The Life and Times of Peter Green
updated 11 August 2026
 Great News! William Ricketts Sanctuary is open again! |
July 28thOur niece Maddison turns 13 soon, yes a teenager. The years really pick up speed, I remember so clearly when she was born. Such a great young lady, I did originally write "kid" but she's a teen now. So weird, and we are old fart Uncles, ok COOL old fart Uncles. I send her some Taylor Swift stuff and grab a $100 HER voucher which has about 50 stores on it. So she can decide on something fun for her birthday...in a few days time.July 29thFogged in, you can't even see our street , the sun is rising but you can't tell. I take it really slow on the road to the Food Bank. Olinda Bakery has a window covering of fairy lights so it is rather welcoming in the foggy abyss. I grab my coffee which helps wake me up. Locals arrive and they all go "man did you see that fog".Home to put up Markys YouTube Wednesday clip. A fun one, Paul Hester & Nick Seymour on Saturday Morning Live. Way back in 1988. It's crazy they take over the show, especially Paul who is rather unstoppable when the camera is upon him. So if you want a bit of a chuckle, check this one out. Link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQGyYLvkuD8 I head back to Box Hill hospital today for a third scan. New Dr's this time but just as efficient. They take me in early and I am back in the car 30 minutes later, it sounds like on this 3rd scan everything is ok. A small internal cyst on my knee with some liquid but nothing to be worried about. But they doubt it is causing any problems. I call into the post office and mail some presents home. Pretty much ticked everything off my "To Do" list today. Mark has a roaring fire going so we settled in for the night. July 30thGood to see Brett Whiteley's Raper street Surry Hills studio & exhibition space has re-opened. Such a great space , the studio intact - from Whiteley's art supplies even a cool 1985 letter from Paul Kelly to Brett on the desk, 6 of Whiteley's originals on show and several unfinished works. I'd been to the space many many years ago. When I was very young, 14 or 15 my art teacher took a handful of us to the infamous Yellow House and Whiteley was one of the artists we met. I wish I had a camera with me , I never did around that age, frustrating all these years later. That was the first time (that I recall) that I smelt the scent of marijuana . The artists all on their best behaviour with us kids in the room, no one smoking dope in front of us.Working at the charity today, light duties around my leg. By 3.30 it's aching a bit so I am glad to get home. July 31stI climb up on a ladder and put the Tin Star above the door for our Tin Star Studios (TSS). It looks rather fabulous. I guess we'll commence filming on the next project in a few weeks time. The space has a good feel to it. Hopefully we'll capture some good interviews etc in TSS.I just noticed it is the end of July. A month of Winter remains, but it tends to linger up here on Mt D. Mark tells me we are almost out of fire wood. I find a small broken tree limb at the back of the property so take that into the garage. We can saw it up but who knows if it is dry enough for our fire. Maybe. I can add one big chunk every night when the fire is going, that might extend our wood pile slightly. The house has full heating but we love having a fire. I try to do my census online but it kept failing so I went to the help page and ordered some paper copies. No biggie, will do it on the night. Mum is home from the hospital and a tad cantankerous. I know she is frustrated and I allow for it. But even I am only so patient. August 1stI'm driving to Olinda for my coffee and enjoying an interview with David Coverdale from Deep Purple. He sounds great, a very cool interview on Mountain Radio.The sun breaks through while myself and some locals are sitting outside. Even the slightest bit of warmth is truly wonderful. I strip down to a T-shirt and feel those rays on my arms. Everyone else is still wearing jackets, I have a great imagination. Suns up! I had good intentions of visiting the Historical Society today for its once a month meeting but got side tracked. I'll attend next month. August 2ndSo every so often we put up a video on our YouTube page that doesn't fit our YouTube Wednesday agenda, usually on a Sunday. So around midday today a short clip around ENZSO. It is from A Current Affair 1997. The first ENZSO project was rather successful. In September 1996 we all received a Platinum album award for sales of ENZSO in Australia. It went on to sell double platinum (140,000 units) here. #4 Nationally, and #2 in New Zealand. It was a very different tour to do , complex having the NZ Symphony Orchestra tagging along (Adelaide orchestra for Oz) , saying that- fascinating to see the diversity of the Orchestra interwoven with Split Enz & other artists live.You can enjoy it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOosTKiar1Y Much to my absolute delight Mark gives me a