Millicent Museum Heritage Day

Earlier this month, the Millicent National Trust Museum wanted to celebrate our wonderful community and history with a free day out for families and visitors, with free entry to the museum.

The museum came to life, with horse and carts, working vintage machinery, volunteers in period costume and a blacksmiths display. The blacksmith was the place to be as the weather wasn't exactly warm and that fire was putting out a lot of heat.

There were old fashioned games which were popular with the kids, along with the train with working parts and the old school bell and the water wheel.

The museum has a shipwreck room, with many artefacts from the wrecks along our rugged coast. It also boasts the finest collection of horse drawn vehicles in the country, many of them being restored onsite by talented locals. There is also a room dedicated to the fashions of yesteryear with the Helen Hughes costume collection.

The Lions Club provided a sausage sizzle and were giving away free cinnamon doughnuts!

The local Country Fire Service were there also, letting the kids have a go at the fire hose and sitting inside the fire truck.

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2019 Pines Enduro

The Teagle Excavation Pines Enduro was held over the weekend in Millicent, South Australia. It was the final round of the 2019 ARB Australian Off Road Racing Championship.

We are lucky enough that my brothers place backs onto the quarry, where part of the race track is(so we get to watch for free), with racers heading out into the surrounding pine forest nearby.

I really enjoy this weekend, spending this year with family and friends with a barbeque and a few drinks. There was no shortage of rain this year, with the track getting quite chewed up and muddy on the Sunday. The kids always have a ball, and it's an action packed event that we look forward to each year.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

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Fortune favours the bold

Did you see the Bohemian Rhapsody film yet? I've seen it twice, and I would watch it for a third time!

If you have seen it, you might remember the line when Rami Malek (Freddie Mercury) says "You will always be known as the man who lost Queen". Well our small South Australian town just became "the town that lost a Fin Dac mural".

Yes! Fin Dac had offered to come to our town and paint a free mural on a two story building at the entrance of our main street. Fin Dac is an irish artist, based in London, known for his murals of ladies. He has murals  all over the world including Spain, London, New Zealand, Melbourne and Adelaide. He had offered to come to our sleepy little town, but due to negative feedback and not being able to find an alternative building, the offer was declined. 

I was disappointed to say the least, devo actually and a little disillusioned as to the future of our town. If we can't get people to be inspired to stop, and this mural screamed stop and pay attention, what future is there for our youngert generation. 

I saw this as a coup, this would put our town on the map. I imagined tourists coming around the roundabout and being in awe of the mural of a Chinese lady in formal dress, inspiring them to stop. To stop and spend some money in our town.

The Fin Dac proposed mural. it would have sat next to an existing mural of historic Millicent. The past and the future in one place. You know I didn't like it at first, but I looked past the subject and saw how amazing this was for our town. I am so sad this will not feature here.

It was suggested that we opt for local artists, for a more traditional theme, something that related to us. Don't get me wrong, I am all for local artists. My own mum has been one of them for the last 25 years. Anyone who went to a Nangula market in the nineties probably bought something of hers, and still has it lurking somewhere in their home. I do know though, sorry mum, and to other local artists, who I would rather have paint that building. In fact, this may have well brought our local artists to light, not forgetting a local artist had been lined up to assist Fin, what an opportunity for a local, and the progression of their own art.

Another suggestion was something to do with farming. Well HELLO!, we are barely managing to keep our saleyards open! I am sure anyone who has driven 100km from Kingston, or 50km from Mount Gambier can clearly see they are in farming country. I don't think we need to portray that on a building.

As for the suggestion of depicting something local, like the vineyards at Penola, or our fishing villages of the Limestone Coast, I call bah humbug! Yes we are proudly part of the limestone coast, but as a town struggling to keep pubs open and shopfronts full, we want people to stop here, in Millicent. We want them to be inspired to stop, to spend money in town, to visit the art gallery, to visit local artists, to visit the tourist visitor centre where they can purchase local art, local photography and other wares. To walk through our BRILLIANT museum, see our history. While there we don't want them to go straight to the counter and ask "where are the wineries?", "where are the coastal towns?", and see them drive away. We want them to stay, for a coffee, for a meal, for a night! 

To quote another Bohemian Rhapsody, and the genius that is Freddie Mercury (looked how it turned out for him, not the dead part, the dead famous part), "Fortune favours the bold". 

