Last week and a bit!

So...nearly time to go home...this is getting a bit too close for comfort. On writing this update I've got one more sleep left in this beautiful city. I will miss it a lot, I'm looking forward to going home and all the things I've got to look forward to when I get there...but I will miss being in Melbourne too, eek!

 Anyway, so, the update since Monday the 28th of June. I swopped Monday for Friday and didn't go in to work. I did a few daytime tasks such as taking shoes back to be re-heeled and putting my watch in to get a new strap (Peter Lane 257 Collins street in the Arcade, cute elderly dude who knows his watches!), that sorta thing; and then met Michelle and Kate out of the lovely Virgin gym. We went to a Spanish restaurant with a slightly peculiar waiter, he was handsome and also had a strange awkward sort of manner, quite amusing. Don't remember the name of the place, but it was a Spanish restaurant on Johnson street...that narrows it down. It was a cute evening with Newton and Weir, as always. It's been fabulous having the two of them as my friends to hang around here and spending time in their company is just gorgeous and has made me smile lots on each outing. On Tuesday had our team meeting, my last so I brought in cake - there's some really good flourless chocolate and flourless orange cakes they do on site (almost as good as the two recipes I make at home!) Had our last belly dancing which was sad too and the teacher was extra crazy and kept making us spin round and round, it made me think I hadn't quite got over my cold yet as I started to feel sick after a while! On Thursday I met up with Michelle and Kate and we went to the lovely Anada www.anada.com.au on Gertrude street, really good, definitely one for the list. It was tapas orientated. We had stuffed calamari, beef cheeks, celeriac soup, in the $49 set menu. All the food was really tender and nicely cooked, just great!

Friday I was finishing off for the handover on Monday and then headed back home and Meg had returned and we both rushed and got ready and headed down to the Docklands for fireworks, Melbourne are doing fireworks down at the Docklands every Friday night for July at 7pm. Impressive display, it lasted just 15 minutes, but it was a very good effort. Veronica had come out as well, which was lovely. We stopped and had one drink down at a random bar and then headed up to Pellegrinis, oh my god! This place is mental, a proper institution, it was an Italian old school sort of eatery, with lots of people eating around the serving counter. The owner was excited to have five girls in his place and was determined to make us feel very welcome, very sweet. Veronica also knew him and he ended up putting us on the table at the back of the place, basically in the kitchen which was pretty cool next to the stove, it's Melbourne so the stove/cooker was very welcome! Also Ken Brown came out, a guy I'd met at Greenman festival last year, he'd helped me for around an hour whilst I was moving gates about for various famous people etc, it was very welcome and then I chatted and mentioned I was coming over to Melbourne and he gave me his email address. I wrote a couple of months ago, but only the week before had he picked up and checked that email account! It was fun to have him at Pellegrinis as apparently his parents were neighbours of the owner too, mental! So he was teased quite a lot. The food was pretty tasty home cooked and all as well. Then we headed off to Madame Brussels, lovely bar: http://www.madamebrussels.com/ and had jugs of cocktails all out on the roof top terrace. It's a sweet place and one of my favourite bars I think. Meg decided she preferred Tennis on late night TV to our company so left at this point. Then we tried to go and watch the football in the Holland bar (they have nominated particular venues for particular nationalities so it's like stepping in to that country for those couple of hours...it was very orange, but we clearly weren't), however, no room for us. So we went off to Canary Club, http://thecanaryclub.com/, been there before too, but it's quite cool with its bed-seat booths upstairs, the music was pretty bad though for a while. Then we headed to Pony Club...aaaaaaagh! Very rock-grunge, lots of moshing, fun, but we mainly went in for the sight-seeing and then left and went to Loop, http://www.looponline.com.au/, and when we walked in the DJs pretty much finished and they finished on a smart song which had the lyrics 'Bitch, you're my breakfast!' and the barmaid repeated the words at us until she was willing to serve us, she was fab! We danced bundles and then Veronica came out of the bathroom saying 'I've got to go, Matt's just called me up asking where the hell am I!?' and we were like 'why what time is it', and were quite surprised to find out it was 5am...so we stayed out a little longer after V left and went to Lounge too, http://www.lounge.com.au/, quite hectic sort of sinister music, but we found a way to dance...then 7am home.

The next morn, Saturday, Meg and I got up 11ish and got ready and headed in to town to go pick up my watch and books and bag! We did a fair bit of shopping and got some pretty good finds, which was good luck. We also saw the remnants of a 'Where's Wally' gathering...Then we headed up to Rose street market, as I kept on hearing about it. I'm not so sure what I think, there's a lot of concentration on recycled jewellery and that sort of thing, but the best thing I did find was fork rings, so partly bent forks in to rings, which I thought looked really cool and would make a fine present to my prime dinner and drinking partners in crime whilst I've been here. We met up with Kate at Rose street market and went to a Japanese place with a $10 set menu called Yume (367 Brunswick street). The food was pretty tasty here and it was in the cheap eats guide too. After that we were all knackered and so went home for a rest...it was touch and go with the lack of sleep from the night before whether we would go out...Kate didn't make it. Michelle met Megan and I at the lovely Black Cat for one and then we decided to go to Loop to see DJ Ego and Mr Nice. They did a sweet set, some of the vids of which they've posted up recently via twitter and facebook, fun! We danced lots again and chatted to lots of people too which was good fun and the fun barmaid from the night before was there and remembered us too...and we made it home by 5am this night.

