yce and Court Oldmeadow and the freight center of their educational bookshop. They began collecting original artwork and manuscripts of Australia's children's literature. The homestead with their collection has been turned into a museum, sculpture garden and place for author/illustrators to come share their work with children and their families. The daughter of Joyce and Court Oldmeadow helps keep her parents legacy alive as the Director of Dromkeen.We
went up to take a look and had a lovely day with Matt's family. His niece and nephew are adorable. Here they are with the Bunyip of Berkeley's Creek. Bunyips are popular creatures from Australian folklore living in lakes and billabongs. I say folklore but there may some truth to the bunyip according to In search of prehistoric animals; Do giant extinct creatures still exist? by Karl Shuker "Although no documented physical evidence of bunyips has been found, it has been suggested by cryptozoologists that tales of bunyips could be Aboriginal memories of the Diprotodon, or other extinct Australian megafauna which became extinct some 50,000 years ago." This particular bunyip was the main character in one of Matt's favorite childhood books. After leaving Berkley's Creek he becomes unsure of who he is. When a scientist tells him bunyips are a myth he begins to doubt own existence. Very existential.
went up to take a look and had a lovely day with Matt's family. His niece and nephew are adorable. Here they are with the Bunyip of Berkeley's Creek. Bunyips are popular creatures from Australian folklore living in lakes and billabongs. I say folklore but there may some truth to the bunyip according to In search of prehistoric animals; Do giant extinct creatures still exist? by Karl Shuker "Although no documented physical evidence of bunyips has been found, it has been suggested by cryptozoologists that tales of bunyips could be Aboriginal memories of the Diprotodon, or other extinct Australian megafauna which became extinct some 50,000 years ago." This particular bunyip was the main character in one of Matt's favorite childhood books. After leaving Berkley's Creek he becomes unsure of who he is. When a scientist tells him bunyips are a myth he begins to doubt own existence. Very existential. We looked around at various illustrations. There were some in shadow boxes that were pretty cool. In the back there were coloring sheets for the kids based on the illustrations of Graeme Base. T
his author/ illustrator always reminds me of my wonderful friend and fabulous designer Nan Zabriskie. She gave me two of Mr. Base's books after our first show working together at Chicago Children's Theatre. She is a huge fan understandably since his books are beautiful. His illustrations are unbelievably vibrant and detailed. I never knew he was Australian. This illustration is from The Sign of the Seahorse.
his author/ illustrator always reminds me of my wonderful friend and fabulous designer Nan Zabriskie. She gave me two of Mr. Base's books after our first show working together at Chicago Children's Theatre. She is a huge fan understandably since his books are beautiful. His illustrations are unbelievably vibrant and detailed. I never knew he was Australian. This illustration is from The Sign of the Seahorse.My favorite things at Dromkeen were the pea
cocks wandering around on the grounds. They were beautiful. There was a mommy peacock walking around with her growing chicks. They weren't scared of people at all, well except when the little kids chased them. I think any sensible bird would be scared of a screaming, grabbing three year old. Most of the males (the extra pretty ones) were perched up on the roof.
cocks wandering around on the grounds. They were beautiful. There was a mommy peacock walking around with her growing chicks. They weren't scared of people at all, well except when the little kids chased them. I think any sensible bird would be scared of a screaming, grabbing three year old. Most of the males (the extra pretty ones) were perched up on the roof. When the sun started going down Matt and I headed to the Botanical Gardens for the moonlight cinema. The gardens there are positively gorgeous. I kept thinking about how much my brother, Dennis would love them. There is an awes
ome arid garden full of cool looking cactus type plants. I want to go back and explore more in the daytime but we had a date with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. We set up a picnic amidst a couple hundred other movie goers. Of course the rest rooms were five hundred miles away and I had to embarrass myself on a venture to find them. Just as some background, I had an incredible professor of entomology at University of Florida named Dr. Hall. He taught an insect field biology course that I took one summer to fulfill a dreaded science credit. His enthusiasm was infectious and I loved his wardrobe. He would take us students out to a field complete with khaki shorts, knee high socks, safari hat, bug net and some "dung" borrowed from the pigs at the agriculture school. We made dung beetle traps and lured ant-lion larvae out of their sand burrows with long pieces of grass. For the first time in my life I had an interest in science. We made our own bug collections. I have cherished mine for the past 12 years. I relinquished it to the care of my sister since I didn't think Australian customs would be to pleased with me carting in a bunch of dead insects. My point is thanks to Dr. Hall I fell in love with bugs.
I used to walk from the train stop to the hotel for work everyday and along the way there was a wall that was popular with spiders. On the other side of the side walk there was a large hedge popular with caterpillars. Every once in a while I would fin
d one of these caterpillar crawling dangerously close to the waiting web of a hungry spider. Even though nature prevails in the end I always felt compelled to save the caterpillar returning the fuzzy worm to the nearest obliging branch of the shrub. Naturally I would apologize to the spider. All of this seemed perfectly normal to me until one day two ladies were out by the wall smoking as I was making an apology to the waiting spider. As I touched the arachnid's back with my nail and gave my regrets for removing her possible lunch I looked up to find the two ladies, cigarettes dangling from their lips, looking at me like a two headed monster. Is talking to a spider while giving it a little pat on the back not normal behavior?
d one of these caterpillar crawling dangerously close to the waiting web of a hungry spider. Even though nature prevails in the end I always felt compelled to save the caterpillar returning the fuzzy worm to the nearest obliging branch of the shrub. Naturally I would apologize to the spider. All of this seemed perfectly normal to me until one day two ladies were out by the wall smoking as I was making an apology to the waiting spider. As I touched the arachnid's back with my nail and gave my regrets for removing her possible lunch I looked up to find the two ladies, cigarettes dangling from their lips, looking at me like a two headed monster. Is talking to a spider while giving it a little pat on the back not normal behavior?When I was heading back from the restrooms to the picnic area in the Botanical Gardens the sound of crickets began to increase. The main source of the noise was coming just off the path. As I leaned my head down it was like the grass was screaming at me the cricket chorus was so loud. Naturally I was down on my hands and knees digging around seeing if I could find one. I had all ten fingers wiggling around in the grass until I got the uncanny feeling someone was staring at me. Hmmmmm....maybe this wasn't people do at the moonlight cinema. I was torn between my crazy need to see one of these noise makers and wanting not to appear completely insane. I caved to normality and walked back over to where Matt was waiting.
The movie was wonderful. I am a sucker
for Casablanca. I have seen the movie countless times and it always gets to me. I love the scene where the German officers are singing about "The Fatherland" and Victor Laszlo makes the band play the French national anthem. I always, always cry in this scene. It helps that France's anthem is the best national anthem ever. Almost every line in this movie has become a catch phrase. So as Bogart says, here's looking at you kid.
for Casablanca. I have seen the movie countless times and it always gets to me. I love the scene where the German officers are singing about "The Fatherland" and Victor Laszlo makes the band play the French national anthem. I always, always cry in this scene. It helps that France's anthem is the best national anthem ever. Almost every line in this movie has become a catch phrase. So as Bogart says, here's looking at you kid.
