Wildlife

Post #68 Sunday 7 January 2018 – Rejuvenation grout and the New Year

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Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Sunday 7 January 2018

It’s the New Year and I don’t do resolutions so much as I find myself somehow embarking on various new projects, generally a bit domestic.  This New Year it seems to be Rejuvenation Grout.

Well I have bought the product and I am hoping it will transform the tired tiles of the bathroom into something a bit more, hmmm luminous may be :-), or just a bit whiter would be ok.

It’s been a nice start to the year otherwise.  I had a lovely unexpected visitor on Saturday afternoon.  I don’t often get magpies up on the 12th floor so it was a treat to hear that melodic gargling sort of song so close by.

I drove back from the country on Saturday and listened to the radio on the way – as a lot of you know, I love the radio.  On this trip the ABC was rebroadcasting a feed from the US National Public Radio (NPR) and I had a couple of treats.  One was a show on bluegrass which was an excuse for me to rummage around for favourite modern blues music when I got home.  Here is a link to a performer composer I really like and who is a great blues hero for souls who live rough.  It’s Chris Whitley with his melancholy guitar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI8ISl7xpg4

Wishing all the best to all of us for the coming year.

MG xx

Post #64 Wednesday 29 November 2017 – November trip to Canberra

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  Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Wednesday 29 November 2017

It was a lovely visit to Canberra this month.  On the morning I was due to leave Canberra it was raining very softly, exactly the way it doesn’t rain in Sydney (where it shamelessly buckets from all directions).  I took a walk near where I was staying and saw many lovely things including this fine sculpture – an enormous sheet of steel unfolding up the hillside.  And this trip, when I walked in the evening, I saw more bunnies on the lush Canberra lawns than I have ever seen anywhere.  It was like walking into a Beatrix Potter story.  The Canberra bunnies were out and about, mostly in pairs, quietly feasting in the dark.  They were so fluffy and almost tame.  Back in my day I think it was a bit of a heavy myxomatosis scene and there just weren’t a lot of bunnies anywhere at all (sigh).  Such a treat to see them abundant and healthy now in a place where there is lots for them to eat.

I am looking forward to my next Canberra visit in December and I will post the date for the January trip as soon as I know what it will be.

from your glamorous aunt
enjoying gentle vertical rain in Canberra from time to time

MG xx

Post #63 Sunday 26 November 2017 – a lorikeet in love

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  Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Sunday 26 November 2017

I had the pleasure of looking at some photos just recently, that one of my excellent ostensible nephews had taken of the three parrots he is responsible for – all of them beautiful ringneck parrots.  In discussion about the birds, a consensus emerged, that I should devote a post to my own beautiful native parrots, the lorikeets.  It would be the right thing to do because they are a lively presence in my daily life, and while they have had a little walk on role in a couple of posts, I have never given them their very own post.

I looked through some of my photos and found way more than I need to illustrate my long and lively relationship with  these boisterous little guys.  So I have included just one snap taken about Christmas three years ago.  This pair were right inside the apartment eating at the table.  I posted the photo to facebook and a Czech girlfriend asked me, first, were they real and second, were they dangerous (they being Australian animals people always have to ask – thank you Bill Bryson).   I told her lorikeets could be dangerous to your sleep if you are trying to sleep in lol.

Fortunately the lorikeets who visit me now are a lot less noisy than they used to be.  There was a period when they would arrive just after sunrise in waves of competing pairs to sit on the balcony and yell at one another.  That noisy yelling period passed though.  And now there are fewer pairs who visit.  Some of the territorial arguments must have been resolved.

I usually feed them outside, in their own plates, a mixture of warm water and dissolved honey.  I should feed them just once a day but often I will feed them two or three times – they ask so sweetly with little churring sounds.   They are nectar eaters so the spiky little beak is for tearing flowers and stems more than it is for cracking nuts.  When they feed you can see the nectar gathering tongue working hard –  a feathery but hard looking thing that dabs up the honey mixture.

Every season I see a new crop of baby lorikeets.  They always make a huge racket fluffed up, quivering outstretched wings, demanding to be fed beak to beak.

Every season I also see some courtship rituals.  There is a particular dance which involves craning and arching the neck, bobbing rhythmically and slowly snaking around in front of the target female, punctuated by little sneezings.  This year I seemed to attract some courtship attention myself.    I recorded part of the episode, so you can see for yourself.

With warm regards as always
especially to those of my excellent ostensible nephews who are bird fanciers

your glamorous aunt MG xx

Post #62 Thursday 23 November 2017 – bodega cats

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  Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Thursday 23 November 2017

Social media can teach you things.  For instance I have learned from a Twitter account called @bodegacats that there are such things as bodega cats. For the uninitiated, in parts of the US the corner store is known as a bodega.  These corner stores frequently have resident cats.   Hence bodega cats.