Then up early, well, 11.30am as Di was coming to pick up the futon base I'd been borrowing from her the past few months and we were going out to lunch/breakfast. We ended up going to the lovely Cafe Quince, one of the first cafes Kate took me too. They do just gorgeous breakfasts and I had a lovely polenta dish and Di had some lovely home made crumpets which were really like donughts with lemon curd and mascarpone. Somehow or other Kate had been chatting to the guy that worked there previously and he'd mentioned his prints, we took a look and I asked for his website: http://www.artman.net.au/# . In the afternoon, Meg and I went to the Sunday market down on the docklands and then headed to meet Michelle for the Tim Burton exhibition, http://www.acmi.net.au/timburton.aspx. It was very busy and popular, think it had come straight from New York where it first started. I didn't realise he'd done quite so many films! I want to watch lots I've seen before and some ones I haven't now! He's also obviously quite mental, just to note. After the exhibition we went and sat out in Fed Square on the deck chairs staring up at the sun (despite it being night time) as there was a giant sun/planet thing in Fed Square as part of the winter lights exhibition www.fedsquare.com/index.cfm?pageID=373. Then we went to Transit, a bar near Federation Square, it's cool but a bit concretey and too cold for winter! http://www.fedsquare.com/index.cfm?pageID=239. Then we headed off to the lovely Rock Pool, I had decided that heading home and getting back in would be too much of a hassle, but I kinda wish I had gone home and dressed up, the Rock Pool is deffo somewhere for dressing up, it's really nice warm feel inside and sofas to sit at at the dining table and things. The food was absolutely gorgeous, best meal of all in Melbourne, each forkfull you could taste the food before you'd even barely started chewing on it, gorgeous flavours. Very very nice meal, loved it! And Michelle and Kate paid as well as my farewell which was extremely generous, it's deffo not the cheapest of places. http://www.rockpool.com.au/melbourne/rockpool-bar-and-grill.html I had the lovliest minute steak as well. The eve ended possibly a little later than we all may have liked and we weren't in bed until 1am!

Monday, work and handover, feeling very sleepy, poor Megan who I was handing over to. In the eve I went out with my lovely work people to Anada again on Gertrude street. They gave me a gorgeous necklace and earrings. Was very sad to say farewell to them all.

Now, typing this with a cheese on toast breakfast in bed brought in by little Meg, soon we'll be heading out to try and squish as much more touristy stuff in as we can before we leave tomorrow night! The blog is nearly at an end...

The Great Ocean Road

Soo I forgot to mention in the last blog that I was terrified of driving in Melbourne, it's a massive place and they have trams and it's foreign despite being on the 'right' side and everything...So I should thank Seb most gratefully for directing me from the Airport and also out of Melbourne as well the next day etc etc entirely managing to avoid me having to do any Hook turns...I know you should do things that scare you but, well, this one I just chose to avoid!

So we left around 9am on the Tuesday morning heading out of Melbourne, avoiding all Hook turns! It takes a long time to drive round Melbourne and out of it all the way down to the coast/Geelong etc, about an hour/hour and a half...then we eventually got to Torquay, the first stop...beach didn't look so impressive, I remember being quite impressed the first time I saw it..but maybe Winter and whatever..we didn't stay for long, then we drove on and on and on...the actual Ocean part of the Great Ocean road takes a while to come about, but eventually it does.

The Great Ocean Road was built after the first world war to keep all the war veterans busy and distracted from all the horror they'd seen etc.

It's strange driving in Australia, I don't know quite why, maybe it's the scenery, but driving for nine hours with the occassional stops etc is not that tiring. I've driven in Australia before and found that to the be case too, very odd. Reckon I'd be broken driving for nine hours in the UK...and I'd have done pretty much the whole length of the country rather than a tiny tiny fraction of it!

We also, of course, saw Koalas, Megan was super enthusiastically keeping an eye out for the Koalas and anything living in the trees as we drove by so spotted I think maybe all of them pretty much! Probably due to the winter they were all quite active, maybe in the Summer it's too warm (someone was suggesting this to me last night) so they just go to sleep and keep still to keep cool.

We did a few little detours and stops along the way for photos and quick stretches of legs. Had fish and chips I think in Lorne too...then drove on quite quck the last part to catch sunset at the Twelve Apostles, some massive rocks in the middle of the sea, parts of the coast that's worn away over years and every now and then one of the rocks fall down, so there's not quite 12. When I last saw them in 2005 there was definitely at least one more too... 

