Warning :- Please read this with tongue firmly planted in cheek.One of the things I like about blogging is the chance to learn about cultures other than my own. So I think it is time for a bit of Aussie cultural history. This might even be a history lesson for any of you young Aussie city girls who may never have seen or used what I'm talking about.
While I was putting this block together (which I might redo as I've just seen two bits the same together), I was reminded of my childhood. I was looking at the potting shed, surrounded now by roses, just like the one I knew. Even the colour of its walls is similar.
Remember what? A potting shed? No. Our old outhouse or dunny as we used to call them. Don't ask, I have no idea how that name came about. Does anyone? You might have spelt it dunnie if you were posh. Most of us up here in Queensland didn't get an indoor toilet until the 1960s. We used to have a little shed in the backyard with a can - no flushing. The nightsoil man would come to change the can. Heaven help you if he arrived while it was in use! Ours had miniature roses growing around it. That's what trigger the walk down memory lane.
Many were converted into potting sheds when indoor loos were built. I remember renting an old house with 2 girlfriends in the early 1980s. The dunny had been retained as a potting shed and the real toilet was in a tucked away, hard to find spot. We, straight faced, sent many a young man 'out the back' to our dunny only to fall about laughing when they returned very confused.
A friend of my father's blew his up with a stick of dynamite. Townsville was close to being a frontier town in the early 60s.
Anyway I hope I have not offended anyone. :-)
As for the quilt, I have decided to try but not get too stressed about my corners matching. And I know this block has turned out a bit too yellow in the corner. So what, I'm enjoying doing it and I'm not entering it in any competitions.
Take care everyone,
Kayly