These cats seem to be a pretty common feature, a bit like cellar dogs in Australia.  Some might remember a nice little book published a few years back recording a vineyard tour by each dog resident at the vineyard visited, with suitable portraits of the hounds in their domains.  I checked just now and the book was called Wine Dogs and they even have their own website winedogs.com

So the Twitter account posts only pictures of cats in corner stores, doing cat style things lying around in among the shelves, on the register and so on.  It’s quite endearing.  And now I have my own offering from a little corner store at the Paddington end of Darlinghurst.

Here is the corner store, somewhat run down:

When I crossed the road coming up to the store I glanced up and thought hmmm someone’s dropped their jumper on the steps.

But it wasn’t a jumper at all 🙂

from your glamorous aunt  MG
xx
noticing the small things

Post #60 Monday 6 November 2017 – upate on the black and white cat

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  Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Monday 6 November 2017

Way back in May this year I did a post on the black and white cat of the McElhone stairs, who had been a much beloved local institution.  She was a well looked after street cat and spent most of her days sunning herself on the sandstone outcrop next to the historic Potts Point stairs.  Always up for friendly interactions with passersby over the years, many people became very fond of her.  In May I came to know that she had died, after 17 years living on the McElhone stairs.

There was a subscription held for a memorial and this update is to record the little plaque that was created and put on the sandstone ledge she frequented.  It’s a modest little thing.  Here it is:

Opposite the official memorial, beyond the railing to the stairs, an unofficial sketch of the black and white cat has been painted by who knows whom, and it has a charm all of its own.  It is painted onto the base of the very large ventilation pipe next to the stairs.  Here is a photo through the railing I took at night, so there are a few shadows in the picture which are cast by the support structure around the ventilation pipe:

With fondest memories of spirit animals in the urban world,

MG xx

Post #56 Wednesday 1 November 2017 – Latex, worms and other lives

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  Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Wednesday 1 November 2017

Earlier this year I decided to try an experiment on my worms, whose collective nickname is the Miriams (named after a favourite scientist Miriam Rothschild whose ground breaking work related to fleas, and later to butterflies).

The Miriams live in a black plastic two tray shelter (aptly branded the Worm Factory) where they compost my kitchen scraps.  I also give them things they are not reported to process but which I have found they do, namely significant quantities of orange peel, paper (suitably wet), coffee grounds, and odd pieces of cotton  such as old shoe laces.  I also found they ate most (but not all) of an old yoga mat which was made of woven jute on one side and later rubber on the other.

As it happened one of my items of latex clothing, a halter neck dress, perished.  I had not worn it in a while and for one reason or another it has just wasted in key places and could not be saved.  This kind of material fatigue is not uncommon especially if the latex dries out or has not been effectively cleaned.  And latex also simply expires from use over time.  It is an organic thing.

So I decided to experiment with the Miriams by including the latex in their feed, to see whether they would set about decomposing it.

I can report that at last examination the latex has not been touched at all.  Instead it was serving quite well as an impermeable layer in the Worm Factory trapping water and keep the whole thing moist. Here is a photo of that experiment demonstrating the outcome:

I meant to say this latex dress belonged to another life of mine which some of you are aware of.  And that is, I worked for some time, before I started escorting, as a professional Mistress in a BDSM dungeon.

Here is an old photo of me in the latex dress in one of the rooms at the dungeon, my apologies for the cut off head.

MG xx

Post #55 Sunday 29 October 2017 – Rifle range dogs

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  Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Sunday 29 October 2017

Even my first post was about a part of the coast on the south side of the harbour bridge.  So here is another post in that same tradition, this time about a favourite surf beach at Maroubra, South Maroubra in particular.

Earlier in the year, about August, I visited this favourite beach and took some snaps of the surf and sky after a spectacular storm and swell.  Here are some of the photos, the first looking to North Maroubra showing the crashing surf on the cliffs there:

This second one is also looking to North Maroubra, but it includes a surfer for scale:

I am also including a photo of the well known rifle range on the headland at the South Maroubra, you can see the series of targets set up in the distance here:

In the scrub on the headland round the rifle range there used to be a tradition of abandoned dogs inhabiting the rough terrain.  They came to be known as the rifle range dogs and were a distinctive type of dog, long legged, low haunches, solid colours, howling as often as barking and making excellent guard dogs.  There was a time apparently when they were relatively common pets in the eastern suburbs.   I only ever got to know one of these rifle range dogs, and it was quite a while ago.  His was a large hound called Bernie and he belonged to a notary public who lived near Bondi Junction.  He had a very distinctive musical yowl which he used more than he did bark.  Once he had determined you were friendly and here to do business he just flung his enormous frame into his bed and relaxed.  So here is an article from the Sydney Morning Herald 1957 addressing the phenomenon of the rifle range dogs, here called the wild dogs of Malabar (as Malabar meets the south headland of Maroubra).

And here are two final gratuitous images of the surf with surfers and the lovely sunset sky at South Maroubra in August.