After the sun goes down on Twelve apostles ...you can wait about half an hour and you'll see 'Little Penguins' to fall out of the sea, they sort of fall in with the waves and then fall over and wait for each other and then wobble up the beach to their little beds for the nights, cute, sort of, or well, it probably is, it's just it's really dark and all you can see is this tiny blob, because you're so far away from them.

We stayed in Warnambool as we'd hoped to see Whales, think it's the Southern Right Whales? We stayed at the Warnambool beach backpackers, 17 Stanley street. It was fine, but extremely empty and we were in the sort of outhouse type part of the building, meaning it was freezing in the corridor. We searched around a bit for food, nothing seemed to be quite right, we ended up eating at a Thai restaurant which was fine.

The next morn we got up early and left to find breakfast, we wanted somewhere interesting but ended up settling for a Subway because the other options just weren't that good. Then so, we had hoped to see Whales in Warnambool but apparently so far none had been sighted, but they had been sighted an hour and a half down the road in portland...so, I'd already driven this far, why not give it a go...so we did, and also called in on Tower Hill reserve on the way which was very cool, big valley and you drive over cattle grids to get in and out of it. It was quite a gloomy day so we totally chose the right day for driving along the Great Ocean Road the day before. I'd hoped to see sugar gliders, but they are nocturnal and yep, apparently rarely sighted, boo. We did see Emus though and Meg saw her first Roo in Oz too! Then we drove on to Portland and did see the occassional flip of a tail in the harbour, although at quite a distance and we were using binoculars. Was pretty cool. So satisfied with our findings we turned on back and drove ALLLLLLLLLLLL the way back to Melbourne, only with one little jolly stop off at the park to give me a rest.

Dave comes to visit for the weekend...popping in on his way back from Perth...

OK, so I fall behind again in updating this thing but manage to keep my paper diary up to date so I can vaguely figure it out. I gather people are reading it still so there's still just about justification in writing it, I hope...at least it will be nice for me to look back on it should I ever have the need, to remember what I got up to, reminisce and maybe figure out whether I want to come back out again for real...that idea does still seem very appealing, but I'm also getting excited for going back home now too, I've got so much planned before I start work in mid August too!

On Saturday the 12th of June, Seb, Michelle and I went to the Melbourne museum to go and see the Titanic exhibition, which was really good I thought. To get in though you had to queue up for your 'boarding time' as it's all very busy and sell out every weekend. So we booked our time slot and then went for breakfast to Southpaw for breakfasts like 'The Cat's Meow' I think. Good breafasts: http://www.southpawbar.com.au/

So then filled up with breakfast we headed off to the exhibition. You got your own boarding card of a real-life person aboard the Titanic. Really interesting exhibition, although exhausting, worth taking a look.

In the afternoon I headed on down to Southern Cross station to pick up my friend Dave! He had recently got a job and they'd flown him out to Perth to do some work there for a few days and he'd persuaded them to fly him back through Melbourne for a couple of days! Was so very lovely to see him, one of my friends that I've been missing the most whilst over here as I spend a lot of time with him and Jude and James in the UK and they're such fun and so sweet too. :-)

So Dave was taken back to the house and we had some pink sparkling stuff from my trip to the Yarra Valley a few weeks before. Then we went out to The Edinburgh Castle, Seb, Dave and I to listen to my work colleagues husband's band playing there. Not really been to Brunswick much, not so keen on it really, although if I was here longer I might try and invest a little more time in it. There's so many different areas in Melbourne it's quite difficult to get to know all the different areas so I've been inclined mostly really to focus on Fitzroy and the CBD I guess.

After that we headed on in to town to meet Michelle (Kate was sick sadly) at Cookie for dinner, I couldn't think of anywhere else to meet and Cookie: www.cookie.net.au/ sadly was a bit of a dissapointment...I guess it was a Saturday night but it was stuipid busy and we were put on a table where you have to go order everything at the bar and then they were daftly slow and it was just a bit of a painful process...not really a good welcome to Dave! So, then next we used the 'secret bars' cards I have and found 'Emerald Peacock', I liked this place, the downstairs didn't look as exciting as in the cards but it had a nice rooftop bar and did allreet Mojitos I think...

Then, although we could have stayed longer, we decided to try and squish a few in, so we headed to 1806, 169 Exhibition street. As with Emerald Peacock we walked straight past it initially, it's quite weird how the bars in Melbourne are that well hidden that you don't even seem to notice the bouncers on the door or a doorway with a sign that says the name of the bar above it, don't know how or why that happens! 1806 is apparently the year the word cocktails was first defined in print! This place: http://www.1806.com.au/ has the longest menu in the world, I'm not sure they've got in to the Guinness book of records for that, but they should have, it was quite boring really and explained every drink in great detail, nice idea, but boring. It didn't feel like it had much life beyond being a sort of history to alcoholic drinks and so we went for one bottle of wine between the four of us and headed off. The boys had vitoed a couple of the cards Michelle and I had chosen but then left Michelle to figure out the route and specified that a roof top bar would be nice...so we went to Madame Brussels which looked and sounded ace http://www.madamebrussels.com/ see!? The venue was fun with astro turf inside and out and sort of tennis garden/English garden furniture and the staff all in semi-tennis gear, lively sweet place and we stayed in it quite some considering the boys weren't so keen on it, and started drinking absinthe in protest...after that we had a go at going to the lovely Carlton club, but this evening apparently we had to be members...hmm. So we went for a final drink at Gin Palace again, where everyone looked a bit tired and in need of sleep...so we headed home!

