A change in the air

I chose awesome (obviously).

After some flip-flopping about lots of different things, I decided Melbourne had too much to offer right now (on so many fronts), and couldn't be ignored. Plus, coming home in October gave me the chance to spend 10 days with various family members on the US east coast (and in autumn - eeep!) on my way home. The photo above is from a walk in Ithaca.

What next? I'm not entirely sure. Probably not journalism, the industry's just too dire these days for me I think. I'm throwing my CV out there a great deal right now, but also very seriously looking at a Master of Urban Horticulture. We'll see. But there are so many exciting developments and fresh things going on in my life that I know it's going to be an incredible year, and a particularly wonderful summer. Just remind me of that in a few weeks time when my Canadian bank account is drained and no job has materialised!

Act your age!

Occasionally I feel like I live an overly sedate life for someone in their mid-twenties. For instance, last weekend there was the choice of bee keeping workshop or the offer of some tickets to Parklife.


I'm happy to say the bee keeping workshop was able to be put off for another weekend, and instead I wandered around a freezing cold festival site, still feeling older than my age because I had decided to opt for jeans and a jumper rather than hot pants and a crop top on a day with a top of 16 degrees. But at least I saw some awesome music! Lykke Li in particular was one to get excited about, but others I liked included Kimbra, Gossip, Santigold, and Example.

Photo by Karen Roe

Flower and Garden Show

I've never been to the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show (or MIFGS, as the cool kids call it) because it costs a lot of money to go and I suspected that it wasn't really my type of gardening. But suspecting and knowing are two different things, and I always consider going, and this year the landscape design company my housemate works for had an entry, so last weekend I figured now was as good a time as any to see what it's all about.

Money. That's what it's all about. Apart from the part that was about almost all the gardens looking pretty much the same, the use of the same plants over and over and most notably the same colours over and over. I did get to look at lots of pretty succulents, which I loved. But I couldn't understand why people were paying a few dollars just for a cutting when you can get them for free from friends, parks, the bits that fall off onto the pavement outside people's houses, etc. It all seemed so soulless, and even when I did see a really cool plant I found I wanted to buy it from one of the three local nurseries I frequent and support them instead of a vendor I'll never see again.

So now I know. That's not my type of gardening. But it was interesting to see I suppose, if only to be grateful that my garden is built with a lot more love and a lot less steel blue paint, lime green cushioning, and that particular brown that popped up in every single design. And of course, a lot less money.

This weekend should be an entirely different experience as we're heading off rockclimbing at the Grampians - should be fun!

Coming soon

I've just started seeing previews for The Pacific on Channel 7. Which I imagine is exciting if you loved Band of Brothers, the previous series by Steven Spieldberg. I, however, never saw it.

But it's also exciting if your house was filmed for it! Much of the filming of one story thread took place in our old neighbourhood and in particular in the house next door. In one exterior shot a soldier suitor plucks a rose from the garden next door to the house he is visiting. From this (gorgeously set-dressed) front garden, in fact.


They tore up all the weeds in our front patch and put pots of box hedges around the edges, fake mondo grass along the front, and pots and pots of roses.


To make such a dense screen of roses in the front they took tall standard roses and leaned them up against the fence in between shorter pots of roses. There was also plenty of fake ivy woven around the place - even though we've moved house it still haunts me, I found what I hope is a final plastic leaf when repotting something the other day.

It was a week of mayhem in our neighbourhood.


And when it was all done, and the front garden was left bare and empty of weeds...
I started a vegie patch.

Down Shakespeare St

Yesterday I wandered down


I made an effort to look up, as I recently learnt, and was duly rewarded


But what was below was even more important


The entrance to


And inside? Well, inside there were plenty of lovely people spinning and chatting and doing other wool-related activities. And I got to choose from this wall


for more wool for the scarves I've been knitting. It's all gloriously lush handwoven wool which is so soft and has such lovely colours.

If you're ever around go check them out:
Handweavers and Spinner Guild of Victoria
12-20 Shakespeare St
Carlton North

Signs from another time

The other day I was wandering around the area near my house and for the first time I noticed this sign.


Crazy what you see when you stop looking at the footpath! Isn't that name fantastic? It conjures up a whole different era doesn't it?

So I made an effort to look up more around the neighbourhood, and was rewarded with this gem.


I love the irony of a peeling painted sign advertising long-lasting paint. Mind you, I'm sure it's been up there for decades! Also, how wonderful is that red nextdoor to the sign?

