in England who seemed to be dedicated to making life better for the poor girls who were to be transported to Australia and a message of thanks from the convict women to the aforementioned group was sewn into the bottom of the quilt. They could never have guessed that their handiwork would end up in the National Museum of Australia over 150 years later for many to admire.
So then it was on to the Velo Republic cafe for a light lunch before hunkering down at home for the afternoon.
It will be a long night as the Paris to Roubaix road race is on live tonight from 10.30pm and I wouldn’t miss that for the world. It will be even better if Fabian Cancellara doesn’t win!
Then it is up early tomorrow to drive Monique to Yass to be picked up by her uncle at 9.30am. He will then take her on to West Wyalong where she will stay with her grandmother for a few days. As much as it is a pain to have to drive over there I think it will be good for her. She hasn’t seen her young cousins for 3 years so I think she will be happy to make the trip.
So that’s it from me today. Another weekend gone by too quickly. But it hasn’t been too bad and I look forward to the next one.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 