The next day, Sunday. We had a go at a breakfast at Gluttony's, 278 Smith Street, bleeeeeeeugh, don't recommend, very greasy but not in a nice way, it was just too much. Was dissapointed to take Dave to a bad place, the huge majority of cafes and restaurants here are wonderful so not representative! I played with my food to make better use of it.

Then we went to meet Michelle in the Black Cat, my favourite and for food in a sweet Noodle place on Brunswick street but I haven't got a card I don't think for that one so how could I possibly tell you what it was called!? Good though it was and cheap and staff friendly too. I took Dave and Seb to Polly then and also for one at The Alchemist with it's fancy bizarre cocktails. I love Polly, the Alchemist is a bit not quite there maybe.

The following day I got up at the crack of a very cold dawn (OK maybe the sun had been up for a while but I wanted more sleep!) to go and pick Megan, my little sister, up from Southern Cross station. Was lovely to see her and I took her home for her to get showered and have a quick nap before going to an AFL game: Melbourne vs Collingwood, apparently 67,000 people had turned out to watch the Queen's birthday public hol weekend game. Cost us $44 each, not too bad. To those that don't know, they play on a massive oval pitch and it's like a cross between rugby and football/soccer (!) and they're a bit fighty with it and rough and the goals are weird scoring large numbered scoring systems, like in Rugby. The game's in quaters, so three breaks...so it takes a long time...but yep, on the whole it was pretty fun to watch, particularly the last quarter where it was quite tense, and then crazily the game ended with a draw, which apparently is very unsusual due to the weird scoring system! On the way to get there we also went to a cool fast food place 'Lord of the Fries' that Kate suggested for those that needed a bit of food. They were ace, just near Flinders street station.

Before Dave went we went for one last cocktail at The Carlton Club and then Dave, Seb and I caught a taxi to the Airport..Dave was heading home but I needed to go and pick up the car for our short road trip along the Great Ocean Road!

Real time

So, I thought I'd have a go at writing a real-time blog. Yesterday I didn't do much but work hard, and work late. Then I got a Burmese take away, to reward for working late, and because I'm lazy...which actually in my mind turned out to be a reasonably poor and very meaty beef massaman and thai fishcakes...I blogged and updated that lots and tidied up my Whitsunday photos. It's nice to draw a line under these things, but I'm anxious that there are a few weeks ahead of fun things to happen before I return to the UK and that I'll have guests and maybe little time to update, then anxiousness comes and I'll be all behind and trying to catch up again...as I keep hearing lately, technology was meant to make things easier for us, and instead it's just filled up our lives and made us more busy...I would love to have the will power to get off facebook, twitter, email etc etc for say even a month, but it's not in me...not yet anyway...I'd be interested to see how suddenly lonely I felt! It's nice hearing about what people have been up to...but I guess it stops me making time for myself, taking a rest, getting out of the house and adding another thing to my list of things to tell you about in my blog...how does that work, I'm not sure...

While I was out here I had plans of compiling material for a book, a semi true real-life book, but using little patches of stories and turning them in to something more real than they actually were...I live in daydream-land most of my life...the reality of that idea is of course that I've had no time to work on such a thing and so it hasn't happened...I don't really feel like I have failed though, I guess I have a bit of this blog to help..and I have a little book with some basic ideas which I add to every now and then, so it may happen at some point...when I'm back in Oxford and trapped indoors and have flushed my mobile down the toilet and broken my wifi thingmyjig. I don't have the intention to write for publishing...unless I magically find that it works well, but more to have an outlet for creative energy. I think even the most sciency of people need to be a bit creative every now and then, especially when they're not feeling on top of the world as it's a good use of negative energy too...I think anyway, from all the thinking and talking I've done with people...I know that any arty silly project I've done has always made me feel more satisfied and wholesome anyway. There are more things I'd like to write about this, but due to my potential open audience I think I'll stop there.

