xjenavivex

Hi Everyone, this is a guest post from one of my great friends, Gillian Polack. When she gave me the opportunity to host a post of hers, I jumped at the chance. She's always informative, often enchanting, and even a little scary given the right material. In addition to enjoying her friendship, I've been a big fan for years. Check out her post and leave her comments. You will find her most engaging. I can't wait to read her new book.



Thank you so much for letting me visit! I am an Australian writer and my new novel (The Time of the Ghosts) is set in Canberra, which just happens to be where I live. my novel is about ageing and cultural baggage and bushrangers and werewolves and cups of tea. Surprisingly few people know much about Canberra, apart from the obvious fact that it’s the capital of Australia and all the politicians flock here a few times a year to govern. Let me introduce you to her.

New Parliament House was built by lopping off the top of a hill (I walked on it when it had its top lopped off), hollowing it out, then building it up again. Like the TARDIS, it’s bigger on the inside. Unlike the TARDIS, it has grass on the outside. When the building was new and before security became strict, a whole bunch of us slid down that grass. This means that I have officially sat on politicians, for when I made my slide Parliament was sitting and I slid over grass that was directly over one of the Chambers. I possibly shouldn’t be pleased about this.We have two Parliament Houses. The old one is supposed to be called “The Museum of Australian democracy” but locals still say “Old Parliament House. It was built as a temporary building when government was shifted to Canberra in the 1920s. Temporary buildings don’t normally last quite as long as this did, for it wasn’t actually superseded by the new building until the late 80s. Locals mostly visit it for the food and the rose gardens these days. The museum is excellent, but, when the capital city is small (we have less than 350,000 people) politics and political education can be a bit wearying. Most people I know take note of the pubs and restaurants the politicians like and only visit them when Parliament is not sitting. There are so many good places to eat in Canberra that this does no-one any harm, except maybe the egos of the politicians, for there isn’t much of “Oh, you’re famous!” around here.

We have a lot of monumental and wonderful buildings, mostly on an artificial lake named after Canberra’s designer, Walter Burley Griffin. Every year, the local government lights them up and turns them into slideshows of glorious art. Let me give you a day and night view of one of those buildings. Questacon is a science centre. And because I can, how about one of the National Library, lit up by night.

Mostly, Australia thinks of Canberra as the bush capital. We have parks, gardens, bushland, mountains, rivers… the lot. From my very suburban flat to the nearest park is 70 metres. To the nearest bushland is a mile. We’re heading into summer now and the bush capital can becoe an inferno. Every summer we say “Not this year, please.”

I always think of this city as a palimpsest. It has layers. It looks very dull on the surface. It’s clean and has monuments and is exceptionally good looking. Underneath the surface, it’s fascinating. In some ways, it’s a haunted city. In other ways, it’s a spiderweb that draws in the best of the rest of Australia.