When I was in design college my class was given an assignment to make a piece of  jewellery in a presentation box that could be given from a representative from one country to another.  We were all asked to pull a country’s name from a hat.  I got Poland.

The assignment required that we all some research about the country we were given.

I knew nothing about Poland before I did my assignment and I was really amazed at how bloody and troubled Poland’s history had been. Being between Germany, Sweden, France and Russia has been a curse for the Polish people and it’s amazing that Poland has lasted over the centuries.

The jewellery is made up of various symbols from Polish history. I made the brooch in a rough manner so it would like something made by the common person. I wanted it to communicate that it was a heartfelt gift from one people to another people and not some meaningless bauble from one dignitary to another. 

The background cross comes from a medieval knight’s belt and is made from titanium representing the strength of the Christian faith in Poland. The silver wings are from 17th century cavalry armour when Poland had the best cavalry in Europe and they represent the Polish fighting spirit. The amber in the middle has been fashioned to look like an electrical resistor and represents the Polish resistance to the Soviet Union.

The box is covered with red shellac to represent all the blood that has been spilt and the names around the opening are the names of battles where the Poles have been triumphant. I tried to give the whole thing a medieval look, as though it is the reliquiae of the Polish spirit that has been kept safe through all that Poland has gone through and suffered.

We also had to produce a background poster to go behind the jewellery when it was displayed at the end of the year.

On my recent trip to Melbourne I passed Luna Park (an old amusement park opened in 1912) in St. Kilda on the way to Acland Street and I thought it might be good to get a photo of the entrance.

As I walked through the car park along the side of Luna Park I noticed the wooden roller coaster and how unsafe it looked (to my untrained eyes at least). Quite a few of the upright timbers of the supporting structure looked as though they were beginning to split. The ends of the many of the cross members were rotting and the bolts fastening them to the uprights appeared to be fairly rusty. I took a few pictures and I can assure you that most of the timber work where I stood looked like what  you see in the three photos below.

I didn’t have to hunt around to get these shots, they were in plain view as there were so many choices of ratty looking timberwork to choose from.

When I was a kid I thought that those old style roller coasters were dangerous and I didn’t like going on them because I feared that they’d fall apart when I was on them. After looking at the roller coaster at Luna Park, I wouldn’t get on one even if a gun was held at my head.

It’s a long time since I’ve posted to this blog.  The reason for this is because I have been preparing my house for sale and I’ve been overseas for five weeks. 
 
It took me about a month of my free time to replace the rusted handrail on my lower balcony and the rotted balustrade of my upper balcony.
 
This first picture shows the rusted out lower balustrade.

This next picture shows the balustrade that I made out of wood.

One of my wife’s co-worker friends, Jade,

 who was born in Malaysia, invited us to her wedding in Kuala Lumpur.  My wife and I try to go overseas at least once a year, so we thought we’d take this opportunity to do a bit of travelling in South East Asia.
 
Since we were going all the way to Malaysia, we thought we might as well, visit Vietnam and Thailand as well. Needless to say, a 5 week trip overseas takes a little organising and I had work commitments so I had no time to make posts to this blog for the last couple of months.
 
So over the next couple of weeks I will be making many posts concerning our travels.