Expanding Horizons

It has been an exhausting project, much bigger than we first recognised but somehow we manage to keep sane and keep smiling through.  And thanks to some quick thinking on our feet, constant tests of our endurance and the occasional smidgeon of much needed luck in places, we are getting there.  Little by little what started out as a micro-shop just inside the front door, selling ice creams and drinks, has expanded lately to a half-pint milk bar cafe in the first quarter of the original shop.  We are still working on the back area and the kitchen continues to cause us headaches (we discovered what lay behind the cooker the other day), but we are increasing our menu by one new item a week as well as our milk bar shop front.  And the town is embracing the return of childhood favourites such as choo-choo bars, wizz fizz and wagon wheels.  The front window now gives an indication of what is to come with the revival and it is looking good.

Our little communal table seats eight and on Fridays when the ladies of Lockhart come in for morning tea, we expand it to fit as many as 20!  And our little Blue Bird book shop is contributing to the cause...every book bought here goes back into the renovation project.  I am using my librarian background to promote reading and book groups in Lockhart.

And then there is the occasional function like the time the Woodhaven Hostel residents came for Christmas and enjoyed a morning tea of reminiscing at their old haunt, The Blue Bird Cafe.  The floor had just been laid at that point and we spent the morning preparing and polishing it to invite the oldest residents of the town in for a cuppa, a bit of festivity and a sneak preview of things to come.

So I think we can safely say that we are on our way and able to offer coffee, tea and hospitality to the town and those travelling through.  We are proud of our progress so far.  There is still some way to go before it is fully operational but stop by for a sandwich, a muffin or an old fashioned milkshake when you are next in Lockhart.  You will be pleasantly surprised at the progress.

World Famous in Lockhart...

The Blue Bird had its moment of glory on Prime News Wagga Wagga on Monday.  Young Peter Veneris happened to be passing on his new mobility scooter (he has found a new lease of life on the thing and is able to visit us more often now) so the reporter grabbed him for an interview.  Not bad I thought.  Here's the link

http://au.prime7.yahoo.com/n4/news/a/-/local/15893229/historic-cafe-gets-new-life-video/

Surviving January

I think that it is safe to say that I have survived my first January in Lockhart (despite there still being a week left in the month).  It hasn't honestly been too bad in terms of the heat.  Sure we've had some hot days and some stormy weather but the humidity is not as high as I have been used to in Auckland (which is exhausting) and the grey rain not as frequent as in Melbourne over the last couple of years.

We were warned that January was the quietest month for visitors and the locals would be on holiday but it has been nice to have had some relative calm after Christmas to ease ourselves into our growing business and menu.  We add something new to our shop and cafe fare each week so there is always something different to tempt even our most regular customers.

But January has not been very easy on us for a number of personal reason that will one day make it to the book (if I ever get the time to write one).  We've moved house three times already this year and that I guess would be a bit much for anyone's patience to be tested!  But we battle on and keep telling ourselves that life will get easier and that when you are down, the only way forward is up.

The renovations are ticking slowly along and we are constantly tweaking and refining our original plans so that I have lost count which alphabet letter we are up to now..plan C or D?

The traditional black and white square vinyl flooring is still waiting to have its final section glued into place.  As I mentioned, before Christmas we had a devil of a time laying it.  The day we chose to get it done the lads turned up from Wagga and decided that because it was so far to travel, they would work as long as it took to get it all done in one fell swoop.  But the weather gods and that Irish ratbag Murphy had other plans.  To get me out of the way (and because we couldn't turn our ice cream freezer off) I was set up outside the shop under the verandah to mind the drinks fridge and ice creams during the process.   So I got to see most of the proceedings through the window with my nose pressed up against the glass like a kid outside a toy shop.  The day started out hot and humid but the temperature dropped when a storm came through and I had to watch as the rain fell and just about flooded the gutters up to the footpath.  We had concerns about how our old roof and guttering would stand up to heavy rain so Roger got up there to check on it.  He assured me it would be fine as long as we didn't get a downpour...but of course downpour it did.  "It should be okay" he amended, "as long as there is no wind".  And the next minute, the wind kicked in.  So I sat outside biting my nails while the lads battled with a nail gun and compressor that were being difficult enough to resort to nailing the cement sheets in by hand.  They were not amused but we were lucky that we had a visitor from Melbourne to help and also a local friend able to drop everything and lend a hand to the cause.

