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The gathering storm clouds of war
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Spring 2024
In what seemed a colder than usual August, the budding of my mulberry tree is significantly later this year compared to last year.
- Checking the weather data for Williamtown shows that average daily maximum temperatures for August 2024 is unchanged from last year, and the minimums are were on average 1.5 degrees warmer than last year. This is a good reminder that impressions/recollections about weather are not the same as data about weather.
- Data from my solar panel system however, shows that Lambton received 19% less sunshine in August this year compared with last year, so maybe that accounts for the later budding.
Australia Unposted
Sheesh! After closing down the Lambton Post Office in Elder St in 2023, I discovered today that Australia Post has removed my local mail posting box in Morehead St, leaving just a bare circle of dirt to commemorate an organisation hurtling towards non-existence.
Hamilton North Sports
For a number of years I used to cycle past the old Hamilton North gasworks site as I commuted to work. I watched as structures were demolished and the site rehabilitated, and wondered about its future use. Back in January 2016 I wrote the following in an e-mail to Mark MacLean …
My 14 year old son is obsessed with sport, and particularly with cricket at the moment and he reckons “they” (the mythical “they” who ought to do stuff) should build a cricket ground in Newcastle capable of hosting Test, ODI and T20 matches. I set him a little task of speculative urban planning, on thinking where “they” could build such a stadium, and I suggested the old gasworks site. As a little experiment, we grabbed an image of the Sydney Cricket Ground and laid it over the gasworks site in Google Earth at the same scale to see if it would fit. Not only did it fit, it looks like it belongs there!
Fast forward to 2024 when there are plans afoot to take away green space from the community and convert existing playing fields into a new basketball stadium on Wallarah and Blackley Ovals. Surely the old gasworks site is a better choice? Using the same technique I used back in 2016, how would the planned basketball stadium fit?
Answer: It fits easily and with oodles of room left over for parking, green space, and future expansion.
Community Protest
The photo above, from 10 August 2024, is of the supposedly “under used” Wallarah and Blackley Ovals in New Lambton. Newcastle’s Labor councillors want to obliterate this and replace it with 3 hectares of concrete and tarmac for a new basketball stadium, a plan riddled with problems and passionately opposed by local residents.
The photo below, also from 10 August 2024, is of a rally held on the adjacent Blackley Oval. Although invited by the rally organisers neither of the two Labor councillors for Ward 3 attended. It’s time to elect new councillors and a new Mayor who actually listen to, and engage with the community. Local Government election day is Saturday 14 September 2024, and there are plenty of alternative candidates. Go vote.
Blackley and Wallarah Ovals
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Lambton Ker-rai, Then and Now
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Spring 2023
Following my usual custom of noting the start of Spring when the first leaf buds appear on my mulberry tree, this year is unseasonably early. One could almost say unreasonably early, coming 15 days earlier than last year.
This is now the seventh year I’ve photographed the first buds of spring on this tree. I’ve graphed the results below, and while this is admittedly just one collection point of climatic related data, the trend is clear.
