This is not about organics or even the markets. I was too late for the organic and ended buying preservative free at the ordinary veggie stall.This is more a reflection on change.I have not been this way for years.

I am getting back into driving . So it seemed a good idea to combine a drive with a weekly veggie shop. I abandoned my routine of Fremantle Markets each Friday morning and plumbed for an organic shop .

I drive from North Freo, into Amherst Street and to the short, pretty Wood. I used to cycle that route to Beaconsfield Tafe which is long gone. There are so many new houses in what used to be mainly industry and empty blocks. Now there are some attractive new houses, and old ones cleaned up and lived in. There are new cafes and planted verges. Penny Lane is still on the corner though and the original community/ industry/business mix is attractive. manoeuvre the vehicle around the traffic calming of Wood Street and am happy nothing much has changed here: just licks of paint , a few extra verandahs in the front of the older smallish houses, and lots of greenery.

Turn left into South and right towards Lefroy . The Childcare Center my last child and then my grandchild attended, in front of South Fremantle High, has gone. In fact I hardly recognise this gleaming SFHS with its extensive grounds .

No more Tafe building. Just a board signalling its demolition. It’s strange but there is a vacuum here. I mean no specific memories , bad or good, spring to mind . Yet I spent a part of my working life here. I guess with the old bricks gone and the passage of time the stories have faded , or maybe they have diminished in importance in relation to the life that followed . All the ups and downs of a working life, the people,the scurrying about getting to class on time , filling in forms, teaching , laughing and winging, all the myriad actions of staff and students have merged into one continuous fairly ordinary stream of memories, blurry around the edges .

And where is the market that used to be just here with its ad hoc stalls ? There are cars parked where it used to be, and cars and more cars in each side street. So I drive to the oval in front of where Tafe used to be and manage to squeeze in .

I park the car and walk to the markets.

How cool , how trendy, how laid back . How unscruffy compared to my ilk 35 years ago . The clothes, the coffees , the organics, with exotic names. The plants tied with bows, the range of breads ( we made ours in tins and rising dough and the loaves all looked solid and often tasted solid too). Pretty women and some men wheeling pushers or carrying babies in slings, children walking alongside. So relaxed. Momentary cynicism gives way to a reminder NOT to be cynical or critical from a vantage point of age . Whatever, as is said, I’ll leave that one .

I’ll have to think some more.