What's been happening next door...

Last time I did an update on the building work next door, I mentioned that the scaffolders had been busy on the site...

The floors for the first level have all been finished and the bricklayers were back working on the walls for the next level...

 These brickies 'don't muck about'...progress on the walls is quite swift.

A closeup of the scaffolding...we find it very noisy when the tradies are putting up the scaffolding...

Here's a view from our front veranda, looking up the side boundary...

Then the next day the scaffolders were back again...building their frameworks even higher!
It must have been hot work! lol Extending the scaffolding another level was a long and noisy project...

The next photo is taken through my kitchen window...

So in the afternoon, while the scaffolders are busy building up the levels, along came the concrete pumper truck ready to pour concrete into the walls that the brickies had built the day before...it was now very noisy!

In the next photo I'm standing near our back fence...

 Now I'm standing near the back steps to our side veranda...

Now while all that was going on, these 2 supervisors were keeping a critical  eye on the progress...

DH and our lovely neighbour Tom, watching all the work being done...

The next couple of days, the carpenters/joiners came in...

Here the frame for one wall is being assembled...

 An hour or so later, the walls' framework is up in place...

These builders worked up until Friday afternoon; the team working their way around all 7 houses...

So late Sunday afternoon I did a walk around the fenceline of this development to get some photos of the progress...I started just near our back fence...

These are garages of some of the houses...

 I crossed the street to take this shot of the corner block that is being developed...a glimpse of our house is on the far right of the photo

Still in the back street here...

What a jumble of 'stuff' here!

 Hmmm...the council built footpath has started to crack after all those trucks and heavy equipment have been driving over it and parking on it :-(

These would be houses #3 and 4. These houses are 95 and 85 square metres in area respectively; small eh??

Remember last time I wrote that my neighbour had enquired about the prices of these small houses...they are being marketed in the high $400K...how greedy is that? 

The next photo is the the house right on the corner... it is the largest at 161 sq metres

 
Now I'm walking along our street towards our house...

 One more photo...I went across the road to the opposite footpath, to take this photo...

So that's the progress up until last Sunday.

Our walk down the hill continued...

The Saturday before last, DH and I visited Brisbane City Hall. This rather beautiful building has been part of our lives growing up in Brisbane. When I was a child I can remember going with my mother to pay rates and utilities' bills there. There were also free  immunisation clinics there when I was a child. I can also remember being left in the City Hall Creche  when my parents went to a daytime movie on my dad's Wednesday day off.

And also when I was a child, no 'trip to town' for the day,was complete without taking some lunch to the Red Cross room in  the basement off Adelaide St. Here, mum and I would find a table and my mother would purchase a pot of tea for her and a glass of milk for me.

The quite stylish furniture of the Red Cross room during the 1950s

Another special childhood memory of City Hall for me was the wonderful Christmas in Storyland Play that was put on there each December. For many years, the Queensland Symphony Orchestra played concerts there. My dad was a subscriber to these concerts and sometimes he would take me along, although I found the symphony after interval a bit long when I was 12!! lol
As a schoolgirl, our classes would travel into city hall for school concerts put on by the orchestra...these were fun. Years later, I would also take my classes in to enjoy similar concerts of the school programme.

When I was 12 years old I finally got to go up into the clock tower and look down on the other buildings...but it wasn't long before City Hall lost the title of tallest building in Brisbane...it is certainly dwarfed nowadays!

One extra special shared memory that DH and I have of our City Hall is the Brisbane Eisteddfod. We were both in school choirs and our dear mothers would sit through an evening of hearing many choirs sing the same song...over and over! lol It was so exciting being led by our music teacher through the curved corridor to the large door near the stage...he would tell us to be very quiet. Then he would get the signal that it was our turn to go on stage. the door would open and we would file on. Oh how I loved those nights in that beautiful auditorium!!!

As I wrote in my previous post, the hall has been closed for 3 years while it was repaired/restored/refurbished.

The photo below shows the auditorium during the work... (photo from the BCC website)

Now here are my photos from the other week...

The dome ceiling: lighting can change the colour of this dome. 'They' must have known I would be visiting so the lighting was in my favourite colour :-) The mouldings around the ceiling are gorgeous...

 DH and I went upstairs and entered the auditorium there so we could look down on all its grandeur.

Look at that beautiful floor...many balls have been held over the years in this place too! Seating is brought out for events of course.

Looking to the left of the stage area

DH sitting and just watching me try to take a panorama photo...not too successfully either!

The door where choir members would file through to come on stage...

The magnificent organ. For my Year 12 Speech Night, one of our teachers, Mr Marks, was given permission to play this organ. Mind you, he already was one of the organists at St John's Cathedral so he was pretty experienced.

Now back in the downstairs foyer of City Hall are 2 marble staircases which fascinated me as a child. I was sure they were just like the ones in the castles of Disney cartoons such as 'Sleeping Beauty'. lol
Here's the one on the right...

Here is that same staircase in 1962...and that is me!

ha ha! And here I am again!

As well as those childhood memories, the association with City Hall has continued through my adulthood and I'm sure this will continue. Before I went back to working full time when my children were older, I used to go to the free weekly lunchtime variety concerts in City Hall. A City Hall staffer reminded me the other Saturday that these concerts are still on ...every Tuesday to be precise. Maybe I might see you there!

One more photo, taken as we walked from the main entry and turned towards Adelaide St...I suspect that I've walked past this plaque for many years without seeing it!

I have one more post to write about our visit to City Hall...and that's to show you some of the photos that I took in the Museum of Brisbane (upstairs in City Hall) Exhibition. 

Book Week...

