In and around Melbourne

So, now for some highlights of Melbourne:

* A day at Phillip Island with my sister and brother-in-law and nieces. We visited a chocolate factory for necessary supplies, strolled around Churchill Island, did a spectacular walk at Nobbies Point, then watched the Little Penguins come ashore for the night. These are so cute and tiny. They look so wrong coming in out of the surf, and then there’s the way they all pile up and jostle about on the water’s edge till everybody’s ready and they all decide to make a run for it up the sand – only it’s not a run, but a clumsy shuffling, and it makes you want to laugh.

* Day spent cruising around Mornington Peninsula and Sorrento. This was very pleasant - wandering in and out of shops, looking at the water, drinking coffee, eating icecream. We had gorgeous weather (don’t know what these people who carry on about Melbourne weather are talking about!) for both this day and Phillip Island, but this day there was more of a cold wind blowing. We wound up the day with a very pleasant walk up over a headland and then back along the beach in Sorrento.

* A day in the city. This was however rather frustrating, because none of us really knew where to go. Also, life is different with a family with kids and my ideas of hanging about in nice cafes sampling local fare didn’t really work out. But I got a feel for the place and I have since gathered up better ideas of where to go next time. (All you Melbourne dwellers feel free to make suggestions here.)

* Catching up with much-missed friends in St Kilda. I loosely and collectively call my family and friends in Melbourne “the academics” because my brother-in-law is a lecturer at Monash University, as is one of these friends (can't find a direct link), and I also had a brunch lined up with Jo but unforeseen circumstances came up against that, so next time. But St Kilda was more like it. We took a little stroll around before dinner and popped into a very cool record shop which has live gigs out the back featuring a chap playing a mandolin this particular evening, so we listened for a brief while (and apparently The Swell Season recorded a show here on their visit), then there was the pub where poetry readings are held, and then we ended up in the local bookshop, before taking some gourmet pizza back to M and N’s place. Nice, very nice.

* Then there's the things I bought. I didn’t actually go to Melbourne with the intention of shopping to any extravagance. I did, however, end up with quite a bit of stuff. But you’ll be pleased to know (or actually, you probably couldn’t care less) that most of it came from op shops. But, since people keep actually asking me this question, I scored: some grey jeans-like Witchery pants; a long grey GAP hoody, since grey hoodies seem to be the thing; a chocolate brown jersey style Portmans dress – this is classy, I think; some Ripcurl jeans – not so sure why I bought these as they are too tight (all the family says they don’t look too tight, but they sure do feel like it, perhaps because they have no elastane in them at all, and it would seem that most jeans these days do – but they are something to aim for); a greenish jacket that’s WestCo. (I am not usually a brand name shopper – but I am at op shops, because I’m not going to pay $10 for something that was only $20 new.) I did also buy some new cardies at various sales and a grey wool cap/hat in Mornington on a whim. The one thing I did go out of my way to buy was a book I mentioned back here called Our Father Who Wasn’t There, by David Carlin. He is a lecturer at RMIT Univeristy, so I figured that Melbourne City was a good and sentimental sort of place to get it. I have decided to read a few biographies about growing up fatherless, just because. This is the first and I am looking forward to beginning.