Pride in Progress @ Pride Centre
In a week where progress seems so close but so far, it’s reassuring that some of the seeds planted in our community are set to bloom. But clearly we need to mentally prepare ourselves for a 2021 with a twist or two or more, eg a Midsumma Pride March in May!
After the AFL Grand Final at the Gabba in October at night, perhaps anything is possible.
But TWiSK and St Kilda will be with you all the way.
This Week in St Kilda #240
Don’t hold your breath @ Council election results
St Kilda Watercolour Calendar @ Carin Lavery
Crime and cocktails @ Sisters on Zoom
30th party @ Linden Postcard Show
First prize poem @ Port Phillip Writes
Pride in Progress @ Pride Centre
Works at the new Pride Centre on Fitzroy Street are looking good to welcome tenants by December and the public in 2021. This would be very timely, coinciding with the tentatively rescheduled Midsumma Arts Festival now set for 19 April – 5 May with the Midsumma Pride March on Sunday 23 May.
2021 is also significant because it marks 40 years since the Victorian Parliament decriminalised homosexuality.
See Pride rise before your eyes with this time lapse video from Hansen Yuncken. 
Jude presents keys to the community @ Kerrie and Dolly show
Watch as Pride Chair Jude Munro AO presented the entire community with their key to the Pride Centre live on the Kerrie and Dolly Show.
Watch the video here 
Don’t hold your breath @ Council election results
Voting results will not be available until at least Thursday 5 November, with a final results not guaranteed until 13 November.
Postal ballots mailed before last Friday’s 6 pm deadline have until 30 October to arrive.
In the meantime, the VEC will begin extracting the ballots from their envelopes starting today (Monday 26 October).
Local VEC manager Trevor Sutherland told TWiSK that “[After extraction] all of the ballot papers will be data entered into the VEC’s computer count application. This will take place at the Melbourne Showgrounds on Thursday 5 November. The date for calculation of the result has not yet been confirmed.”
Forgot to vote? Click here to read what happens next
Result free election post-mortem @ Gateway Conversations with Marcus Pearl
Monday 26 October, 8 pm Facebook Live
The next Gateway Conversation with Marcus will discuss the Council Election 2020 with Sean Car (Southbank Local News) and Greg Day (TWiSK).
Tricky without the actual results, but an opportunity to reflect on the campaign.
www.facebook.com/watch/CrMarcusPearl/
St Kilda 2021 Watercolour Calendar @ Carin Lavery
Order online for pick up or post
Carin Lavery, St Kilda watercolour artist, has produced a special edition 2021 calendar. All profits go to the Salvation Army’s local Family Violence Program and Service while also giving free promotion for many local businesses. $30
View the calendar and buy online carinlavery.com
Twisted Sisters @ Sisters in Crime
Friday 30 October, 6 pm
YouTube
Three new novels – Rose Carlyle’s The Girl in the Mirror (Allen & Unwin), Sally Hepworth’s The Good Sister (Pan Macmillan) and Sonya Bates’ Inheritance of Secrets (HarperCollins) – all explore sisters; sisters who are variously sinister, secretive or strange. The authors will reveal all to Maggie Baron.
Free, but $10 tix gets you in the draw for a book pack
Tix and info
Crime and cocktails @ Sisters on Zoom
Watch on YouTube
Enjoy Crime and Cocktails, the Sisters in Crime’s Port Phillip Seniors’ Festival event on YouTube, with Irish author Ber Carroll interviewed by Tara Mitchell. 58 minutes of crime chat and friendly interrogation. Free
Sisters in Crime 
30th party @ Linden Postcard Show
Party on demand
Although the Linden Postcard Show 2020 doesn’t open until December, last week the crew at Linden presented an online 30th birthday party looking back at some of the past winners.
The highlight of the 60-minute party is curator Juliette Hanson excellent tour through a virtual exhibition of 21 past winners and their broader work (hint Juliette’s tour starts at just after 29 minutes). Fascinating.
