April 19th to Anzac day

I feel a little like I’m writing this so back-datedly that it’s just stating a load of random activities I did with no real purpose, if you see what I mean…difficult to put your heart and soul and all your enthusiasm in to something you did three weeks ago…but I’ll give it a go.

SOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo, gosh I’m still loving Melbourne, it’s so good, you should all move out here, NOW. I promise you you’ll love it too!

Had the morning off on the Monday to account for working on one of my Fridays recently. Went and put a picture to be framed in (my favourite) Westgarth: Northcote Picture Framing, for my Oxford job’s Statistician who I’m going to go visit in Adelaide in a few weeks. Also should mention, I think I did a little already, but Westgarth where I park up my bike is brill, it’s got the lovely cinema, but also has The Fruit pedallers selling hippy middle class healthy food http://fruitpedallersonline.com, as well as this they have Sacs which is an entirely gluten free shop so I’ve been buying some tasty lunch from there too sometimes. My boss went to Rome during the Volcanic Ash disruption for a meeting there…she was travelling the furthest and was the only one that made it there…so the meeting was cancelled and replaced by a teleconference. On the Tuesday this week sadly I had my last Pilates class, booo. I love the Pilates class it’s so good and all the crics and cracs in me body seem to disperse…boo, hoping she may set up another class on Thursdays and I’ll drop the good, but slightly weird and creepy yoga. The first week of the class was just Di and I from work who are going to these lunchtime classes (yoga and Pilates…soon to be belly dancing and Pilates hopefully…). The teacher showed us both how to do breathing lieing on the ground feeling our breath (for breath read breast) as it moves up and down through our body…was very odd having a display of that, less embarrassing doing it yourself, at least your eyes were encouraged to be closed too. The Wednesday of this week I went to the Podiatrist students again, and they said yes there was a large lump in my foot and recommended that surgery was probably the most effective way to get rid. So booked in to a Surgeon to discuss my options on the 13^th of May. 

In the eve I went to meet up with Jessica Fox. She’s one of my friend Miss Walmsley’s friends from school who lives out here, and has the surname I’ve always wanted…am going to figure out some way of doing an identity swop without her noticing as sadly she seems to like her surname (understandably I guess, it’s ace)…Anyway, we met at a Tears for Fears and Spandau Ballet concert at the Rod Laver Arena. I don’t know how many people were there to celebrate Jessica’s birthday, but there was several thousand, not sure they all knew it was her birthday as they forgot to sing, but still, that’s why they were there. Tears for Fears were cool, though I was late so sadly missed Mad World which I’m gutted about. Spandau Ballet were impressive performers, but I guess I’m not quite so excited about their music. Was lovely to meet Jessica and hopefully get another fun contact in the city. This Thursday, the 22^nd. My Step Mum, Sheena, had wanted to buy me a Christmas present of some activity or meal or something to do in Melbourne and she came across this cocktail tour: http://hiddenbarsofmelbourne.com.au/ it cost £35 a head which is not bad considering it included two cocktails and some food in one of the five bars. We met the tour by three brass men. 

Kate came along (Sheena got me two tickets so I could bring a friend!) and we were both reasonably sceptical, thinking we would get taken to bars that we’d been to before. But we hadn’t been to any of them…we also made some friends along the way, although the end of the night did involve us running away as it just seemed like the right time to do it…The bars we went to are as follows: Campari Red/Campari House – roof top bar with fancy painted stairwell all the way up and restaurant downstairs www.camparihouse.com.au/, fake grass and we had a ‘South side’: Mojito with gin pretty much. Then we went to Penny Blue, my favourite of the five I think, had loads of fancy beers and lovely cocktails and lush velvet surroundings: www.pennyblue.com.au/images.html. Then on to The Carlton Hotel which was very cool with a first floor bar with and stuffed Ostrich and Giraffe in it, very dark red…also there was the a roof top bar there: www.thecarlton.com.au/. Then on to Cabinet which was well hidden next to loads of bins, it’s funny how many nice looking places have bundles of bins outside them here. Cabinet we were given our second cocktail and a bit of food, this bar was quite small and really hidden away except for their balcony is out on to the street but lots of people would wonder how on earth to find the entrance due to it being out the back by the bins I reckon: www.cabinetbar.com.au/. The final bar was the Canary club - this was really cool, it had a DJ, a small dance floor, again fancy cocktails but upstairs it also had sofa bed style seating so you could lounge around – very cool! After that alcohol-fuelled, Kate and I accidentally came across the Gin Palace, a brief sign above the door down a dark alley had us querying what sort of venue it was, but it turned out to be another lovely velvet place with fancy cocktails and the like, a late crowd we came across there and we made a friend with guy called Nick who directed us to New Gurnica 

which Kate had been to before, where there was a DJ and the décor was very Alice in Wonderland…as I had the Friday off Kate and I decided that we should attempt staying up until the trams started running again…we danced a while and chatted a while…then went to get £2 pizza from the £2 pizza shop…then had a wander down the river, still with our new friend Nick and in to the Casino, which I wasn’t so keen on, so many slot machines, ugh . Then I got tired and decided that Kate and I were going home…only an hour until the trams started again…

Due to the late night I didn’t have a very productive day except at the end of it to find out that Danny’s burgers near me are actually rather good quality burgers! Saturday was a little better…still up late, but I went to pick up my framed picture and met Kate in ‘Traffic’ in Westgarth for an early afternoon breakfast…then we checked out a ‘Garage sale’ of a cool shop called Lupa…then walked in to town and went to the Black Cat, which I really like for some reason on Brunswick street, it’s a bit beaten looking and has old sofas in it, but it’s got a sort of cute homely I wanna make you my local sort of feel. www.melbournepubs.com/venue/908, Michelle then joined us and we all headed to a raw food café (Michelle and Kate had talked about this quite a lot before and I confess not to being very enthusiastic, but with the Thursday night hangover still looming I was still very happy to eat out rather than cook for myself, so I went with it. The place we went was called Yong Green Food on 

Brunswick street. It wasn’t the prettiest of places and we were crammed in a ridiculous table and they didn’t serve us for ages, then when they did it was one meal at a time, so we watched Kate eat her raw food nachos (they dry the crisps even rather than cooking them!) and it was actually really tasty, really, can you imagine!? Then Michelle and Kate watched me eat my Rawsagnia! It was lovely, I think it had thinly sliced courgettes on the top but also involved cashew butter or something like that, really tasty, seriously! Weird! Then we watched Michelle eat her food which I forget now, but I can highly recommend it anyway! They were actually quite apologetic about the slow service and I think knocked a little bit off the bill. Oooh the other thing was that I think I found the bridesmaid dress for Miss Walmsley’s wedding too, fun! That was with Kate’s help.

On Sunday the 25^th I got up after not sleeping very well with two hours sleep for Anzac day, meaning I had to leave the house at 5am. Michelle and I met up in the Botanical gardens and we listened to the very crowded ceremony. We were part of a minutes silence, which was quite incredible with that many people in the dark, and also heard the New Zealand and Australian national anthems. We then both decided that maybe we needed a rest before doing anything else. In the afternoon I met up with the lady Gabrielle and went for a few drinks in Cookie, and then some food too. We then wandered the streets a little and she showed me a cool street with some graffiti and I randomly bought a cool hat…which may get worn at Roland and Lucy’s wedding!