Catherine Street, Lilyfield on Saturday 21 November 2020
Catherine is a long street. I know it from the days when I lived in the area. One part belongs to Leichhardt, at the other to Lilyfield.
That’s where I am today. It’s a sunny Saturday. Clothes and things are displayed on the footpath in front of houses for sale. Further down in the shopping strip are some tables with bric-à-brac in front of two old buildings with closed stores. One has a beautiful door and large windows. The door is unevenly painted white and yellow. A poster tells me that it was an old post office. I also learn that the many street stalls are due to a garage sale trail happening in the area. I imagine how the post office would have looked in Colonial times. Situated on a dusty road, a horse tied up at the front, a general store nearby. I can’t find anything about it on the internet.
Across the street is the ‘Friendly Grocer’. I thought it was a local feature, but find out later that it's the name of a chain. On the street corner is a café. It's closed. I peek through the window. It has a coffee roasting machine, and milk crates hang from the ceiling serving as lampshades. On the outside are green tiles with an art deco poppy design from a former incarnation of the shop.
I go back to one of the spots I have passed before. They have already packed up most of it, carrying it into a ramshackle house. Outside is a Bluebird old-timer camper van. ‘Built for Cruisin’, it says on the windshield. The small group of people lingering and chatting on the footpath are of a generation who would have gone cruising in camper vans like that in the 70s. People I would have met. Except for one younger woman with a little boy. He struggles away from the old guy who took him in his arms. “He still doesn’t like me”, the man says.
Next is a park. Groups of people have parties. Further along, used to be the Council garbage dump, and maybe still is. There is a view of the CBD high rises from there. Close by is an empty lot with a red car, dumped. The weed has grown already up to the windows. On the fence nearby it says ‘No Parking’.