YouTube
First prize poem @ Port Phillip Writes
Congrats to Roderick Waller, long-time Roomers Group participant, who won a First Prize in the Port Phillip Writes: Seniors Festival Writing Awards for this poem.
Haycarting
In 1956, eager, carefree, innocence
In flush of evening dusk
Joy of haying the summer rye
Raking, tying sheaves, stacking into stooks
The shire horse clopped, pulled the dray-cart, crossed the stream
to the hidden ley of laughing kids and folk
The pitchfork taller than the boy, though he mastered it, broke it to his will
Pitched the sheaves to the stacker boys, the cart filled twelve feet deep
The old grey stood, stubborn, careless, her face deep in the nosebag
Giant ribs puffed in and out, a few glad snorts, a clear mist of breath,
The reinsman under the elm, his tea a cheese and pickle sandwich his dear old mother made
‘This, the last load’, he sighed ‘been a long, hot, dusty day’
The dray-cart stacked high, not one more sheaf could be pitched, ‘all done!’ he cried
Then the pitchers and stackers climbed on
Hay stalks between their lips, the dray-master whistled his going home tune
The kids played, the women sang soft songs, sun’s shadow closed in
Mites and insects buzzed aloft, a pheasant screeched, a pigeon cooed, a blackbird sang it’s evening song, the entourage clipped on, old grey nodded rhythmically, knew this her last walk of the day
Her dinner awaited in the stable, a hose down, fresh water then gulped down from the sweat of work, these thoughts picked up her gait
Passed over the tadpole stream, the painted caravans stood long-side; the gypsy woman waved as she washed her pots and pans, and the brown moustached, gold-ringed men looked idly on
Passed by Bluebell Wood, the kids fell silent, heard of the mad witch lived there
Passed the stocks, not so long ago, a punishment for theft, the guilty arms and legs locked in
Where decent folk threw insults and rotten fruit at the lad or lass condemned
And just by there the old tramp stayed in his cobbled-up hut, a strange old rascal, some people said a wizard, and mothers warned their children ‘stay away’ on pain of ‘off to bed without your dinner’
Excitement peaked as they entered the gate, at the great hay barn they stared
Old grey made a vigorous stamp, quickened her hooves, saw the end of the work-a-day
Then eerily quiet went the kids and Mums as the dray-master backed up the dray
Brass tackle and leather, and harness undone, clattered to the ground; old grey shook her frame, saliva dripped, she gave a short sharp neigh, then led away to her dinner and fresh straw bed.
Mums and kids and men pitched the sheaves to the stackers, right up into the corners of rafters, pushed, sweated, screwed up faces in this last burst of work The little ones sat in the corners gradually filled up the barn with sweet hay sheaves for the milking cows through the long harsh winter nights and days
Then all is done, the moon a soft white rose, chatter died down as they wandered home, the boss waved ‘cheerio, see you all upon the morrow’.
Scratched limbs, hair full of hayseed, happy kids felt joy for the day, not seen as work, just another form of play, and the prospect of a shilling to spend in the lolly shop down in the village square
Tired Mums gone home, knew their husbands waited their tea, kids home from school, homework hidden, watched the newest black and white TV.
She shrugs, it’s her lot, ‘never mind I’m tired, I’m young and strong’, knows it’ll be midnight before her work is done. ‘Never mind, thank God, we’ve a roof and good food and a husband no drunk, and kids that pretend to be good’
As she knelt to pray, her husband snored in secret dreams, she thanked God for a day of sunshine and fresh air, and wage at the end of the week which she’d already spent on the Saturday market and bags of sweets for the kids. ‘Give me strength Lord, so tired, my bones ache to sleep’
She slid into her side of the roughhewn bed, glanced once at the black curly head of her mate, Smiled. Her soul surrendered; her eyelids dropped to dreamless sleep.
Roderick Waller
Read more about Roderick at The Wheeler Centre