Jimmy & The Boys live cd from one of their shows, I don't have it, and I love it. The band sound like they have taken way too much speed- absolutely wild and the songs played insanely fast. Fuck they were a truly great band. In my Top 5 favourite bands. While the video clip is uploading I zoom down to Kalorama oval and pick up a container of pine cones for tonights fire. It gives us an extra night , stretching the wood out for the final month of Winter. Still, it's so beautiful outside today, it really doesn't feel like Winter. The pine cones add such a nice smell to the house. Midnight looks rather blissed out. We enjoyed the Swedish Sci Fi movie "Watch The Skies". Partially based on UFO Sweden. The movie had such warmth , and a kind of innocence cool. Rare these days, it is worth checking out. August 3rdI sing Happy Birthday to Maddison while sipping my coffee at Olinda. We can not believe she is 13! A teenager , good grief, we blinked and here come the teen years. We are blessed to have her, she is amazing and her adult life will be too.I book my Dr appointment (again) for Wednesday, just follow up stuff. I've willed my leg to improve and it has somewhat, in fact a lot. I still need to find out what happened or what is happening. An exhausting effort to cancel my David Jones card, I just never use it anymore and it doesn't have any real use. I cut the last tree limb for fire wood. I still need a tiny bit more to get us through the last weeks of Winter. It will turn up, it always does, the forest provides. Mark goes down to the wine cellar which is quite a decent size, we use it for some of our music storage. He accidentally locks Midnight inside. She returns my calls later when I don't see her , cats are so sneakily inquisitive. She comes up to me meowing like I did it. HA! I wheel about 150 paperback books, all in great condition to the car for my Book Cave at the charity. I think they will all sell , gives the charity some extra bucks. August 4thI take all the paperbacks into the charity and set up an area for them. My boss tells me that by the afternoon half of them have gone already. Some bargains for $2 I must admit, I'm not surprised.I call into PO Box 50, Kalorama and am thrilled as my Crosfill "Alien /Yeti" shirt arrives. It is so cool, I love it. I just know some people won't get it. I'll have to buy MG another of their shirts as they have a few good ones. August 5thPeople are freaking out over the fog, so many cars have stopped by the side of the road as they can't see a thing, not even the line in the middle of the road. I'm just waiting for an accident.Food Bank is crazy this morning, everyone with a mission , focused. The humans arrive a bit early today, before our final delivery arrives so a bit of craziness. I drive to Monbulk afterwards and loads of water across the road. The Black Beauty just pushes her way through the deluge. A quick grocery shop, all under $100 this week so that's pretty good. I head to the Dr's today and pretty much all good news. All the scans, X-rays etc have pretty much showed my leg is pretty good. They are not 100% sure but looking like I have stretched some tendons so a bit of physio- 5 sessions starting next week. If that's the case I am relieved. I just have to have a "go slow" around work till it is repaired. Today's Markys YouTube Wednesday is a fairly rare live track. This is our last clip from the Crowded House gig(s) at the Corner Hotel in Melbourne . The 2 fan club shows in November 1996. This is from the 2nd night. The rarely played "Everything Is Good For You" so check this one out, the band's in fine form. It's on our YouTube page now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVHp6NwXR44 A rather long day so didn't feel like cooking, so in the car and off to Kelly's Tavern at Olinda. Owner Carolyn has this great table right near the fire for us. Some local friends Sue & Mark arrive so they sit with us for awhile for a laugh and a chat. A really enjoyable evening. Maybe we do fit in up here. The one sad thing is that I hear from my friend Steve, that our beloved Russell Kidner from our Skyhooks roadcrew has passed away- very sad news, a lively bloke. One of our big protectors as kids at gigs.> Nice chat to Greg Skyhook tonight, about a possible project. August 6thI try to sleep in just a tiny bit but my furry cat alarm is determined I get out of bed. So I do. It's cold this time of morning.I see NSW is in the middle of its 30th consecutive warmer than average Winter. No real snow yet at Kalorama either. We are due for a good snowfall but not looking good for this year. I fill the car up with petrol, $50 is still amazing, but those with larger cars can spot the price rise- thanks for nothing Trump. August 7thI love the design on our new 50c piece. It features Vincent Lingiari's outstretched hand and Gough Whitlam's. Cool design from such a major moment.I wear my new shirt to the bakery, it's a Summer shirt so what the hell am I thinking. People admire my Yetis and Aliens. The sun