Freo to Perth

We leave our lovely little retreat this morning to catch the train to Perth. I appear to be last up. The bed is so comfortable and cosy I just can’t get up. It’s sharply sunny – I really struggle to see when the sun is so bright and low even with sunglasses and hat. So I am a bit slow and we sort of string out along the path. Owen in front. Alice trying to keep me and Owen in touch as I bring up the rear.

The train is efficient. It turns out that Alice’s NSW student status doesn’t count in WA but the ticket inspector lets her off as does the gate keeper. We won’t risk it coming back and buy a standard ticket which of course isn’t glanced at.

Having failed to buy jeans we walk down to the river where I was a week ago. Lovely to be here again with the kids.

There are no real plans for museums or gallaries so we wander over to Northbridge (supposed to be the edgy happening part of the city) and eat lunch at Govindas. It’s the same format as others we have sampled in London and Sydney. A proper Buddhist environment and a great lunch for $10 a head. I leave the young ones so I can visit the museum at His Majesty’s Theatre in Hay Street. There’s an exhibition of sheet music, posters, photographs, costumes and contemporaneous accounts of the songs of World War I. Some recordings of the time are playing. It all starts with a great patriotic call to arms to defend the ‘motherland’, and the music reflects loss and the lives of the families left behind as one would expect. What is surprising is the pressure building, through the music, on those men who have not enlisted. Conscription was later in Australia and the popular music of the day pulled no punches when it came to attitudes towards shirkers. White feathers were commonplace. The groups of musicians who toured Australia made a good living and carried on doing so well after peace was declared – to the disapproval of some.

A very helpful and informed volunteer with Cornish connections makes my visit extremely interesting. I scuttle off into the sunshine like an emerging beetle from my dark lair to find Owen & Alice who have seen enough of Perth. We head back to Freo on the train. Owen choses to come home. Alice and I go off in search of a nail shop. Not the metal sort. The painted sort.

We find one. There are 6 ‘massage’ chairs (the chairs vibrate) with footbaths for pedicures and about 10 work stations for hands! The staff are all young possibly chinese lasses and lads. I get a lad! Alice gets at least three lasses including the boss lady to see to hands and feet. I have to say the end result is great but the hand and forearm massage was like a visit to the osteopath and if Alice’s feet had been filed any harder she would have bled.

Al of course had trainers and socks. No no. Not after 3 coats of varnish. She is wearing a pair of borrowed flipflops, pink, three sizes too small. Clearly she can’t wear them home. They offer a pair of bright canary yellow PAPER flipflops to go home in. Yeah right. We have a 15 minute walk. So Al flips into Coles for a $2 pair of clearance attractive black flipflops which she manages until we are halfway home by which time the varnish is dry and she has the beginnings of a blister.

We decide on a drink in the market bar. Most of the stalls were still open. A group of boys are gathered near us – piled dreadlocks, a bandana, long blond hair worn with a full blond beard.  Quite a gathering. The piled dreadlocks fascinate me. The style lookes a little like Alice’s vegemite scroll from earlier in the week.  Actually it looks rather like a marmite pretzel. I am about to take a picture. Alice stops me, horrified. You can’t do that Mother! Shame. I would’ve asked him.

We trundle home mellowed by wine and beer, purchasing ingredients for a pear, goats cheese and toasted pumpkin salad from the lovely local shop.

The house is chilly tonight. Clear skies and a WA winter. Ah well. Find a jumper. Tomorrow is Alice’s last day. Sad sad.