Photograph copyright: DAVID McMAHON
I couldn't help myself; I just had to take this shot, because it is so typically South Australian. There's the corrugated-sheeting fence, which you hardly ever see in Victoria, my home state. There's the scarlet bougainvillea in the foreground - which thrives on the hot, dry conditions (and often sandy soil) of Adelaide, capital city of South Australia. And there's the iron lace on the wide verandah of the neighbouring home.
When I grew up in India, iron lace was very common in Calcutta's houses and in the old business precinct, except that it was referred to as ``wrought iron''. I'd never heard the phrase ``iron lace'' until I came to live in Australia, but I think it is the more evocative of the two terms. I was probably in my teens when my father, who had spent his entire working life in the shipping industry, explained the profusion of iron lace.
Apparently it was used as ballast in the merchant vessels that plied to and from the United Kingdom and India. And when it was unloaded on Indian soil, it was put to good use on building sites in what was then a very young colony. If you ever wondered why so many old homes in India had crazy-paving floors, there's a perfectly logical explanation for that, too. Dad told me that tons of broken china and glazed pottery were loaded in the holds of the early steamships - also for ballast. And instead of being put into landfill or garbage tips, the shattered pieces were used to create the haphazard crazy-paving floors.
Like Canada-based Rene said in one of her comments on this blog, it was the perfect example of early recycling - on an international level.
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