In praise of all the great things on the local coastline,

MG xx

Post #53 Friday 27 October 2017 – Melbourne, Canberra and Parsley Bay – part2

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  Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Friday 27 October 2017

So my experiences in recent travels to Canberra were a little mixed and it’s worth my while taking time out to say something on this.  I had a new client in Canberra very annoyed that I had to postpone our meeting for health reasons.  His response was to tell me he would blacken my name on whatever escort related forum he was involved in.  This, despite my having offered to massively discount my fee for the next meeting to make up for the inconvenience of the postponement.  (This offer was accepted graciously by other postponed clients I might say.)  So the point of my comments here is to tell you that I can only do this work if I am in the best health.  I have had a lot of issues with health and well being over the last period of time.  So it has not always been easy to balance work and health.  This work is not like a lot of other work, it is much more personal and much more demanding. Fortunately the people I see are OK with this, and I appreciate that.   If you can’t see this then I am not the right person for you.

Back to less taxing matters:  I did a short excursion to another beautiful beach on the eastern suburbs shore line.  This time to  Parsley Bay in Vaucluse.  There are old family photos showing I was brought here as an infant but I have no recollection.  The only thing I recall as a child, is the netted harbour pool at Redleaf Woollahra, a few inlets over from Parsley Bay.  It was a very scary thing to be taken, as a very small person,  to the inky deep end of the harbour pool netted off from the _sharks_ – one cannot quite forget the horror of it!

Here is Parsley Bay, with its footbridge, looking dazzling when I visited:

And this image goes some way to showing that lovely emerald green the harbour goes.  The shadows have a violet touch when they fall on the green:

And here was also a very senior looking water dragon basking on the sandstone:

It’s a lovely series of sunny photos to post – especially as today is so grey and rainy by contrast.

yours ever,
MG xx

 

 

 

Post #36 Saturday 17 June 2017 – more urban wildlife and some black stockings

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  Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Saturday 17 June 2017

This is a little catch up letter to let me include on the website some of the material I posted in Twitter in the last couple of weeks, which I didn’t put in here first.

I had a nice visit from a kookaburra in the last week.   I haven’t seen one stop on the balcony in the entire four years I have lived here, so it was all pretty exciting.   The bird looked as though it might have been a juvenile because that puffed up chest and crouching down is a very baby bird sort of thing to do.

I also posted a random getting ready for work selfie which those of you who like black stockings and the rest might approve of.

I have a couple of other nice things to post – it will have to be tomorrow though.

Signing out for a chilly calm Saturday

MG xx

Post #27 Monday 8 May 2017 – McElhone Stairs and the black and white cat

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  Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Monday 8 May 2017

This is a 1944 painting by Sali Herman of the McElhone Stairs.

These Stairs are at the end of Victoria Street and lead up from Woolloomooloo to Potts Point.   I have often walked these stairs down to the City or to Lady Macquarie’s Chair and the Botanic Gardens and sometimes just to do a circuit alongside  HMAS Kuttabul which is at the bottom of Potts Point.  I think the Stairs date from the 1870s.

Sali Herman distorted his painted view to make the Stairs much wider and steeper looking than they are.  And he made the figures smaller to add to the effect.  The male figures in the bottom right are uniformed, perfectly suited to 1944  (though there are always uniformed service people about with the local naval base and the dock).  The house on the right is a fine house also from the 1870s, with very fine detail in  the balconies and ironwork.   I think there have been continuing battles with successive owners over the tackiness of renovations that get done from time time to the heritage listed building (the down pipes got painted a shiny gold not so long ago :-)). On the left at the top of the Stairs is an enormous ventilation pipe – which is a structure of 1930s engineering, quite impressive!

Sali Herman’s painting of the McElhone Stairs

Here is a really interesting image of the Stairs taken in 1927 in a silent film that was miraculously discovered in the 1950s and reprinted. I think it also captures that sense of the Stairs having a great size, which is exactly what Sali Herman’s painting was after.

The photo shows a very spare environment.  Woolloomooloo, at the bottom of the Stairs, was a dockside slum district.  It is still home to relatively deprived people with a lot of house commission homes built in the 1970s and 80s, following the amazing green ban campaign and federal government intervention to save the area from the worst forms of rapacious Sydney property development.

I love these Stairs for their own sake.  But I also have loved them because of a small animal spirit who has occupied the Stairs for a very long time.

Over the years I have taken quite a few photos of this cat, even though it was not mine, it didn’t seem to belong to any person so much as to the place.  I had a real affection for her.  Here are some pictures, the ones I found on the phone anyway.

She frequently dozed in the sun on a broad sandstone rocky outcrop next to the Stairs and that is where her minder left her food and water.

And I was very sad to see today this little sign at her usual sunning place.  The woman in my photo above with the lilac shirt, was her minder, Hill, who had herself  lived on the streets a few times in her life.

It’s a clever photo, it even lines up the wires running along the wall behind her sunny spot on the sandstone.  And the cards and flowers were touching.  I did not know she had been living there as long as 15 years, no home, just her minder diligently feeding her on the street.

Farewell philosophical cat.


MG xx