Sunday 6 November 2011

piece of cake

Posted by speedygeoff on Sunday, November 06, 2011 with
My progress: I just scraped in my 100k for the week with a 19k run this morning. Ran with Lucia Pietropaoli, Abi Fargher and Andrew Simpson for the first 13.3. Yesterday it was a 22k run, the first 6k or so with Ann Go, Laura Santosa, and Leanne Lee, with Ewen Thompson and Zainab Farouk completing the whole run. I like starting off with a group, regardless of how far the others run, it certainly makes the time pass more quickly and more pleasantly.

Happy birthday, 40 today, Michelle Wells, have a fantastic New York Marathon. There may just be some partying tonight!

Arch of Victory in Ballarat
My wife Jenny and her mother May Lowes (aged 90) are in Ballarat today for a special event at the famous Arch of Victory.

"Arch of Victory Unveiled 2nd June 1920"


"The result of a great deal of work by the girls employed by E Lucas and Co., who raised the money required to build the Arch."

"The foundation stone was laid on the 7th February 1920 by General Sir William Birdwood and the Arch was opened on the 2nd of June 1920 by the Prince of Wales. The Arch is made of bricks, cement rendered. On sunday 13th March 1938, Mr S Walker, President of the Ballarat RSSIA unveiled the Temple of Remembrance which is situated at the entrance of the Avenue of Honour. The temple houses a Book of Remembrance which contains a number of steel sheets upon which have been inscribed the names of every person in whose honour a tree has been planted in the Avenue. On the 7th of November 1954, Lieutenant General Sir Leslie Morshead unveiled two tablets to acknowledge the services of the men and women from Ballarat in the 1939 - 1945 war."

The E. Lucas mentioned is Eleanor Lucas, May's great grandmother, or if you like, my grandchildren's great great great great grandmother. There is a photo of her and the Prince of Wales at the Arch.

Today's ceremony is the Arch of Victory's official re-opening.

"Arch of Victory official re-opening event - 6 November 2011"
"The Governor General of Australia Her Excellency Ms Quentin Bryce will visit Ballarat on Sunday (06/11) for the official re-opening of the Arch of Victory. The Ballarat community is welcome to attend. The event will commence with a march at 11.40am followed by official proceedings at 12 noon. The six month restoration project was completed in August and included the restoration of all cracked and dummy renders, roofing and plaques. New low energy lighting was also installed as part of the project. The works were jointly funded by Council ($300,000) and the Federal Government which provided $335,000 through its Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program and $175,000 through the National Heritage Sites Program."