Open Studio

Apologies to non-Melburnians for the second Melbourne post this week, but I had to share this place with you.

Friday night was a friend's 30th birthday party, which was held at her friends' bar Open Studio in Northcote. Such an amazing night! The theme was along the lines of Orientalism and Egypt at the Berlin Cabaret, and there was a positively Bacchanalian atmosphere. Dim lights, exotic costumes with a bohemian edge, Serbian plum brandy to welcome you, trays of champagne and a live band which included cello, accordion, double bass, trombone, trumpet and violin all in one joyous cacophony. Numerous languages could be heard between songs, which ranged from wild gypsy-like music to cabaret classics. The mood was exultant and leaving was like stumbling out of another world back onto the streets of Northcote. You could imagine returning the following week and finding only a deserted shell, and having imagined the whole affair.


Check out someone else's review here. I was lucky to experience it in such an intimate way, with all of those who created the place and love it, but I'm assured that our night wasn't anything particularly out of the ordinary for this bar.
Also, the myspace profile for the band Vardos, which formed part of the large band playing can be found here. I don't know who else was playing, but I think they were all regulars.

(And apologies for the poor photo taken with a phone, I never remember to take a camera when I'm out on the town. I'll have to try and remember next time.)

Straight Lines

When you visit other cities you invariably compare them to your own, and I always find this even more the case when I'm in Sydney. Perhaps this is due to the famed Sydney/Melbourne rivalry, or more likely because Tom was nice enough to leave his family and friends behind and move to Melbourne not long after we met, so I've always sort of felt that some time living up there is on the cards. (Plus there are so many magazines based in Sydney, which is another draw-card for me.)

I know that for some of the things I love about Melbourne I could learn to love the opposite in Sydney, but right now, here's one of the things I love about Melbourne.

Straight lines. I understand that behind a curve in the road lies mystery and surprise, but I love that you look all the way down Swanston Street and see the Shrine of Remembrance, and pictured below is another favourite.


The view down Brunswick Street towards a church in East Melbourne.

Grey Day Consolation*

Maybe consolation is the wrong word. In fact it felt like I was luxuriating in the cool weather as I sat with my latte and pain au chocolat, listening to the patter of downpipes dripping on pavement and the hiss of cars speeding past on the wet road. Now I'm watching rain slide down my study window, blurring and distorting the world outside, and trying to remember the last time it rained like this.

And maybe consolation is the right word, because part of the joy of weather like this is being consoled by comforts like a hot drink steaming in the damp, cold air or being wrapped in a woollen jumper with a good book as the rain on the roof lulls you into a languorous cocoon.

*Given how often I find myself tempted by this little French bakery on a nearby corner, this post could also be correctly titled 'There's No Milk Left And I Can't Be Arsed Shopping', 'I Can't Stand The Thought of Another Sandwich', 'It's Sunny! Let's Sit Outside', 'Surely Spinach Slice Counts As My Daily Iron Intake' or 'My Jeans Feel Loose, Must Be Time to Reward Myself'.

the cool

Saturday was the hottest day I've ever experienced, although thankfully I was working in airconditioning, so didn't have to experience too much of it. When I rode to work at 9:30 it was already in the high thirties. Occasionally we'd step outside just to subject ourselves to what felt like an other-worldly heat. A hot wind roared through almost empty city streets, burning our eyes within seconds of feeling it. The sky had turned a weird grey, as though the colour had been scorched out of it. It wasn't even wide-open-plains-white coloured, but a scary grey. Almost all my workmates also cycle to work, so we all decided to wait the heat out in the city with some cool beers and ride home once it was bearable.

Thankfully a cooler wind had crept in by the time we finished, but we still retired to Section 8 for a cool beer. Section 8 is one of those laneway bars Melbourne is so famous for, but is one of the few that is so open to the sky. The courtyard in front of the shipping container bar is shaded by stone fruit trees, comic strips decorate the plywood bathroom walls and a giant, fading crosstitch takes up part of the fence. Plus it's located next to the best dumpling house in town. As we sat drinking longnecks of Coopers Pale Ale the heat of the day subsided. Drifts of cool air would pass down the laneway, and wooden seats creaked as they returned to their normal size rather than buckling with heat expansion.

When rain finally fell we relished the cool on our bare arms. It was only later that we realised how much dirt had been washed down from that grey sky, speckling my shoulders with dirty freckles.