But before the day was over a 300kg roll of lino had been manhandled on to the roof of our vehicle in the pouring rain, a wet little dog had stowed away in the back of the van to shelter from the storm, and the lads hammering cement sheets down had blisters from wielding hammers.  The final nail in the coffin to getting the job done in one go was when they ran out of adhesive and had to admit defeat.  Christmas then intervened (and try getting a tradesman to come out in early January) so here we are at the end of the first month of 2013 still waiting to get our floor finished.  So close and yet so far.  Still, it will happen and I hope that by next week I can report that the floor is complete and that we are full steam ahead.

Extreme weather

Anyone who has been following the news reports around Australia about the extreme fire danger in the last and coming week, may be interested in hearing from someone who it sitting in part of that extremity, watching, waiting and generally not knowing what might happen.  However as I hunker tensely down for my first experience of Australian fire weather, the town of Lockhart seems to be continuing life as normal around me.  Everyone I meet tells me we'll be fine here.  There's no bush to speak of around and grass fires don't have much fuel to get out of control.  However with a desert wind whipping dust and grit straight down the main street and in our front door, rattling sheets of iron that have been on the roof since 1930 and threatening to sweep them clean off the rafters, I am not as comforted by the sagely wisdom of the old timers as I should be.

I'm only just getting used to living in this country and the changes in the weather over the last few months has been like a rollercoaster of extremes.  We had thunderstorms over Christmas that provided us with a festive display of fireworks after a day of building humidity.  The short but violent downpours were followed by a welcome balmy cool and a stunning sunset.  I could however have done without the similar performance of weather just one week before when we had the laying of vinyl scheduled.  However, the weather is the one thing you can't do much more than simply work with, cope with, or battle against.  As I'm sure the old timers in town will tell you.

But now, just ten months after the second 'one in a hundred year flood' to occur in two years, we are being assaulted by a heat wave of 40-43 degrees with no foreseeable end (or that's how it seems).  Add to that the wind which is currently gusting to 75km/ph but hovering (yes that if a good term for the dust cloud hanging around the horizon) around 57km/ph.  I think I have reason to be a bit tense but as I say, no one else in town seems that concerned.  It's apparently character building.

In an era when a news cycle is gauged by the minute yet new information still happens at the same rate as it always did, we are under the illusion that we are the only ones to whom this has happened before.  But the Lockhart Historical Society will show you photographs of the town in flood and they will tell you stories of fire, of drought and dust that were the flip side of the boom time sheep stations brought to the town.  Isolation breeds strong communities and hardy people who simply go with it and work with, cope with or battle the weather odds, getting on with their day.

And with air conditioning in every home nowadays we wonder how they used to live without it.  But as I swelter in a nightly bed of sweat, I have no illusions of how hot and uncomfortable it must have been for the pioneers of Lockhart.  Living in the country means that the trials of life are always present, not some distant memory or story in a history book.  People in the country never forget that the land and the weather rule their lives far more than any government or global market.

So today my character builds and I learn to just get on with things.  We'll be right.

2013...the start of a new year

Happy New Year everyone.  Welcome to 2013, a year full of promise and hard work.

The lead up to Christmas was a big one for us at the Blue Bird as we worked our little tails off to get the shop ready to receive guests en masse as family descended from NZ and around NSW and Victoria.  We had lino flooring laid in the final week (more on that later), and we catered for our first private function a day or two before Christmas.  So festive food was laid in a constant stream across our tables over several days through the week but thanks to lots of helpers, it was a very successful first family Christmas at the Blue Bird.  We are resurrecting a tradition that was one for many years in the Veneris and Matis families..holding the family Christmas lunch in the cafe. It was one of the few days of the year that Jack and Peter closed the shop to customers and indulged in a family gathering.

But even though we were closed to customers for the day, the steady stream of family members coming and going carrying food and drink across the Blue Bird's threshold attracted onlookers and a few travellers in need of directions and assistance.  We were happy to lend a hand and make the day a successful one all round.  There just seems to be something about the Blue Bird that draws people to the door.

