An Interesting Building : St. Mary’s Church

There is this church I walk by quite often, called St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, located on Bathurst Street at Adelaide. It's steeple has been covered in scaffolding for what seems to be more than a year. All the effort being made to repair it indicated it was an important building, causing me to look into it further to see what the history of it was.

It turns out that the cornerstone was laid in 1881, with the spire having been completed in 1905. The style of the building is Gothic Revival and features rose windows. It was designed by a famous architect specializing in churches at the time, Joseph Connelly, who died before the steeple was completed, therefore his assistant finished the project according to his specifications. It was one of the first catholic churches to have been built to the west of the city core, in order to minister to the Irish immigrants who, at that time, were moving into that area of the city. It has since changed to a following that is primarily Portuguese, and I understand that several of the masses are given in Portuguese. During one week-end in the spring the whole neighbourhood is effected by street closures because they have a parade through the streets and a huge festival on the grounds of the church.

Anyway, seeing that a pretty major reconstruction was going on here, I began taking photos of it when I passed by, in the hopes that I'd be able to show you the whole process of the scaffolding coming down and the big reveal. However, since it is taking such a long time to complete the project, and my first pictures will be very stale if I were to wait to post them, I thought I'd show you what I have so far. I will follow-up on this post and show more works in progress, and the end result, once it is completed.

Here’s to a Long Marriage!

This will be the final post pertaining to our anniversary. Nick and I celebrated our 12th over the week-end with a modest gift exchange and special dinner we made ourselves. The modest gift decision was because, aside from wanting to save money, we need a couple of relatively large ticket items for our home, which we decided would be a better way to spend the money. However, the dinner at home was not what we had originally intended. We had planned on a dinner out in one of our favourite 'special occasion' places, but I am still limping around quite badly on a sprained ankle and the thought of venturing out (in sensible shoes) and limping across a nice restaurant with the bad posture that goes along with not being able to walk well, did not sound like a treat to me! So instead we bought some 'more special than usual' ingredients and a good bottle of red wine, and ate at home. We set the table with our best china and enjoyed our meal by candle-light, so it didn't feel at all like we were missing out.

Looking Back on our Anniversary

As Nick and I celebrated our 12th anniversary this week-end, I thought I'd show you some of our wedding pictures. But they were taken on film so they aren't up on the computer, and at this time I can't find our album. We have things still packed up in boxes after our kitchen renovation this summer. I did have one of them scanned, so I'm posting it, but it doesn't show our full outfits. My dress was floor length with a short train, and it was a burgundy jewel tone, made by Jessica McClintock. My bouquet was irises. Nick's suit was moire silk and was created by Hoax Couture. Photo taken by Luisa Salerno.

So I guess the wedding pictures will have to wait until our 13th anniversary post! In the meantime, I did find a series of shots of the two of us taken under various circumstances, some promotional shots for our band, The Rails. I notice the last shot we have of both of us is from last year so I guess it's time to get some new ones!

Flowers and a Certain Feline

The idea for this week's Caturday post came from Eddie himself! I was taking pictures of the lovely flowers Nick brought me yesterday, so I put them on a table covered with a cloth to make for prettier shots.

Now, I'm not sure about the cat(s) who share your home, but the one in ours really likes clothes on tables. Though he is not allowed up on tables, ones with a cloth seem to be just too much for him to resist. So, after I took the flower photos, I put the vase on the floor, in order to put the tablecloth away. And low and behold, Eddie graciously got into position and posed for me beside the flowers! Good Eddie :)

Food Friday : Homemade Bread and Open-Faced Sandwiches

I don't mean to brag but Nick really bakes good bread. He likes to make French Stick and has some neat perforated pans for that. Before putting in the dough he sprinkles them with bran to prevent sticking.

I won't write out the recipe as I think you're either a bread maker or you're not. And if you are, you already have your favourite recipe. If you have any questions for Nick about bread making please don't hesitate to ask in the comments.