Here in Australia, we are currently in 'Book Week', which this year runs from August 17-23. This event is run by the Children's Book Council of Australia and each year this group gives out awards to writers and illustrators of children's literature and of course, promotes Australian authors.

Now the reason why I know all this, is because schools and public libraries always use this week as an excuse to provide lots of fun activities. As a classroom teacher, I would be urged by the teacher librarian to organise activities ( there was always a theme for Book Week) within my classroom and to also join in whole of school fun activities as well.

One of my postings was at Kelvin Grove, and that school really knew how to have fun in Book Week! Staff and students would be encouraged each year to dress up as a favourite book character. So how about I show you some photos from Book Week 2000...
I was teaching the 1/2 composite class and this class loved a book, 'Mr Biffy's Battle', which was written by Richard Tulloch, an Australian author. Mr Biffy was a busker clown who was a bit upset when a female clown, 'Fiona the Great' stole his audience in the town square.

I discovered this book when I saw Richard Tulloch read the story at the 'Out of the Box' Festival. He read from the original storyboards that had the original illustrations which were on very large sheets of paper/card

So for Book Week in 2000 I decided to dress up as Mr Biffy, and my student teacher Andrea, offered to dress up as Fiona the Great. Nola, the Year 1 teacher did our make up...

Presenting, Mr Biffy and Fiona the Great, Brisbane style!

The wig and clown hat were hired from a local costume hire shop... Andrea lent me her tweed jacket and I carried a small suitcase that was actually a picnic set

Luckily I wasn't called upon to do acrobatics or magic like the real Mr Biffy...I just had to walk around a bit...lol

{The story behind the photo doesn't end there though...straight after our festivities, I had to attend a meeting at the university, a 5 minute walk from our school campus. I had no time to remove makeup or change back into street clothes, so I attended the meeting as Mr Biffy. I was representing our school at a meeting with faculty staff, in particular QUT's School of Early Childhood. I felt so uncomfortable but the uni staff were impressed that staff would dress up...so thought our curriculum mirrored what they thought it should be. whew! lol)

That day, my friend Sue dressed up as one of Roahl Dahl's nastier characters, Miss Trunchbull from his book, Matilda. Sue found this photo when I asked if she still had photos from this day...

Words fail me...lol But this Year 6 class didn't seem very frightened of the awful Miss Trunchbull!

So I wonder what is happening this year in schools and public libraries...hopefully all participants will have as much fun as we used to :-)
As a child I loved learning things from books...now of course, I use Google. Having said that, I love this picture and caption!

Even though it seems to suggest that I may be 'prehistoric'! lol

A walk down the hill...

On the Saturday of the week before last, DH and I took a trip into the city. We drove in and were lucky enough to get a parking space on Wickham terrace, just around the corner from Edward St. So come with me as we walked down the hill...
Here, we walk past some unusual sculptures...

This 'piece' blocks my view of Edward St as it continues down the hill towards the Ann St intersection...the street off to the right is Turbot St and we will follow it for a while...

This staircase is known as Jacob's Ladder and it starts up the hill on Wickham Terrace and comes all the way down to Turbot St

To the right of Jacob's Ladder was the old Trades Hall but it was demolished in the mid 1980s when the Trades and Labour Council moved to a site in Peel St, South Brisbane. You can just catch a glimpse of the building which took its place on Turbot St.

Here's a photo of the old Trades Hall from the John Oxley Library collection ...

And if you look closely, you can see Jacob's Ladder on the left hand side of the lovely old building...

Now walking on just a few metres past Jacob's Ladder, there is a lovely park...because we had our car parked in a '2 hour space', I just took a quick photo and didn't read that sign...reckon I need to come back some time to read it as I suspect there is some history there.

 Striding briskly along Turbot St, we came to this impressive looking building; a building that DH and his brothers got to know well when they were young children...the dental hospital! This was, and is still, a public facility providing dental care, and providing training for UQ dentistry students.  (My dad went to a dentist in private practice so I used to visit Dr Rappaport too :-(  )

Quite a lovely old building , although many of my childhood friends hated the place! lol 

 Our walk now continues to a triangular area of city block, bounded by Turbot, Albert and Roma Streets and I stopped when I saw this plaque which I had never ever seen before...

I had heard people talk about the old Roma St Police station...before the Transport Dept took over issuing of drivers' licences, people used to do their driving test at certain police stations. Many friends who were older than me, did their driving test at this old police station...I don't remember ever seeing it so I went looking for an old photo...again the State Library Collection came up trumps...

The old Roma St Police Station, looking across Albert St...

DH continued our walk along Albert Street and there is actually an old building that has not been demolished! When I was a girl it was called the Albert St Methodist Church...in latter times it is the Albert St Uniting Church and it is beautiful.

We're still walking down Albert Street and we're nearly at our destination...yep! Brisbane City Hall.

 Our City Hall was closed for 3 years while extensive and expensive ($215 million) restoration work was done. It reopened in April this year.
We are just about to cross Ann St which will bring us to the rather desolate King George Square which is in front of city Hall.

Now as part of the restoration and renovation of City Hall, an iconic Brisbane cafe that used to be in Edward Street before the building it was in was demolished to make way for the rather grand Queens Plaza, was rebuilt in the lower level of City Hall. The Webster family, who owned The Shingle Inn, had it dismantled and then carefully stored until a new location could be found for it to be rebuilt.

 Now in recent years, a Shingle Inn franchise has resulted in a plethora of 'fake' Shingle Inns in various shopping centres. Those of us who went with our mums or grandmas to the original, know they are not like the original. However, I suspect this one in City Hall won't be like 'the good old days' either. DH and I didn't have a booking so there was no chance I could try the place out that Saturday. maybe next time???
But we still spent an hour in City hall but I'll tell you all about that in another post!