And we had the spectacle of nature's fireworks to entertain us on Christmas Eve with a few thunderstorms passing through and lighting up the sky.  When it passed it left a gorgeous sunset and a balmy cool evening breeze to enjoy.

So now it is the beginning of the new year, the guests have gone home and we are straight back in to getting on with the restorations which are going well but still have a bit to finish off.  The temperature gauge is rising this week with 40+ degrees predicted for the next week.  So Roger is up on the roof getting the swampy working so we can continue to work in here.  The building's natural airflow has kept it quite cool up to now but we figure that we will need to give it a hand sooner or later with the air conditioner.

Driving Miss Daisy...up the Wall

Here's how the story goes.  Underneath the booths was carpet.  Old carpet, still damp and not very hygienic or able to be cleaned.  As far as the health inspector was concerned..the carpet had to go.  It should in fact have been put out of its misery years ago but somehow, the old 1980s carpet was still hanging in there under the booths.

Okay so to get he carpet up, we had to pull up the booths.  Now if I had really thought about it at all, I would have realised that there was a lot more to it than just pointing my magic wand at the booths and asking a bunch of burley farmers to pull them up.  But that is sort of what I did.  Well, in terms of the burley farmers, not the magic wand because if I possessed one of those, I would ave waved it at the whole cafe and we would be done and dusted by now.  However, the very obliging burley farmers pulled up the booths which, I had it on good authority, had been plugged, bolted, nailed and glued into place.  Along with the booths, came the wall render and suddenly we were looking directly at brickwork though thankfully not, straight through to our neighbour's shop.

Oh great, now we had to fix the wall as well as the floor underneath.  It was a problem that required some contemplation, some lost sleep and a bit of blinkering so we wouldn't be reminded that we are not plasterers while we got on with other jobs.  In the end we couldn't ignore the problem any further and so Roger had a go at plastering 101, with average success.  Apparently there are still some things that you can't learn from the internet.

But fortune came to our rescue through a chance meeting with a real plasterer and we were saved.  Many early starts, hot sweaty days and a bit of plastering apprenticeship later and we have our walls back, minus the holes.  To boot we have been regaled with colourful tales of the life of our handyman saviour and his dog.  So now, with just over a week to Christmas, we can finally start painting the walls and laying the lino on the floor.  Phew!

P.S. Underneath the plywood panel in the window we found another strange relic of the past.  The signature Bullock Douglas and a pencil sketch of a profile.  Who was Bullock Douglas?  Was he the artist who painted the original window motifs in the 1930s renovation?  Or is this signature more recent?

The Mercury Rises

Summer kicked in with a vengeance last week with temperatures rising to the high 30s, bringing thunderstorms laden with humidity and an ill-timed power cut.  With the town sweltering in the dark, even just for a few hours the night the power outage took away our air-conditioners, we decided to take advantage of the heatwave by opening our front door to cold drinks and ice creams.  Turning back the clock on the cafe means turning back the menu as well so we are serving traditional soda soft drinks with flavours such as portello, sarsparilla, lime, creaming soda and raspberry lemonade.  Eventually we plan to go back to the traditional scoop ice creams as well but for the moment we have popular pre-packaged varieties in our freezer.  And for the homesick kiwis we offerLemon and Paeroa soft drink for that little slice of heaven in the heat that is world famous in New Zealand.  It has already proven popular enough for us need to restock the fridge.

Later this week on Friday 7th December, Lockhart has it's Christmas late night trading with market stalls along Green Street.  The Blue Bird will be there trading again but this time we will have some little Christmas morsels like canoli and seasonal truffles.  We will also be having a book sale to support the restoration project funds so we hope people will find Christmas gift options and great summer reading matter among the late release second-hand books in our collection.  There will be more books on sale at the cafe over the summer because as a librarian in my past life, I know how much books, coffee and the social space of a cafe go hand-in-hand.

Little by little we get closer to being fully open and we thank all those who have stopped in to buy drinks, offer advice, information and lend a hand. It won't be too much longer now...with a little bit of luck.