Through Not Quite Rose Coloured Goggles...

Not a lot has been going on on the art production front. Lots of things this week with the house and family and whatnot. One of the things I had to do was take the Steamgoth up to Newcastle for an appointment.

She has Irlen Syndrome, which is a form of dyslexia. It is treated, very effectively I might add, with coloured lenses. Two years ago I sat in a room at the Irlen Centre and listened to my child read, first in the halting, uninflected, disjointed way she had always read, skipping words, mistaking words, stumbling, no regard for punctuation. Then she held the carefully worked out colour combination of lenses to her eyes and for the first time in her life read fluently and with beautiful inflection and rhythm. Afterwards she said to me that she had never understood about punctuation because she had never been able to see it on the page in the jumble of the letters and all the shifting colours (without her glasses her eyes see all the refracted colours from the white, rather than just the white page).

AmbassadorMann Goggles, but hey, they're tinted.

Yesterday it was time for a check up. Have her lenses faded? (No, she takes really good care of them) Have her eyes altered? As in, is the current colour still right or does there need to be an adjustment? (Yes, just slight, but it does mean she'll be without her glasses for about three weeks. SHE asked if that could happen after her exams. Progress.) Her reading without the glasses has improved dramatically, but still not as dramatically as her reading with them.

Since getting the lenses she reads for pleasure, and is writing a novel. This from the child who would move heaven and earth to avoid reading or writing ANYTHING.

If ever you hear anyone say that the coloured lenses are useless, tell them to do more research, or talk to those who use them.

But I digress, because the Steamgoth isn't the subject of this post (well, not that I had planned).

As I wrote above, the appointment was in Newcastle. Wallsend to be precise. When we were finished (it took about an hour and a half - the process is quite involved), we wanted lunch. Having forgotten to ask some Newcastle friends for a lunch recommendation I decided that we would just drive in to Darby Street and see what we could find.

Newcastle skyline. Worth fighting for.

Darby Street is cafe central. It is not, however, ATM central. So we walked up the Hunter Street Mall to the ATM at the Newcomen Street corner. There used to be a Commonwealth Bank there, back in the days when banks provided a service rather than gouging us all for profits. My father-in-law was the manager of the business branch two doors down. There is still, thank goodness, an ATM.

Walking past the park in King Street was a little distressing. There are still large trees, but the Moreton Bay Figs are notable for their absence.

I haven't been in the Mall for years and the last time there were lots of empty shop fronts. It was dismal, largely deserted. Sad. Still licking its wounds from the earthquake so long before. Now it is a transformed space. Full of people, interesting shops, stalls (got some amazing doughnuts. The Steamgoth's was called The Goth. Mine was strawberry and rhubarb). I don't like to use the word "vibrant". It is so overused. But I can't think of a better one. So there it is, it was vibrant. The Steamgoth was very impressed. Wyong has nothing of interest for her and she was looking at the posters for clubs and the exhibition sign at the Gallery (Elliot Gruner. I wish we had had more time. I would have liked to see that), and all the cafes and shops. And as she said, the air is nicer.

There isn't a huge amount of parking at the top end of town, but the train stations were being well-used. The state government's plan to rip up the line is nothing short of vandalism. A decision proposed by crooks seeking a tidy profit and finalised by people who have no idea of Newcastle and care even less what ordinary people want or the city needs.

State govt proposal for Newcastle when the train line goes

We had lunch at a nice sushi place in Darby Street and then drove through Hamilton and Lambton and Jesmond, heading back to the link road to the M1, the Steamgoth's latest favourite, Bowie's Life on Mars, on repeat on the car stereo. All the while I was thinking, "I remember this part. So-and-so lives not far" or "we lived just over there" (the kids hate those detours, so I didn't do that yesterday. Although if we hadn't had to get back to pick up my son from school some of you may have had some unexpected visitors).

And I thought what I always think when I visit Newcastle (and which gives the spouse the horrors), I could move back tomorrow, without hesitation. It has its problems, everywhere does, but it's where I grew up and more than anywhere except Scotland it feels like home. Yesterday, driving around and walking from Darby Street to Hunter Street, I was so happy to be back. Today, sitting in Wyong, putting off cleaning up, I am filled with saudade. And all I want is to return.

And until the kids finish high school and the spouse retires, it isn't going to happen. So I'll raise a glass to the city of my youth and get back to normal life here. And go and do the cleaning.