Sunday, June 19, 2011

Tumbleweeds

This week my two babies and I went to visit my Nanna. I am very lucky to be nearly 40 (good God – can this be true??) and still have grandparents to visit. This is one of the many advantages to having young parents.

My Nanna resides in the first town I ever lived in. It is tiny. Tumbleweed tiny. And it seems to shrink further every time I visit it.

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This is the sign that welcomes you to the town. The first time my Dad saw this he was indignant – they had down-graded the town to a village. As you can see Bute is so small they don’t even declare the population. I think it is a statement of the highest optimism to say that the population is growing.

Bute is bordered on one side by distant rolling hills and on the other by endless wheat plains…

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My Nanna lives across the road from the wheat silos and, strange as it may seem, I love the silos. There is a certain majesty to the way they rise up out of the wheat and stretch into a endless blue sky.

Bute has some lovely old buildings that smack of South Australia….

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The Town Hall

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And the RSL hall

But the business side of the main street makes me sad…

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When I was small there was a bank, a hardware store, a deli with a toy section, a supermarket and a shop selling farm equipment. Now just the supermarket remains.

Meanwhile, the nearest town, Kadina,is going ahead like crazy. They even have a Target and are building McDonalds. I was looking through old photos while I was at Nanna’s and was almost overcome with nostalgia for a lost time and a disappearing place.

Does this happen to you? Or am I just a sentimental fool?

4 comments:

  1. My home place of Stoke on Trent once produced the worlds most famous and beautiful pottery and one by one they have bitten the dust and not very much is produced there these days. It is very sad to visit as so much has disappeared now and roads that were familiar are no longer there. We get lost trying to find places. It was described recently as being so poor that not even Pizza Express were interested in opening an outlet there. It is sad because the people are very warm and genuine and have suffered a lot and it needs a big cash injection to get it started again. It will always be my home town though.

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  2. A friend told me about the McDonalds at Kadina CRAZY. I can remember playing tennis at Bute.

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  3. Me too! It is sad when a town (or suburb even) no longer has the essentials. I wish things were as they were! I think town planners should base their plans on the Milly Molly Mandy town planning principle. Remember the map in the front of the books? Everything important was within walking distance from Milly Molly Mandy's house. The shop and the drapery. I used to love going to the drapery with my Mum.

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