Today, I left for work really late because it was raining. It's just no fun cycling in your new trousers and stilleto boots on your bike in the rain for 10 minutes when you could wait a little longer as you know you worked late last night and will stay late anyway. So, I left a little late and got in a little late, but had a good day at work again, Yesterday was a good work day. At the end of the day my work colleague, Rebecca, gave me a lift home and we had a fun chat on the way. I then went to meet Michelle (do you lot mind being mentioned randomly in my blog...perhaps I should be checking in advance...or making up names for you, or maybe I have done...) in Brunswick...we were both dissapointed with the general coldness (coming from two places that know cold...well, know the difference between hot and cold anyway) and were very keen to find a place with a fire...the Vegie bar ended up doing an OK job, the food in there was allreet, it was XXXtremely packed and we had to wait a while, it's a surprisingly large venue and clearly very popular. Michelle's curry was a bit too spicy, in a too spicy way, hiding the flavour, my stir fry was kinda OK, but the tofu was a bit too un-stir fried (no pre-fry) and well it wasn't how I'd expect a stir-fry to appear. After that we tried out another inviting red-look venue, The Black Pearl. Nice place...lots of snogging couples on sofas, but relatively high scoring clientele and relaxed atmosphere, like it! Now to bed....damn without finishing those Whitsunday pictures completely...

24th May....it's the month of Kate's birthday!

Had last kick boxing class, just the two of us, and he tried to force us to do push ups on our knuckles on the bare wooden floor, I managed about 5 seconds before I stopped (before we have been cheating and using gym mats, which is difficult but much more possible...however, it has made me want to be able to do knuckle push ups on hard wooden floors..then I would seriously be hard as nails...!). Not a very busy week aside from working late mostly. Friday I rotted in me jim jams till late booking stuff for my holiday in a week's time to Whitsundays! In the late afternoon started getting ready to go out for Kate's birthday. Cormac and his girlfriend and her daughter were in preparing for a dinner party and the cute daughter was keeping a careful eye on me and at one point came in to my bedroom and muttered a little and then said 'the thing is you see is that I'm very shy'! Rather sweet anywayz.

Kate and Michelle and I met in Polly for cocktails and some tiny tapas. Then in to town to Golden Monkey. Then to Silk Road - oh my god, what a ridiculous venue, with huge chandeliers and bogans/chavs galore, I think there was R and B playing in the background, it was really quite laughable...I was laughing too hard to take any pictures to share the laugability with you though I'm afraid. Also lots of private rooms and I got the impression there was a few drug baron types about. Weird place! Then canary club where we spent quite a bit of time and met Daniel who tagged along with us for the night, also John who we met last week came to meet us with his friend Steve. Altogether we went on to The Lounge, also semi laughable, but not as ridiculous as Silk Road, the Carlton Club, which is a beautiful venue but was much more rock with it's music choice and therefore the crowd were much more human, normal and fun too. Really cute night overall with lots of cocktails and tapas and amusement shared.

Saturday afternoon got up to go see the Daschund display at the Melbourne museum...47 Daschunds in a UN parliament set up... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0uFP6ucObI then for some lunch in a nice venue on Gertrude street...don't remember the name of it though...then Michelle went off to move house (basically meant packing her suitcase and ordering a taxi), and I dragged a very hungover Kate in to town to help me choose some boots and to go to Campari Red roof top bar for tapas and a cocktail, which wiped her out and meant she had to go home...so I called Gabriel - she was going out in Richmond, which I hadn't been to before, so invited Michelle along and we went to meet Gabby in the Corner Hotel (https://www.cornerhotel.com/)...after an hour we finally found each other and her and friends were rather drunken, but it was all very amusing and rather adorable too.

Sunday went to meet Megan (who I'm covering the role of) and Di to go wine tasting in the Yarra Valley, was fab...I bought quite a bit of wine too, I thought I'm shortly to have guests, so it makes practical sense...Had lunch in a lovely place Megan took us to as well. When we got back I ended up going on to Brunswick street to go and meet Michelle and Kate for an evening meal and drinks at Little Creatures. They both excitedly told me that they got to move to the VIP seats at the Ice Hockey game they'd been to that day!

Anzac day and beyond

In lieu of Anzac day, Monday the 26th of April was a public holiday. Michelle and I cycled to Brighton beach, about 10kms in the breezy sunshine, if we stopped too long we got cold which encouraged us to go faster! The beach here was a lot nicer than St Kilda’s beach, proper sand here. They have cute little painted beach huts, which is the tourist reason for coming here, but the beach itself is quite pleasant, worth remembering – despite the treck to get there…think you can get there by train/tram/walking too…Then in the evening Michelle and I went to Birdman eating on Gertrude street, had pretty nice tapas (e.g. scallops with apple sauce and pancetta, and chicken breast with Jerusalem artichoke puree and halloumi and carrot salad) and admired the weird décor of Barbie dolls with wings hanging on strings.

