Icy treat, Bippolo Seed, evil babies

Federation Square baby

I made granita on Sunday for the first time (it's an Italian Slurpee-style dessert). I made blood orange and lemon flavour, mostly to attempt to recreate the dessert I had at an Italian restaurant late last year which was so delicious I still occasionally think about it. Mine was very tasty - sweet, tangy and tart - and I'm not just saying that myself. Luke also said it was delicious. (He's very effusive and generous with his appreciation of my culinary efforts, which is nice.)

My copy of the new Dr Seuss book, The Bippolo Seed and Other Lost Stories arrived yesterday. It was sitting on my desk when one of the people I work for approached. She asked me who it was for, and I said (a little bashfully) that it was the new addition to my collection. She said, "Oh, cool. I like you even more now." Haha.

The swans mights not have lost their eg after all. Luke and I passed one of the same pair sitting on a new nest on the south bank of the river when we walked into the city on Sunday. But I can't imagine how they could have rescued their egg and moved it to a new nest, and I'm not confident the new nest is above the tide line either. I won't count the eggs until they hatch....

Luke and I checked out the Angels-Demons Parade, which is a collection of giant adorably evil black baby sculptures along Swanston Street as part of the Melbourne Festival. They're simultaneously cute with their chubby hands and feet, and threatening, with their bat wings, spiky tails and the little horns on their heads. I liked them - I enjoy the juxtaposition of opposites.

Town Hall baby

To the nunnery, the photo exhibition and the movies

Hoddle Street and Collingwood Town Hall from

the overpass

I did indeed go to the Abbotsford Convent today - thanks to the GPS on my mobile phone. I forgot to look up exactly how to get there before I left home. Yay for technology.

Although the convent's numerous buildings have been rescued from ruin, many of them are still in a shabby state. Of course, I didn't mind at all. There was a market on, but I was more interested in the buildings than the wares on offer. (See Girl in Melbourne for photos)

After I left the convent I walked up Johnston Street to visit the Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP) in Fitzroy...only I turned left when I should have turned right into George Street. But I didn't mind because George Street has so much character  - an appealing mix of lovely old terrace houses and grunge. Sometimes being on the wrong path has its own rewards...

Look at that fabulous brick and bluestone! (Stupid light pole)

The exhibition I saw at the CCP was US photographer Taryn Simon's An Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar, a series of photos taken in places in America that most people never get a glimpse into (if they even know they exist). I really enjoyed it - it was fascinating, but also a little disturbing.

Today I learnt that there's a Braille edition of Playboy. I guess the vision impaired are the only ones who can genuinely claim to read it for the articles.

From there I walked to Carlton and decided on a whim to see Boy, an independent New Zealand film I'd heard good things about. It was funny and a little sad, with beautiful cinematography. I loved the shot of the old, ramshackle house overlooking the beach near the end -  it fit the theme of my day quite well.

I walked into the city and then trammed it home, very tuckered out.

It's all happening!

The view from Swan Street Bridge last night

It's Friday! J arrives tomorrow! Melbourne is abuzz! Not because J is arriving, though I'm sure it will be happy to host him. (I'm excited about him arriving of course.)

It's Grand Final Eve - tomorrow is a big day for this town, powered as it is by AFL fever (that and caffeine). It's a great time to visit Melbourne - the weather's starting to warm up a little, the Fringe Festival is on and the International Arts Festival kicks off in a week or so as well. So much to see and listen to and do!

Ah, I'm firmly in the grip of Melbourne love right now...well, more firmly than usual.

Big day out

I am all tuckered out from a big, long day today. I was up early (for a Saturday) and it was another gorgeous sunshiney spring day, so I walked to my sewing class in North Melbourne.

As predicted, zips turned out to be a challenge for Anna and me. I would have been a bit crap at it had I been awake and alert, but as I was practically catatonic with fatigue, I struggled. I was like Dory from Finding Nemo. "Sorry, what do I have to do....What was I meant to do again? Um...what? What are zips? Where am I?".

