February 2010 Archives

Lately I have been wishfully thinking about buying a big house and indulging in a Grand Design of my own. A perfect contender that got my creative juices flowing was 'The Abbey' in Annandale. It sold in May 2009 for $4.86m. I wonder who bought it and what they are going to do with it. Sometime before that Lawson's held an auction of all the contents. We went to the auction and exploring the house was like wandering around a set from Harry Potter.

I have always been aware of The Abbey and knew someone when I was at high school that had grown up there, although the details escape me now. The Abbey is considered part of the 'Witches Houses' of Annandale. Shamefully, some of the 'Johnston St Group' of historical buildings have been demolished. A few have been restored. I wonder what they are like inside.

Palladio - the Renaissance architect. It got me thinking about how Ruby is going to be learning Italian at school and that we really should visit Italy at some stage to inspire her.

Viper PIts inspired by an episode of Man vs Wild set in Panama. Interesting fact:Viper pits were thought to hold a cache of lost pirate treasure. Shockingly I didn't find this out on Wikipedia. Wiki was a bit too literal.

Palau - Where is Palau and why would an archologist explore it looking for bizarre looking little people? Palau is a Pacific Island 800km east of the Philippines which has a well established matrilineal society.It's ancient connection to the Javanese lead archiologists here where they discovered the oldest known burial ceremony in Oceania. The discovery here is thought to be related to the controversial discovery of Flores in Indonesia.