There's nothing...Painting the Jolly Frog Part 3

Tis the season to be jolly.... not.
Not if you happen to be a frog, anyway, after a nasty outbreak of "Spontaneous Pub Combustion".

 WJF5 'The 'Jolly Frog' (there's nothing...) 
2013 oil on canvas 25 x 31cm
Available

When I looked more closely at my painting (this canvas was painted in December 2013, just a month before the fire) I noticed the prophetic words "There's nothing" in the background to the left.
It is part of the "Holden" sign of the neighbouring car yard, and says in full "There's nothing quite like a Holden".

Detail of WJF5 'The 'Jolly Frog' (there's nothing...)
2013 oil on canvas 25 x 31cm

The entire sign was rather ironic, come to think of it.

"There's nothing like a Holden" ?
Oh, but there is - Ford, Ansett, Gowings,Toyota, possibly even SPC Ardmona and Qantas to join them.
I chose the phrase "the boiling frog" as appropriate to christen my first post about painting the "Jolly Frog".

The differences from one day to the next are apparently imperceptible, but it is harder and harder to go back.

I've just read the excellent historical notes on the self-guided Windsor Heritage Walk, that I discovered in the Macquarie Arms Hotel. 

Apparently this area on the bank of South Creek was the Green Hills Burial Ground. It was in use from the early 1800s until Governor Lachlan Macquarie proclaimed the new burial ground in 1811,now the cemetery of  St Matthews Anglican Church. It is thought that until the 1840s criminals continued to be buried on the bank of South Creek in unmarked graves.

No wonder I felt uneasy around the riverbank behind the Jolly Frog.

A ghost town in more ways than one.
They might well be spinning in them now.

To mix my metaphors, I hope the frog is a phoenix in disguise and will rise from its ashes.

Related Posts

Paintings of Pink pubs

The Boiling Frog

The Phantom Toll house

The Jolly Frog, historic Sydney pub, destroyed in blaze

(abc news)