Sometimes I have to work. I know, a great shame, but there it is. Money doesn't grow on trees, unless you're a cherry farmer like my cousin in New Zealand.
One small compensation for working, apart from money, is the view. In between working and blogging, I gaze out the window; just like so many years ago in school, when I sat at a wooden desk with an inkwell and stared out at a line of poplars turning gold in the autumn sunshine while Miss Burns read the next chapter of Mavis Thorpe Clark's The Min Min, Ivan Southall's Hills End or Colin Thiele's February Dragon.
Unfortunately, there's no Miss Burns to read books to me here, so I have to do it myself, when I'm not blogging or working or gazing out the window. Recently I read John Buchan's Greenmantle online at Project Gutenberg:
Almost at once I struck a road, a big highway running north and
south. I trotted along in the bitter morning to get my circulation
started, and presently I began to feel a little better. In a little
I saw a church spire, which meant a village. Stumm wouldn't be likely
to have got on my tracks yet, I calculated, but there was always the
chance that he had warned all the villages round by telephone and
that they might be on the look-out for me. But that risk had to be
taken, for I must have food.
That's exactly what I think as the clock moves towards midday. Must have food.
Oh, the view. The slender spire at left is the Arts centre, rising out of the murk of the Alexandra Gardens. The photo isn't very clear, I'm afraid.
To the right of the spire, tomorrow's Herald Sun and Weekend Australian are right now being written in the shorter and fatter of the two ugly brown buildings.
The rocket in the middle is Eureka Tower, and if you think that's in bad taste you haven't seen its website. The small smudge of red to the immediate right of the building below Eureka is the Burnley Tunnel smokestack. It is from this that I saw billowing smoke a few weeks ago, following the crash in the tunnel.
The rest is just a bunch of buildings - the AXA one was once one of Melbourne's tallest when it was the National Mutual Centre. It had a top-floor restaurant called Pamplemousse.
Does anyone else have a room with a view, either at home or at work?
I quite like the beacon like effect of the building from whichever direction I approach the city - especially the west in the evening with the setting sun reflecting off that gold thingy atthe top. the web site though...there must be awards for sites that tasteless.
ReplyDeletefrom Steevil
ReplyDeleteFrom our close-in suburb west of Baltimore, we can see the city lights from our kitchen window (we're on a ridge). Fireworks at the stadiums or the Inner Harbor are seen but not heard. The sunrise over downtown in OK too.
From my kitchen window at home I see ivy on a trellis, from my office window at home I can look down the street at our neighborhood houses.
ReplyDeleteFrom most of our son's house in Seattle I see Lake Washington and across it to Mountains.
A dentist recently opened up across the street from my work. I had a perfect view of the head of the person in the chair til he decided to invest in blinds.
ReplyDeleteHere? No view at all unless you count ugly chain mail fencing and glimpses of the neighbours yard through it (and we don't!). At home we look out onto trees and bushland and it's gorgeous. I used to have the best view at work - straight out onto agapanthas and golden bunny rosebushes in the front garden and from the back, bushland with big trees and the odd kangaroo. Just beautiful.
ReplyDeleteBoth my office windows look out into trees--the one at home into a silver maple (the buds are just turning into leaves) and the one at work into a immense, 3-story tall pine tree.
ReplyDeleteVery soothing, both of them, to computer-screen-tired eyes.
I do have a nice view at work--my window overlooks the main axis of Linn Park in Birmingham, with the big fountain in the center and the nice old courthouse on the other end. I have to keep my back to it otherwise I'd never get anything done.
ReplyDeleteNo view from work, but when I blog from the dining table at home I look onto the decking and scrub on the otherside of our fence. Once saw a naked guy (nothing but crocs) sprinting through the scrub in the middle of winter. We live near student residences for a Uni so I figure that explains it :)
ReplyDeleteFrom home, my office looks out into the leafy branches of two old and well established trees. If you stand out on the balcony, you'd ever know that you were looking out onto a busy road. It's lovely.
ReplyDeleteYes, Ed, it is an impressive building. Apparently they have just added a walkout see-through cubicle for the vertigo-free.
ReplyDeleteSteevil, in a previous house I used to see fireworks over the Yarra. Your view sounds nice.
HalfCups, nothing nicer than mountains beyond a lake. Do they change colour?
AOF, you are an actress in a Hitchcock movie.
RDM, I envy you your view. (PS: I have a Gold Bunny in the back yard at home.)
Lucette, I miss the tree views I had at my previous house; however there are some nice poplars at the end of the street.
Terry, that is very disciplined of you. I just face the window and stare out all day.
Tania, students can never afford clothes.
Lucy, yes - trees. They are the best. I miss my Castlewellan Golds. They have probably grown another forty feet since I last saw them.
I have a great view from my office window over a park. Beautiful. Oh, and straight into a student's residence building. Interesting things to see there in the mornings. People seem to forget that windows are see-through.
ReplyDeleteOr they don't care.
ReplyDeleteLast year I was working higher up in our Melbourne hospital for little people. On winter mornings, as the sun cracked over the frosted park, we could watch as red and yellow hot air balloons filled and drifted skywards.
ReplyDeleteI know that park intimately, Melt.
ReplyDeleteThose very same balloons used to drift over my backyard when I lived near Princes Park. Magnificent sight.