Ballarat (January)

One January day we train it to Ballarat, to see centuries of the skull in art, but only after Earl Grey in the tearooms. She likes delicate inks by Kim Anderson. I like the Japanese skeleton spectres of Tachihara Kurainuki. Till eventually, “All these skulls are doing my head in.” “I’m up to my neck in skulls.” Adjourning for lunch we bump into Jill Blee and her shy bulldog Sadie. Talk turns to the ribbons tied along the wrought fence of St. Patrick’s. The cathedral tried to take them down, Jill says, but there was public protest, so they stay.