You can experience village life in a big city of migrants …
It is the first time the property has been offered for sale in 41 years. Filled with character, the property is a mere stone's-throw away from various parks, shopping hubs, a conveniently-located school, and native wetlands.
Slovenians like Czechoslovaks in the past refer to a special piece of furniture as ‘table talk’.
Table talk is the place where family and friends meet to discuss day’s events, where the women fold the washing, reveal a few secrets and even share a meal with men if they behave 🤣Amen.
If only kitchen tables could talk, like the one at 134 Vrbov where chef extraordinaire, Maria Imrichova, cooked for her six children.
I know that at 15 Gerald Avenue, the table was also a witness, a confidant, a constant. Each of its joys and scars a story. A burn of a hot Slovenian herbal tea cup as a tough decision was chewed over. Faint black felt-tip pen marks, evidence of an unattended child and a preoccupied mother and father. Spilled home distilled slivovica, plumb brandy, left few pale patches as memories of the migration journey was spilled into the open. A tough journey peppered with risks and longing, all those mixed emotions of leaving old culture for new unknown melting pots. The table was sanded and oiled, polished and cleaned. Then sullied again by new life’s goings on Down Under.
Sometimes the foreground, other times the background. The tables are always there! With a way of finding themselves in the centre of stories, events and things. The places of work, duty, but most of all shared experiences and wisdom.
Do tables know how the daughter feels about selling over 50 years of memories? Do the tables know that this decision to sell is a decision that is not taken lightly. Do the table notice the way the daughters’ (and sons’) shoulders drop as the thoughts of selling old home enters their thoughts?
Condell Park was named after Ousley Condell, an engineer who arrived on 8 May 1829 on the barque Swiftsure with 13 other settlers. He applied for a position in the public service and was granted four 50-acre (200,000 m2) adjoining lots in 1830 that he called Condell Park.
Black Charlie's Hill, located in Simmat Avenue Condell Park, was named after a local identity whose nickname was 'Black Charlie'. His real name is said to have been Charles Luzon or Charlie Lopez, a man of Aboriginal ancestry. He lived near Edgar Street, South Yagoona and like others in the area, during the early 1900s, grew vegetables that he carried off to the market by horse and cart. His home was constructed of corrugated iron. Black Charlie was said to fire a single shot each evening promptly at 9pm but the reason was never disclosed. Some suggested he was hunting rabbits, others to warn of the approach of aircraft. Speaking of hills:
