Retronaut-ing

I have discovered this most wonderful site.  It is an adventure, a trip down memory lane (although some of the memories are much older than those reading this), a wonderful resource. Come be a Retronaut.

Christmas, nostalgia and Victoriana

Christmas is THE season for nostalgia and imagination. It always amazes me how humankind has certain pictures in its collective head which seem to be culturally pre-programmed. For instance, in this driest continent on earth we hanker for green lawns and European style gardens - even when we use native plants. People who live in tropical and sub-tropical Australia seem to have this deep yearning to plant palm trees - in spite of the fact that there are only one or two species native to Australia - and they are not coastal and nor do they bear coconuts.

A drop of Anglo blood seems to program one for a predeliction for a Victorian or Dickensian Christmas even if it can never be a white one in Australia.

So, dear Reader, if you have not yet discovered Victoriana magazine, get yourself over there for inspiration on trimming the tree, different cards, and activities for children. It is a delight.

The fabric of our nostalgia

This morning's A2 in The Age carried an advertisement for The Nature of Things: Relics and Time. Unfortunately, Miss Eagle won't be going. She is hoping and praying to go to WA in May for the launch of ARIDS (as posted below) so will have to minimise expenditure. But Miss E thinks The Nature of Things must be a real experience.

She was particularly enchanted by the photograph (above) on the website of a tablecloth and serviette which have been taken as a theme for this theatrical presentation. Enchanted - because back in the late 60s to mid 70s when Miss Eagle owned a house at 682 Ruthven Streen, Toowoomba (I believe a motel is there now) she decorated with some soft furnishings.

What did she use? This very colour and this very fabric - a hopsack. A circular table was covered with a huge circular cloth. She remembers being down on hands and knees with a pencil tied to a length of string marking the fabric - folded in quarters - with an arc and cutting along the pencilled line to cut a large circle which was hemmed with same colour bias binding. Then there were the serviettes whose edges she frayed. The cloth was worn and went the way of all things long ago. The serviettes lingered on. There may still be the odd one lurking somewhere.

Now to see someone else's tablecloth and serviette in a house long ago in Italy becoming the focus and starting point for a theatrical production in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, which in turn connects nostalgically with a long ago house in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia is remarkable.