Started my belly dancing classes this week along with Di, was good fun, also went back to Di’s for dinner and met her husband and three adorable kids. A sweet evening. This week saw Igor Stravinsky and Coco Channel in the cinema, kinda nice film in terms of being very stylish, but a bit really about them just having sex everywhere whilst his wife and kids lived with them. Before going to the cinema I went to a nearby place called Ember lounge (www.emberlounge.com.au/index/home) to get some din. They said should be easy to get pizza in 40 mins, then they forgot about me. When I brought it up, in a bit of a moany British way, the chef managed to convince me he could cook my gluten free pizza in 3 minutes…which he did and it was a good pizza too…then they refunded me…and cheered me up by being very jolly about it all…will be going back! Had my first swimming stroke correction lesson – I’m an all right swimmer but I thought it might be fun to learn to perfect my stroke technique. The teacher suggested loads in half an hour…I’ve kinda gotta change my whole swimming style! Also had yoga class on my own the same day…my bottom was killing by the end of the day from all the swimming and yoga stretching! On my Friday off I spent the whole day planning my trip next weekend to Kangaroo Island near Adelaide where I will be going off to visit my Statistician for my Oxford job. In the evening I went to meet Michelle and some other work-related colleagues at Loop (www.looponline.com.au/bar.html) in the city. Was quite a dark venue, but very popular too and quite cool with cocktails. Met one work colleague I’d written to for several months but never met which was fun. Ended up also in Comme Kitchen (www.comme.com.au), big bright white high ceilinged venue, it did food as well. Had various Australian terminology explained to us including the term ‘Bogan’…went to a venue called New Gold mountain (www.newgoldmountain.org), quite green, then further on to the upstairs venue in the same building which was very red.

At the end of the evening Veronica, who I’d met properly first of all at Auckland, invited me back to hers in the outer part of the city, so taxid it back and her and I stayed up talking until very late in the morning. Then Saturday morning she had to be up at 9am and off to Doncaster shopping centre…I decided to come and have a look at the shopping centre too, very fancy place with a good food mall and comfy luxurious looking sofas throughout the place. Got a taxi home as navigating via buses seemed too complicated. That evening went with Michelle and Kate (who’d been witnessing several hundred/thousand people in the city dressed up as Zombies!) to an Ice Hockey game of Melbourne versus Sydney…was kinda fun

…then we went for food in a £12 buffet Chinese, it didn’t feel like the most hygienic of places, it was a bit odd…don’t remember the name, but would quite happily avoid! We also went to 24 moons which is quite a cool venue, down a dark alley somewhere in the city: www.24moons.com.au - then we tried to find two venues from the Lonely Planet guide, one of which no longer existed and the other which had been knocked down (‘Shit Town’ the latter was called!), walked in and walked out just to take a look at ‘Sister Bella’ and that seemed quite cool.

On Sunday Kate and I took a Met train out to Belgrave. Whilst waiting for Kate I witnessed these cool piano steps here I’m guessing due to the Jazz festival being on, they played as you walked up and down the steps! The train ride between the city and Belgrave was not too exciting. BUT then! We saw Puffing Billy steam train! An old style train which cost a monstrous $35 for an adult, but there didn’t appear to be much else to do so we gave it a go.

It was quite lovely chugging along at 15Ks an hour and back again staring up at the Eucalyptus trees or down in to the valley. Sometimes if you’re lucky apparently you may see snow about…none sighted. We saw moor hens with blue tummys though and a Kookaburra! When we got back to the city we met Michelle at Movida for tapas and moider, I liked the food, but it was a bit on the pricey side, but the venue was next to all the cool graffiti, loads and loads of it, and the artists got so carried away they even painted the bins! We then wandered up and down the river and introduced Michelle to the delights of Trampoline ice cream. We also came across another fancy music thing near Federation Square in honour of the Jazz festival, lots of lit up balls dancing to the music - quite mesmerising.  Dancing balls for Melbourne Jazz festival. Dancing balls: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnsjAhu-oAA

After that we went to meet Gabby at the Carlton Hotel (the one with the stuffed Ostrich and Giraffe) for beer where she was drinking with two of her friends. A bit of a late Sunday night for me, very nice weekend though, really enjoyed it.

Monday and Tuesday have been OK. Monday I learnt to do the Round House Kick at Kick Boxing, very cool although obviously I'm no pro yet! It's really proper exhausting that class and he made us do press ups on our knuckles too. For the first time in ages on Monday I cooked for myself, rather proud, despite it being a basic pasta sauce! Did the same on Tuesday...if I'm not careful I'll get myself a reputation for aaaaaaaaalways cooking at home. Tuesday had belly dancing which also was pretty labour intensive, got to play with a scarf and a cane as part of the various shifts she showed us! Not much excitement I shouldn't think for the rest of the week but next weekend Kangaroo Island and sand boarding!???

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!