comes out and my friend Al and young Angus arrive and we sit in the sun rays. It doesn't last long, my Arctic coat is on. I always wonder what young Angus must think of us old guys and our oddball conversation. Al says that he is Satan and so we call Al that all morning. The group chanting "Hail Satan" when he departs. Hang out with Ian and his mate inside and we talk politics and other stuff. A nice morning. I buy Mark a packet of chocolate frogs. Home and into the garage and chop some fire wood into smaller size, I am hoping it will get a few fires out of this and enough heat to burn the recently cut bigger pieces. I discover another box of books in the garage. So I wade through them, and take 95% to the charity. The girls are not used to seeing me on a Friday so I liven the place up a bit. Two older ladies come up to me when I am shelving some Sci Fi books and they tell me how much they love the Book Cave space, which is nice. The Crowded House Everything Is Good For You, zooms past our target number, in fact by morning a further 600 have watched it (1600+) as well. Nice when I don't have to encourage people to watch our clips. 888 videos now, 7,365,000 views and soon to hit 10,000 subscribers. How cool is that! August 8thI scrounge around in the garage and find a few more pieces of wood for the nightly fire so chop it up, ready to go.There is an amazing article on the ABC news page around the Elk River cave near Buchanan in Victoria (East Gippsland) . Such a good read, it inspired me to go up with Mark to the cave area in a few weeks- Royal cave and Fairy cave are both fairly easy to access. Famous 1900's caver Frank Moon always believed an underground river ran in that area, the discovery of Elk cave confirmed it. I'm driving home from coffee and go past William Ricketts Sanctuary and am delighted to see hundreds of people heading in to enjoy it. Yes William Ricketts is open again, 7 days a week. I guess this means the Liberal candidate for Monbulk (Fitzmaurice) will end up with egg on her face after her political point scoring waffle that nothing is being done to repair the sanctuary. I pull the car over down into the car park. I get the last spot. I walk through those gates at Ricketts and I can't help but smile, so very different to when I used my climbing rope to get inside to take photos after the storm disaster. So many people and it is fantastic, mix of locals and tourists, word is out that it is open again. I chat to Rachel at the desk and she is really informative, knows her stuff. So I head out into the sanctuary and it still has that magic. If nothing else the place has been tidied up but it still has that nature and art feel. The perfect balance. A few parts still closed to the public, the Kiln and the Viewing room. I chat to people as we all wander about. Towards the end I meet 2 girls, and we have a fun chat. One of them has a podcast and I kind of agree to be on it. I give them my email address. I don't always say "yes" to things these days but they were great and had a nice spirit about them so I may see them down the line. Anyway, brilliant to have the William Ricketts Sanctuary open - it is FREE to enter and also the car park is FREE. So please come visit. August 9thThe latest polling has arrived around the upcoming Victorian election. The new Labor leader for Victoria (and Premier) Ben Carroll jumps ten points ahead of Liberal Jess Wilson. I always felt Wilson to be rather lame, the Libs should have kept Brad Battin.Catch up with Ian, Mark and Sue at the bakery. We all sit inside as the wind has a bite to it and rain is on the way. Everyone is talking about the Sanctuary being open again and it has benefited local businesses. Mark and myself spend the afternoon in the office, I'm finishing off this diary update. Midnight curled up on her big pillow being well behaved for once. August 10thI can't believe it is FIFTY years today since we saw the mighty Skyhooks at Wollongong Town Hall on their Brats are Back Tour. They just returned from America and had released their new album "Straight In A Gay Gay World". We were these very young teens with our little pocket cameras. We waited for the band to arrive and took photos and got autographs. Like everyone else we signed their tour truck. As we were doing it, one of the prick teachers from our high school (nasty ol' Mr Roberts) went past and gave us a verbal tongue lashing for doing so. We stood our ground (and lied) and said Bongo said we could sign the bus. He didn't know what to do, the power crazy prick and scuttled off. This was the second time the Hooks had played Wollongong and we were so excited, god we were so young. So in honour of it being half a century Mark has put together a little tribute to that 'Gong show. Please give it a quick view here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-ljFNnx1Cw Thats it for the moment, as my new shirt has printed on it. Veritas Latet. The truth lies hidden. Love PG |
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