seandc

First off, I'd like to send a big "thank you" out to justace - your package arrived today! :D For the curious, this is a tape of The Rocky Horror Show, the original Australian cast of 1975. This was the tape from the library that started it all for me, but haven't seen it there for years. It's got such a different energy and sound from the other soundtracks. :D

Anyway, it's been a few days since my last update (almost two weeks, eep) so let's rewind back to a week last Thursday *Wayne's World style fadeout*

The day started bright and earlysorry, tell a lie, sunrise is far after wakeup time these days, even if I slept in a little bit (but only a little so I could get in early).

I was a little bit early into town (it was a little before 8.30am), so I took myself on a little searching trip. As part of the city/colony's 150th anniversary celebrations 27 years ago St Georges Terrace had a series of commemorative plaques set into the pavement, with a prominent Westralian for each of those years. My trip took me up to the QV1 Tower (the third tallest building in the city), and back to 1915 in the scheme of these plaques, for this was Hugo Throssell's year to shine. I don't often get to that corner (often a street away), while finding the plaque I spotted a few of the public art pieces of the city all at this same intersection, and if not for a construction fence even the ground level would have a pretty good view of The Narrows.

The plaque seen, I set off back in the direction of the city centre (and paid phone bill on the way) to a little place I'd been told would be opening that day. In the street levels of St Martin's Tower between Hay Street Mall (that's streets reserved for pedestrians around here) and The Terrace. Borders. I'm not even sure they were properly open yet, but hey the doors were open, and there were people browsing, even if it wasn't quite 9am yet.

So, in I went (and got caught by photographer, can't you see I'm trying to get out of shot mate?) - a lot of people with important badges were milling around the coffeeshop (well, none of our other bookstores have been large enough for a coffeeshop), but nothing to stop anyone from browsing (and not being part of the opening ceremony meant I didn't have to stick close and pay attention).

The walls are lined with shelving bays - all taller than me which I consider a Good Use Of Space, in nice dark wood. There's about a bay of graphic novels, and around the corner three of manga -
although I should've checked the other side, but was avoiding photographers at the time. Oh and Natasha, the bay facing that one were the horror bays. And if you want to browse a bit, there's a bench *right there*.

A little further along was the science fiction section (despite the general fiction literature section intruding at the walls) - I spoke to one of the workers in charge of the section, and he said (when I failed to find a specific author) that they still have lots of science fiction stored, they just didn't have the shelf-space on the floor, and that they're hoping to expand and get some more tables soon (how's that for opening day ambitions?). And I noticed in browsing a few of the Justice League books you mentioned Rachel.

Nonfiction is downstairs, connecting to St Martin's Arcade again after so many years. Funny that the children's section should be near that corner, I think it was Dorrington's Books used to be there many years ago (they were a well-established, and PACKED children's bookstore).

I didn't have a good look at the business and psych, but we might not need to order from interstate anymore, these sections are much huger than normal. Film and tv could be bigger though. I was lucky enough to see that they had a copy of Finding Serenity there, since I was hoping the new store would have the BenBella SmartPop series and I wouldn't have to order those through Amazon anymore. I'll have to ask sometime if this is going to be a regular thing, or if they can at least get them in.

I ran out of time in the cd/dvd section, but I did grab a small trade paperback on my way out, and since it was the first day, was given a large hardcover for free! With new books in hand, I hoofed it over to Cinema City for the first showing of the day, for the aforementioned $9 - pity they don't have this daylight deal at Southlands cinema! After waiting for the place to open, the concessions to get their act together (ok, I can understand waiting for cups to be stacked if you're going to use the machine they're sitting on - if you're going to spend that time stuffing about then use a machine that's been free all the time... gah!), and the rest of that you saw in my last entry bar one.

Roughly noon, I stagger out into the daylight and make my way down to the train station. Destination - Karrakatta Cemetery, to take photos of the graves of relatives I'd found in my research. It has its own railway station (well, the suburb of Karrakatta is pretty much cemetery on one side of the tracks, and the Irwin Army Barracks on the other.

First stops - the Crematorium Rose Gardens. Three of Mum's grandparents have memorial plaques here (her father's father died when he was visiting his aunts in South Australia, and is buried there). Once I got past there I saw that I'd been a bit spoilt by TV - I was kind of expecting the entire place to be green lawns and trees and all. But Karrakatta Cemetery itself is the
size of a pretty decent suburb - impossible to keep the whole suburb permanently green for over a hundred years. A lot of it is open, with tightly packed sand between the rows of graves.

I made my way around the various sites I'd marked on my map (A3 printers are so very useful, I was lucky to have that printout with me). I only missed one I hadn't realised exactly where his memorial was, and by the time I realised I was already nearly out of the gates, and the plaque was a long way away the way I'd come. It was lucky I decided to come now, from the looks of it the section with my great-great-grandparents will likely be renewed in the next year or so (they had the signs announcing future renewal, and the next section had signs at each grave to contact the Board ASAP), so while they would've still had a picture of the headstone, it wouldn't seem the same. So, Mum says that she'll contact the rest of her family (that we know of), so they'll know at least.

So, left Karrakatta, did some food shopping (and cheap ex-rentals yay), and came home and life returned to its normal patterns. Work, home, figure out what to do next, fill in, be increasingly disgusted by the level of vitriol the news can whip up, get distracted by new discoveries (some good, some shocking) and adding one more link in.

I've got next week off, and I've made an appointment with the Archivist at Wesley College - I figure if anywhere has information on Grandpa, it'd be them! So I'll go there on Monday to see what they have in records, artefacts (possibly some of Grandma's works, and the website mentions Hugo Throssell's dress sword) and memorials, and if I've got time I can go to the South Perth local history collection and see if there's anything useful there.

It'll be a bit hard getting up for that though - or any time for the foreseeable future. Something's gone wrong with a pipe somewhere, and there's no hot water in the house! The heater's still working fine (in fact, I lit it second try, which is amazing in itself), but nothing from the hot taps. So, cold showers (with what the kettle can provide) for now. Pity it isn't summer now (who'd've ever thought I'd say that?!), cold showers would be welcome even.