Monday 12th April - 18th April 2010

Monday 12th did Kick boxing, it’s such good fun…when I got home I used the long corridor to practice some of the kicks, lots of high ones and things, fun! On route home also called in at the Thai in Westgarth (I have recently become a Westgarth fan clearly…but it’s also where I park my bike up!). The Thai was fine, called Thai Spoon on 101 High Street, Northcote. Was finding work very difficult this week to keep up, loving it too, but worried that I will never get to the bottom of any piles…

Tuesday after work went to the Westgarth cinema again with Kate and we went to see ‘Date Night’, quite funny actually, easy going watch anyway, had Steve Carrell and Tina Fey in it, after that we ate pretty straightforward but good food at Traffic in Westgarth, very friendly waitress. On Wednesday I caught the tram late to work and was punished by there being an accident on route and them chucking us off the tram to work to La Trobe, around three or four miles away I think it was…I walked for half an hour, with my hurting foot and all…and then everything cleared and I got back on the tram…hmm…the one cool thing I did get out of the experience though was that I saw a Possum jumping along, that was cool, though I didn’t quite believe it was a real thing because it was so very jumpy. At the end of the day I went to the student Podiatrists based at La Trobe to get ‘em to have a look at my left foot…

They were very interested in it and made me walk and watched me walk for ages, and then referred me over the road for an Ultrasound and an X-ray…which I did the next day and had to pay for…think I may be able to claim it back on Medicare…need to sort that still – you can back date though so should be OK…cost me $190.

On my Friday off I decided to go and visit the Australian Cochrane Centre, a bit worky for a day off, but I thought it would be interesting to see where they are based and it was nice to see Miranda too. To get to Monash I had to catch the train, a new experience…then I got the train back to Chapel street, shopsville, but expensive shopsville…clothes do seem to be more expensive than I think they should be allowed to be here, also clothes are often interesting but fit you weirdly I’m starting to find…weird, not accommodating for curves or even mediocre chests either…went to ‘Made gorgeous’ to get a Pedicure, beauticians near me. The woman was reet full of information and told me loads of places to visit in Melbourne. That Friday evening Kate and I walked out down Brunswick street, spying a possum on the way…and passed by a lovely looking place called Matteos on St Georges Road as you get nearer Brunswick street….it had red lamps in the window (we’re noticing a trend of us tending to gravitate towards venues with red lighting of some sort…) At Matteo’s, (www.matteos.com.au) the sort of venue that you get seriously dressed up to go out to, we ate divine food, I had beef and we had two gorgeous desserts, mine had crisp banana slices, then the manager gave us two additional drinks, a dessert wine, which was lovely and some grappa, not quite so lovely…after that Michelle joined us and we all headed towards Bar Open on Brunswick street, to listen to some Jazz, scary Jazz I think, it was a bit too Maths-brain for me! Then we went to the Night Cat, club venue in Brunswick street area, just off on Johnson street www.thenightcat.com.au/main - we saw Mister Savona, cool reggae/dancehall/hip hop apparently, good dancing music anywayz! Then we headed over reasonably drunkenly by this point to Polly which was a lovely cocktail venue. The exterior is weird and a bit like an English garden with fountain sort of…the inside is gorgeous and very red, though you only realise this once you are in there as there are no windows to the outside, just lush velvety redness everywhere and a cocktail bar in the centre (www.pollybar.com.au) and we were served by ‘Vanilla Rice’… – added to the list of must sees for tourists…

It was a very late night but the next morning I had to get up for beauticians again for hair removal, nice! But first off I had a skype conversation with Dave, James, Jude and Marlo which was lovely, they were all rather drunken which was kinda strange witnessing at 8.30am, but sweet too and it made me miss them a little and I admit feel a tad home sick…then in the afternoon Michelle and I we cycled to the Zoo, a really nice cycle ride from my house along cycle paths off the road…but then it was quite late when we got there and a warm day so all the animals appeared to be half asleep…which didn’t make for particularly exciting viewing with the remnants of a hangover. There was a wedding go on whilst we were there though, weird! It was very good the first time I went there though…perhaps I had gone there a whole lot earlier which seems weird! After the Zoo we cycled over the Smith Street to check out a Japanese restaurant, Shoubu after a beer in the Union Bar just off Smith St. All good, but we were both tired so went home to bed early.

Sunday I headed on down to the Craft Market near Flinders street train station and the Art gallery that I’d missed before due to going there on a Saturday, when it’s not in fact on. I did buy some little things I didn’t really need and then went to sit in the Botanical gardens which was lovely in the sunshine…then randomly texted Gabby to see if she was around and she was ready to meet up after work…so went down to St Kilda to watch the sunset and people watch and then met up with Gabby and she took me to one of her favourite bars on Fitzroy street in St Kilda…but I don’t remember the name as I didn’t get a little card from it (which I’ve been routinely collecting from almost every venue I can wherever I go if they have them)…then I saw her lovely house in St Kilda…and she took me to a good Thai place on Chapel Street (expensiveville shopping) and a late bar, upstairs…name…don’t remember, didn’t have a card for me to pick up…

7th April to 11th April - not the most exciting update, but here goes...

