Another new sports stadium

is being planned on the riverside of our CBD. It isn't needed.

Even Middle Cat - the only member of the family to take an active interest in any sort of sport - told me yesterday, "We don't need that."

The estimated cost is $700m. I can think of better things to spend that $700m on when we have people without houses, the frail elderly in urgent need of accommodation and much more.

But I also came back to one of those projects I dream about. We could do it for a tenth of the cost of a sports stadium and the impact on community health and mental well being would be far greater. Yes, we need that arts and crafts hub even more than before. 

Many people discovered and re-discovered the the pleasure, the joy, the thrill and the satisfaction of making things in the past fifteen months. The Covid19 lock downs have had unexpected up sides as well as all the down sides. People have made things. They have learned new skills. 

I remember art and craft lessons at school. One of my earliest memories is of pressing my hand down on the stapler so that I could staple the cardboard "rabbit" ears to a strip of cardboard which fitted rather uncomfortably around my head. We coloured the ears in and stuck coloured egg shapes on the strip of cardboard.  By the time I was in my third year at school we were supposed to be able to handle a tapestry size sewing needle and cover a piece of hessian fabric with "running" and "cross" stitches.  I was hopeless of course but I was made to try.  I remember going into the school library - the one that nobody else seemed to use - and finding a book about embroidery. I wanted to know more. I was probably wondering if there was an easier way to do what seemed to me to be impossible. I doubt if that sort of book features in the local library now. There were projects in it. I remember looking at the apron, at the place mats, at the head scarf and wondering whether anyone had ever made them. There were no photographs of course. It would have been much too expensive at that time. 

I knew about sewing and knitting. Most children did. People did not go and simply buy clothes the way they do now. Clothes were not available in that way. If a mother could not sew then some other relative would have to help. I remember my mother who had a "Certificate III" in dressmaking helping other women draft patterns from the books by Enid Gilchrist. I remember standing in the shop  not far from where my paternal grandparents lived and waiting for my mother to decide whether to buy one fabric or another. We were never asked what we might like. It just happened. I do remember my paternal grandmother buying knitting wool in the same place and asking me, "Blue?" She knew it was my favourite colour.  

My grandfather was a tailor but he worked with wood too. He taught my brother to make his first rough wooden "boat". My brother recently made me a beautiful wooden box, a birthday gift that I treasure. The Senior Cat loved working with timber. He would still be doing it if there was any way of doing it. 

My mother sewed her own clothes almost all her life. She even made two ball gowns for the school balls that were common in rural communities. When knit fabrics became common she bought an over-locker and taught herself to sew t-shirts and night wear for the family. The money saved soon overcame the cost of the over-locker. I don't know that she enjoyed doing it that much. It was just something you did. She would look at garments in shops - while we would jig around impatiently - and then put them back. She was not impressed with cheap workmanship. We children were not impressed. All we wanted to do was go somewhere else.

But now the Senior Cat still folds origami paper. Brother Cat makes cupboards and furniture and toys. Middle Cat paints and draws. The Black Cat "fiddle" with paper and glue and other things. I knit and crochet. The other day I made some polymer clay buttons - the first lot. I might make some more. I've tried to restrict  such hobbies. There will be a space issue when I finally need to move. 

But I don't sew. I just admire those who can.