Chippendale Design Precinct Trail 19 and 20 August

Several of Chippendale’s furniture and design showrooms have combined to offer tours and talks of their showrooms on Friday and Saturday 19 and 20 August. They’re offering a $3,000 cash prize for the winner of a quiz on a card given out during the tours. Participating showrooms include: Argent Corporate Culture Designer Rugs Envoy Furniture Inlite Insitu Tappeti Fine Hand Crafted Rugs Thinking Erognomix Viabizzuno They’ve published a useful event guide which... Read More

Vertical garden in an hour at $nil cost

Vertical garden with soil exposed Timber pallet vertical garden with soil in sacks Tafe Outreach students built this couple of vertical gardens in my back yard. It took a couple of hours to do the first one but it had to lie down flat for four weeks while the plants took in the soil. The other one was built and lifted up and the top planting done in about an hour; by containing all the soil in the sacks and cutting a notch in the sacks to insert the plants we greatly speeded up... Read More

Why do I love rain?

When I smell rain coming, or hear it falling on my roof, I feel happy deep inside. It’s been like that since I can remember. On the farm, lying in bed as a kid listening to it on the grass outside it made me smile.  “That’ll fix things”, I’d think.  The new green grass would be strong in my mind’s eye, and I couldn’t wait to see it.  “Dad’s crop will like this.” Rain then renewed what was around me and what our farming family depended on. Even now, six decades... Read More

Death of Duck n Swan

The Duck n Swan Hotel closes at the end of this May – this weekend. Many of us miss it already. Unpretentious.  Good food. A place where we could talk. Quiet enough for conversation. Imagine that. All the staff will go. We’ll miss them, too. The new owners are apparently from the UK and, according to some who have met them, have some knowledge of the class system there. And so it goes, M  Read More

Greg builds a shed

Shed in bits + Greg Greg and shed, finished Greg built a shed this weekend.  Provided by Sydney City Council through the good work of Russ Grayson there, it arrived at Pine Street Creative Centre on Friday.  Starting on it after some lunch time tucker at the Duck n Swan on Saturday, young Greg downed tools after sunset when the torch held by his assistant failed to find the holes for the screws to go in.  Today Greg finished the job and now it’s ready for the Pine Street... Read More

Venerating our trees

With the guidance of Louise Fowler-Smith from the Sydney College of Fine Arts and her students who will create the art, one of our trees will be venerated. The tree is the large Jacaranda in the Pine Street Creative Arts Centre. Pine Street’s involvement is to “supply the tree” which sits within the Centre’s property boundary, located next to the basketball court. The Centre Manger, Jane Hooper, did get permission from the City’s Public Art unit... Read More

Scenes from a Chippo walk today

Wrong Connection [phone hanging from electricity wires - good throw, I reckon What's that little lump on the corner ahead? Aah, horseman, passing by Shall I think of myself as 'etc' today? To finish the walk - some trees: Paw paw, Tamarillo, Pomelo, Caffre and more . . .  Read More

The best pies in Chippendale? And Sydney’s best taxi driver?

Let’s speak of two things. Pies, and taxi driver wisdom. To pies, first. It was when my son, Julian, far more fastidious than I, said, “That pie was the best I’ve ever had”, that I thought about the pies at 6,7, ate, the little cafe on the corner of Abercrombie and Levey, here. For location, see map of Chippo put up by Sustainable Chippendale, here: www.sustainablechippendale.com… Then, today, doing my best to do nothing much this long weekend, I... Read More

9 Garage sales in Chippo this Sunday and counting

So far 9 houses in Chippo have registered their garage sales this Sunday. There’s a few in Myrtle street and others within ten minutes walking distance. It’s easy to register your garage sale, it’s free and there are handy tips on the web page about how to do it. For a list of garage sales, and a map of where they are and what they’re selling or giving away, you can enter the postcode 2008 when you visit this link: www.garagesaletrail.com… The project... Read More

Chippo Garden & Compost Workshop Wed 23 March

On Wednesday 23 March – next week – Sydney City Council will hold a workshop about composting and gardening in Chippendale. Commencing at 630 and finishing at 8 pm at the Pine Street Creative Arts Centre, the workshop will enable each participant to express their ideas and opinions and to offer criticisms and to ask questions. The information from the workshop will be used to develop the Sustainable Streets and Communities Plan being prepared for Chippendale by the... Read More