So I arrived late back after the Fraser Island trip due to silly Tiger Airways so didn’t have much energy for all the work that was there for me to do on arriving back after the long, long, weekend…after work I called in at the lovely cinema in Westgarth, at the bottom end of Northcote. Had some quick hot chips for dinner from Westgarth Fish and Chips, they may only have been chips and they may have taken longer than I would like so I had to eat them quick and give myself blisters so I could make the film on time, but they were good – there are quite a few little cafes and bars to choose from in this little pocket, as well as other useful places like The Fruit pedallers which also seems to have a complementary therapy type wellness clinic.. Went to see Mic Macs, fabulous sweet adorable film, worth a watch I think, by the same Director that did Amelie, Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Lovely. The cinema itself is really nice actually too, apparently not used enough though...so I must persevere with my idea of weekly films :-)

For Friday met up with Kate who’d returned from a good time in Byron Bay and Michelle, who’s just started working for a group related to my organisation, in a similar situation to myself. We all met on Lygon street and decided to go and see if anywhere appealed on Lygon street for dinner…it was a bit of a nightmare with various people from the restaurants trying to call us on and give us deals…we found it all a bit stressful so decided to avoid going in to anywhere on Lygon street at all and Kate drove us over to Brunswick street to go to St Jude’s cellar, which had caught my eye as it kept reminding me of my lovely friend Jude at home who I'm missing! (http://www.blogger.com/www.stjudescellars.com.au). Quite a nice place, steely sort of venue, food was pretty good and they had some OK wines, though not as many as I would have thought considering they were calling themselves a cellar! By the end of the meal and half a bottle of wine I was exhausted so didn’t go out which was a shame and a bit of a waste of a Friday night!


On Saturday morning got up a bit late then headed in to town to try and seek out the craft market…with my painful foot (to those of you that don’t know I’ve been having problems walking the past few weeks with a stupid and annoying painful foot…have Podiatrist booked…more details to follow about that…). Walked down the Yarra River on the South Bank I think it’s called…down near the Casino in the direction of Federation Square/Flinders Street train station and the Arts Centre. There are loads of restaurants to eat in along here, lots more than I remember when I came here in 2005/2008. Discovered after all that walking, but the occasional stop off to watch a street performer that the craft market is on Sundays...so headed over to Federation square/Flinders Street train station quite a bizarre building…then
down to Degraves place,
which I discovered by accident…has loads of fancy little shops and nice restaurants along it as it turns out…and lots of wedding parties have their pictures taken along there as Michelle and I discovered later on in the afternoon as she came to join me for shopping. Whilst on Degraves Place we ate in La Citta http://www.blogger.com/www.lacitta.net.au - perfectly fine little place. It’s quite difficult to find the good and interesting shops in the middle of town, or so I’ve found so far! Although there are a few. There’s a shop called ‘Buttonmania’, http://www.blogger.com/www.buttonmania.com.aubut sadly it was closed, near it though in this shopping centre
was another shop, called l'uccello which had some very lovely things to look at and mostly old genuine war vintage stuff including cheek reddener, though she did say, it might have lead in it so if we bought it not to use it…She sold cool hair accessories and things by a designer called Serena Lindeman http://www.blogger.com/www.serenalindeman.com.au - take a look at that website, there are some really cool hattettes and the like...We also accidentally walked in to a small gallery in this ‘shopping centre’ where there was two really cool canvas’ which basically looked as though they were covered in aluminium foil which was peeling off a bit and then spray painted gold – really cool look – like the idea of trying to replicate it somehow one day. http://www.blogger.com/www.pigmentgallery.com.au

In the evening Michelle and I went to see another comedy act (the Comedy festival was Still going on!). We were stood outside the town hall wondering who to see when some randomer came over to us who was dishing out flyers and offered us comedian advice, we took it because he said this guy had been recommended by quite a few people and was interesting and surreal, and indeed he was, good fun to watch, though somewhat stressful e.g. he flicked banana in to the audience as part of the initial act…tried to barge through a very narrow passageway between the audience with a massive suitcase and computer wheely chair, whilst also smelling rather a lot! But he was good and it was quite a captivating show, so yep, the show was called 'Dr Brown Behaves' and we went to see it in a venue called the Tuxedo Cat, which looked very temporary but I think someone suggested to me that it wasn’t that temporary, despite looking a bit derelict-like!


On Saturday evening when I returned home I learnt that Roscoe Frederick Worthington was born, weighing in at 8”10 at 11.10am. Willow gave me a call and sounded very happy about having him in the world, and had a natural birth this time, which I was really pleased for her about too. :-)

Sunday I was very rotty and lazed around. Felt a bit down after the Fraser Island trip, it was very cold on returning to Melbourne so could have been the shock of the weather change! Sunday I went along to Brunswick street and started having a look for bridesmaid dresses for Clare’s wedding in August. Tried a few on but not much found. In the evening when I returned I tried out Al Albero, a newish pizza/pasta place (am amused by how Australians say Pasta, Vic and I used to say it this way as a joke pretending to say Pasta in a posh way…silly silly). Anyway, yep the pizza place 354 St Georges Road, North Fitzroy, really pretty good and they do gluten free pizzas too which is cool and right interesting ones too e.g. I had Mushrooms, feta and thyme. So that gets me to the 11th of April....really falling behind on this thing...