Fortunately, the zip we found the simplest is the one we are going to have to sew into our A line skirt...although, it wasn't until my third attempt that I got it right and even then it was against the odds - the teacher said I'd done something wrong, but I still did a really good job of it. I took that as a compliment.  The zip was functional. If it were attached to a garment, it wouldn't fall down around my knees.  But clearly Anna and I need to log a few hours of zip practice before we proceed to module 3.

After that I wandered up the street to the Art House at the North Melbourne Town Hall to see Leonardo's Last Supper, which is a Melbourne Festival event (although it's on until 8 November). It features a "perfect sculptural three-dimensional clone" of Da Vinci's Last Supper as the centrepiece for a show that merges visual arts, cinema, music and cutting edge technology" (too tired to think up my own description).

I didn't realise it was a 3D replica to begin with - I thought it was a trick of light that gave it depth, but no (fatigued, I tells ya). I was probably more impressed with it when I thought that! It was still pleasing to the eye - almost like a biblical music video at times.

After that I wandered up Queensberry Street and happened across the old fashioned corner store Grigons & Orr, which I've read about lately. I only stuck my head in for a quick look since I can't stuff my face full of artificial colourings and flavourings at the moment. Regardless, I am pleased just to know there is a milk bar in Melbourne where you can buy mixed lollies  - your very own selection chosen from lollies stored in big jars, not a selection chosen by Allens. "I'll have 5 bananas...and 5 milk bottles and 5 teeth and..." Just like in the olden days.  I bet 20c doesn't buy you 10 or 20 lollies like it did when I was a young un.

I continued on to the Melbourne Museum to see A Day in Pompeii. I hadn't planned to leave my visit until the last weekend, but that's what happened. I had to queue for ages and then the earliest session I could get into was at 6.00 pm, three hours hence.

To fill time, I wandered through the rest of the museum, spending most of my time in the Mind & Body exhibition where I was fascinated and a tiny bit grossed out by the real body parts that are used to explain the various part of the human body - digestive tract, immune system, nervous system, reproductive systems and so on. Real human body bits, donated to science! If only those people who left their bodies to science could somehow know they ended up as a star attraction at the museum, not just cadavers sliced and diced by med students. I'm sure they'd be proud (except maybe for the guy whose penis ended up on display. It's grey and very skinny and icky).

Being juvenile, I wanted to take a photo of the poo (fake, I assume) that is the finale of the digestive tract display but I didn't want people to see me. The poo is popular. There's even a little button next to it that makes a farting noise. I bet it's the most pressed button in the museum.

I was also fascinated (in a grown-up way) by the information on the condition known as synesthesia. Although I had heard of it before, it just seems too weird to be true! In synthesthetes, the stimulation of one sense provokes an involuntary response from another sense - for example, they can "see" or even "taste" sounds or "hear" colours. Freaky, hey?

The exhibit features the story of one synesthete who didn't know until he was 14 that not everyone sees music in colour (cello music is dark red). Although it's "abnormal", most people with the condition find it's a blessing rather than a curse. Isn't the mind bizarre and wondrous?

Finally 6.00 arrived and I got into the Pompeii exhibition. It was fascinating and quite moving, particularly the casts of victims who were fleeing from the volcanic eruption or huddling together in their homes. Interesting also to see how petite they were compared to modern humans.

The exhibition reveals in some depth what life was like in Pompeii at the time of the catastrophic eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79 AD - what they ate and wore, how they did their laundry, their entertainment, what their dwellings were like and their fondness for graffiti - as well as detailing the disaster and eventual re-discovery of the lost city. That's the kind of history I like - wars and political maneuverings leave me cold. 

After that, I walked back to Flinders Street and caught a tram home. Today's distance walked - 13.77 kms.  I'm rather weary. Sleep in tomorrow, methinks.

(I haven't inserted any links in this as yet...I need to go to bed now.)

Got my glee back!

Yup, I've definitely emerged from my grump. Phew.

Today I was up way earlier than I needed to be (in hindsight) and as it was a sunny day, I decided to walk to my sewing class in North Melbourne. It was only about 5kms in the end. It was a little chilly, but fine and there were rowers on the river and more people than I expected in the city, possibly due to the Caulfield Cup (big horse race...as in a major event, not large horses).

