Achievement Unlocked: Mural Installed

Oh, just in case you thought the blog was just a bunch of boring travelogues and pretty pictures, here's... um... a bunch of pretty pictures!

I've been meaning to post this for a while; way back when I started the blog, I mentioned that I was helping finish off a couple of murals started by the mural painting group I used to work for. Well, one of the murals found an installation site (after the original site was no longer available) and is now ready for the world to see!

Okay, so it's not perfectly flat, in fact they had to fold it over the corner of a building to make it fit. But hey, everybody's doing 3D these days, why not a mural?
And there's a tree in the way, but it's not completely obstructed...
And there's a fence around it too... and hardly anyone goes around that side of the building -

Oh, never mind. It's UP, it's FINISHED, and it LOOKS GREAT dammit!

This mural, if you remember, was the one commissioned by the local Lions Club, to illustrate the history of the Moe-Newborough region. It's meant to look like a big wall full of historical photographs and memorabilia. (On one of the panels, you can actually see a picture of people looking at the actual wall!)



Depicted in front of the photo wall are a number of antique items, such as oil-burning lamps, clocks, photo frames and radios.



The images depict various parts of the region's history and important local landmarks, many of which no longer exist. There are also antique portraits and vintage advertisements among the displayed items.



The mural also pays tribute to the many social clubs and community groups who have lent aid to the region over the years.



The mural went through many changes and alterations during its creation, including the addition of an extra panel on one end! It was originally to be installed at a totally different site, but the deal fell through, and the mural's fate was in limbo until the current site owner agreed to accept it for permanent display.

Oh, if you want to see it in person, it's located within the Gippsland Heritage Park (formerly Old Gippstown), on the westermost point of Moe, Victoria. Oddly enough, the heritage park is itself represented in the mural; the Gippsland Motor Garage shown in the picture above can also be found inside the park!

To view the rest of the album, click here, and enjoy!

Wait a minute, what happened to January?!

Seriously, it was January just about a week ago...

Holy smokes, we're one month into 2011 already! That went awful fast.

Quick TL;DR summary of the past couple of months:

• Did the Christmas thing - went to work for a few hours; went to visit friends for Christmas dinner, and then; drove for two hours on an unfamiliar road in the dark so we could collect my nephew, and THEN had to drive two hours back. (I got someone else to do the second trip on my behalf - I was WAY too tired to manage it.)
• Did the New Years' thing - went to our friends' place nearby for a pool party, even though we only spent about 30 minutes in said pool because it wasn't warm enough to stay in it for long. (PS. we seem to have misplaced our summer - do you have it perhaps?)
• Had mysterious car troubles - something weird was happening with the electrics connected to the engine; most of the time the car was fine, but occasionally it would fail to start proplerly, blow a fuse, and on more than one occasion the dashboard smouldered. Eeep. My stepdad had a look, found a loose wire that was the probable cause, and now my car is behaving itself again. For now.
• Friends of mine got married, after having been together and raising a family for the past five years (and have been friends for even longer). It was really great to see all of the friends and family come together and help out the bride and groom; my mother even made the bridal gown!
• Oh, and parts of Australia got threatened by the elements, but not bushfire this time - rather, the opposite: Queensland got rained out and washed away in January, and then had visits from Cyclones Larry and Yasi in February... while New South Wales and Victoria copped the leftovers of these two in the form of huge storms and more flooding.

...A friend of mine had actually put this blog under the January spotlight of her Write Club, but silly me I totally forgot to update anything for the past month, despite actually having stuff to write about. Erm... oops?

What can I say? I apologise to the visitors who may or may not have come through, hoping to find something more recent than my Dad's car accident, and hope that if anyone else out there is still reading this, I'll be going up to Queensland to visit family next week - so this space will actually have something up-to-the-minute on it, if we're lucky!

Sigh. I know, I know. It's not that I didn't want to write to you all, it's just that sometimes the little ole motivation gland doesn't want to act. Sometimes, you just gotta pick up that little cattle prod and give it a jolt, you know?

Long story short, I'm not dead yet. Stay tuned!