I wish my town was more bold. I wish their minds would open to the possibilities. I wish they had set aside their reservations about the subject matter, and saw what this painting would have done for Millicent. Thought about (pardon the pun) the big picture. The Fin Dac would have complimented the other street art we already have perfectly. We could have marketed ourselves as the town with amazing art on it's buildings, including international artists. 

So in closing maybe we should just paint a big sheep there, for our farming, forgetting we can hardly sustain our saleyards. Because the way I see it, it represents our town perfectly. We are like sheep, we go with the expected flow. We don't stray down the path of individuality, we stay with the mob. Because it's safer there, it's what we know, and we don't have to deal with change. 

If only we could be more bold. Imagine the possibilities.

"The water goddess", painted by Mimby Jones Robinson, on one of our old buildings. 

Super moon distraction

Monday night was the rising of the last super moon for 2017. In our neck of the woods in South Australia, at 8:55 pm to be exact.

At this time of night I am usually settled in front of the telly with a wine in hand. Sitting drinking wine in the evening stops me from doing loads of things I could be doing, and I have just gotten into the habit I think, because that is me time. It's my time to just sit, but I've associated that time to drinking wine.

While having me time is a good thing, it just so happens that drinking most nights isn't so good. So I am on a mission to try and change that. 

In the past I have found that replacing one vice with another is usually the way to go. Or not...cigarettes instead of pot...tea instead of cigarettes(which I suppose was good, and no I didn't smoke the tea!)...

Coffee connoisseurs will gasp at the thought, but I've just bought some fake coffee. Coffee has NEVER really agreed with me, and I am not a drinker, but I actually am not minding a cup or two of this. Last night I made a mocha with it as I sat to watch Jamie Oliver and my SBS fix, Struggle Street. Did the trick...

Back to Monday night, Isabel and I jumped int he car and drove out of town a little, up on a hill and waited for the moon to rise. I don't have all the right equipment to properly shoot a super moon or any moon for that fact, but had some good practice for when I am the owner of a decent tripod and an appropriate lens. It was a great evening out with my eldest daughter, until she started complaining to go. I am sure it is the complaint of many a photographers family member., forced to stay until every photograph has been taken.

This is classic funny Izzy, pulling faces for the camera

The 141st annual Millicent show

Our local show was held over the weekend.

Every year before the show, our Gymnastics Club, where I am a coach, and committee member, pack down our entire gym to hand over the youth hall for the show's indoor exhibitions.

It's been a busy few weeks, as we hold our end of year concert before pack down.

I don't have to tell you, how quickly the end of October/November has rolled around, it has been hectic. Somewhere in between we also squeezed in Halloween.

With all that has been going on, I didn't have time to get together a lot of show entries. I did win a first and second in photography(mind you, I was the only entries for the black and white section of 'people or portraits'). A first for cut flowers, and a first for a bunch of parsley. I like the parsley bit, because there's an old wives tale that says, 'It only grows well in a garden, where the woman is the boss!' I won second for my mixed herbs.My total winnings was $8. It went on a bottle of wine.

 
Summer did well. Amongst her produce(broad beans, eggs, and parsley) she got a first for her parsley bunch. Her flowers she got firsts in sweet peas, purple flowers, and cut flowers. One of her cut flowers received best exhibition, and she won a sash. I can't remember if she won anything for her white flowers.

She was so elated, telling everyone with so much pride and excitement. The same went for her first, in the honey crackles section.

The icing on the cake was a first, and best exhibit for her chocolate crackles. She was even more amazed and excited. This kid is so full of awe and love for life. Her winnings totalled $22. It's in an envelope in the filing cabinet! She also won a pair of kiddy gardening gloves for her efforts.

I was so proud of her, for her two light blue best exhibit sashes. Her first ever. As we picked up our entries and winnings on Saturday, she danced around with her sashes, carefree. Oh to be five, nearly six again...

What was even more important, we were supporting our local show by entering in the first place. Local shows need entries to keep them going. If not for normal people like us putting in entries for classes such as cooking, produce, photography, art and flowers, there is no show.

You never know your luck!! 

It was a fantastic show. The fireworks display was better than ever and the entire weekend was a credit to the new committee. 

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