The sewing class was great. Our teacher was a guy! That was unexpected. Yes, he was gay and also very entertaining.

Importantly, I didn't suck at the sewing. In fact, when we were winding the bobbins and threading the machines, it all came back to me from my high school textiles classes. Well, hazily, but I didn't feel like a total novice. We made this:

It's a wallety/clutchy kinda thing. Yeah, I know my thread doesn't match. That's not the point, people (I'm not actually going to use it).

My friend Anna and I were so pleased with ourselves we signed up on the spot for the second module, which is next Saturday. Button holes and zips. This could test us... We're both excited about the class where we'll be making an A line skirt. I even went to Lincraft on my way home to have a look at fabric (I have to say fabric, rather than material, now that I can sew).

I had lunch and a chat with Anna afterwards (oopsie, diet fail) and then I decided to walk home. I'm the peripatetic version of Forrest Gump. Walk, Frisky, waaaaalk!

I stopped in at Queen Vic Market (not the food bit) and bought myself a self-heating gel heat pack that's shaped especially for your neck and shoulders (I've had a major pain in the neck this week, which didn't help my mood). You press a little metal disc inside the heat pack and - voila! - it gets hot. Toasteeeeee.

I also adopted another member for my giraffe family. That's him rear left.

By the time I walked all the way home, I'd covered just over 12kms. Whew.

Then tonight I walked up to Hamer Hall to see the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. It was an experience and, in the interests of trying new things, I'm not sorry I went, but the music for the most part was just a bit...well, noisy. I won't be buying the CD (yes, there is one). I think if I go again I'll stick with the classics or the pops series, rather than contemporary stuff.

But the conductor was fun to watch. I actually laughed when he first started spasming and twitching about. I wondered if he deliberately keeps his hair floppy so he can flip it about while conducting. And I also pondered how the orchestra bosses select the person who clangs the cymbals. Would there really be much separating the talents of one cymbal-clanger and the next? Most of the time tonight the cymbal dude just sat on his stool, waiting to clang. Oh, and gong. He had one good bong of the gong.

Imagine if you're the clanger/gonger and you meet an attractive lady at a party and she's all, "So, what do you do?"...

Clanger/gonger (swaggery): "Well, I'm in the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra actually."

Attractive lady (with interest piqued): "Oh, really? A musician! And what do you play?"

Clanger/gonger: "The cymbals. And also the gong."

Attractive lady: "Oh? Oh. Well. If you'll excuse me..."

I imagine that's why the term "percussionist" was invented, though personally I prefer clanger/gonger.

Anyway, it was a night out and now I can make out like I'm cultured because I've seen the MSO perform.

Diary of fun

There's quite a bit of fun stuff in my diary for the next few weeks. Plenty to be excited about and look forward to. I love that feeling.

On the weekend I will meet Thomas James, my friend's baby who was born last week, and I'm also seeing by fave band Wagons (again!) supporting US alt-country singer-songwriter Justin Townes Earle (son of Steve Earle) at the Thornbury Theatre.

Next week I have tickets to see UK comic Daniel Kitson's show We are Gathered Here, which is showing as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival. The Festival kicked off last week. I haven't had a thorough look at the program yet, but so far I'm also going to the opening night of iMap at the City Library, which features a gigantic map of the CBD on the wall of their gallery space. Visitors will be able to share a memory of something that happened to them in the city and it will be attached to the corresponding place on the map. I need to think of something worthy of sharing....

The Melbourne International Arts Festival starts in a week or so too and I've decided I'm going to go see the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. I've never been to see an orchestra before. The London Philharmonic Orchestra is performing also, but tickets are, unsurprisingly, a little on the expensive side.

The opening night celebration also looks good. Better put that in my diary too...

And I'm doing sewing classes! I'm going to pretty much learn to sew all over again since I remember very little from high school textiles classes. My friend Anna and I are going to do classes at the very groovy Thread Den. There's three modules to equip you with the basics and then in the fourth module, we'll make an A line skirt. I hope I don't suck at it...