Autumn St Kilda - beautiful weather this year 2010 idea for kiteboarding

Autum in Melbourne has been wonderful this year - long hot days with slightly cooler evenings.

Kiteboarding at St Kilda Beach has been very popular over the last few months. You can have lessons at the beach.
http://www.onedge.com.au/Kite-Boarding-Victoria-Lesson-Instruction-St-Kilda-Beach-Melbourne-Gift-Voucher/?gclid=CLng973M9qACFQY_bwod9AiDuA

A Grey Summer Day St Kilda

The weather has been overcast and grey at the St Kilda Beach recently but occassionally a thin shaft of sun highlights something and casts a little magic.

Stylish modern house - Beaconsfield Pde St Kilda

There is a strip of Beaconsfield Parade that has the homes of my dreams. I first saw these houses on a clear winter's evening when I first came to Melbourne. The dusk was turning to night and the lights in these houses were coming on and lighting them up like magic. The drapes weren't drawn and the houses looked stunning and I wished to join those people living in those spectacular illuminated rooms.

Since then a number of the houses have had a make-over. This one was recently finished and I walk this way often and Im delighted with the result from the road. It is as if I had some choice in what happened to it, I want it to look spectacular and it still fits in with the houses on either side of it - the original magic is still there.

Roses are blooming in St Kilda

This beautiful old fashioned rose was giving pleasure to the passers-by in Fawkner Street, St Kilda. The roses are beautiful around Melbourne this year.

Turkey Cock in St Kilda

This turkey is filling a window in Barkly Street, near the corner of Acland Street, St Kilda. As you pass the turkey jumps into view. I wondered if I was looking at a sporting goods shop. But, no! This is a barber shop of the old kind - not your modern unisex hairdresser. Why a turkey? I couldn't see the connection.

WikiAnswers (here) tell me that the male turkey is called a 'tom'. This bird is definately a male with all his plumage on display. Then I looked in 'The New Collins Concise English Dictionary' and they told me that the male of the species is known as a 'turkey cock'. I knew then that the barber shop is the right place for this handsome and puffed-up turkey to find a home .

St Kilda is always fun and the streets full of surprises

I passed by a block of apartments in Robe Street and thought someone was waiting to open the gate. A few steps on and "What the??"exploded in my mind and I retraced my steps. A statue waiting to open the gate?!

It's an amusing statue - a bit of fun that brings a smile on a cold grey day. He looks rather like the people who cover themselves entirely silver and then stand perfectly still in Bourke Street.

This 'person' is entirely covered in white plaster.

He is so clean I am guessing that he has just arrived and got into position.

St Kilda is never Dull!!

Passing by a house where I lived once and was happy.

I lived in this terraced house a few years ago. It was a sunny house with good vibes and it is sad to see it run down and in want of repair. It is a rental property and while I was there they renewed the roof which showed that they took some interest in the place. They didn't bother with the guttering in the front at that time and looking at it now that was a mistake. Green slimy mould is growing on the wooden veranda below where the rain pours through the large rust holes. The veranda may improve when it is summer and we have the expected months of dry sunny weather. The house faces south and it is a nice place to sit and sip a beer or a wine at the end of a hot day.

I was tempted to 'rose-nap' the standard rose when I left. You can see in the picture that it has fallen over by the front steps. I pruned the rose and nurtured it and it rewarded me by blooming every year - small pale pink flowers clustered around the top. It looks as if it is bravely producing leaves. If it flowers it may get someone's attention.

To give it a friend I planted a yellow rose in the centre of the garden. I took this with me. The standard was there when I arrived and I believed that by removing it I would be in breach of my tenancy contract and the cost of a replacement would be taken from my bond. When I look at it now I wonder if anyone would have noticed.

In the other corner there was a beauiful blue hydrangea. I pruned that every year, too and it produced an abundance of blue flowers. There was variegated ground cover and some blue bells that came up in spring.

At the rear of the house is a very useable back yard (yard rather than courtyard I think) where I grew tomatoes, rhubarb, silver beat and climbing beans. One of the delights of the back yard was its privacy which prevents me from seeing in and checking it out.

It was a pretty house then; old and in need of a paint but now it looks derelict as if no one loves it.

St Kilda History - Christ Church

A feature of Acland Street, St Kilda is this old church. It was consecrated in 1863 making it almost 150 years old.

The beautiful warm sandstone comes from Point King and Sorrento. The architectural style which is so striking against today's architecture, or for that matter the architecture of the 1970s (there is a lot of that in St Kilda), is the Gothic revival style that was so popular in the mid 19th century.

The side door of the church has had so many notices attached to it, it is covered with tacks, pins and blue tack. There are no notices at the moment which may mean that no one has any instructions to pass on.

Gargoyle is such a wonderful word and I have always wondered how such a delicate decoration could be made out of stone - however soft it is.

A mist hung over the St Kilda Bay - cold and romantic

The mist added to the view seen from Station Pier, in Port Melbourne, on Wednesday this week. The smoke from the ships at the port hung in the air. It was a strange eerie kind of day and beautiful.

Shifting sand at low tide at St Kilda Beach

Nine o'clock on a weekday morning. It's good to know the council is looking after our precious beach. It is amazing how sand shifts from one area to another just with the movement of the sea.

St Kilda Living

This is one of my favourite apartment blocks along the St Kilda Foreshore. I have only see the block from the road. I have never had the opportunity to go inside. I keep hoping to go past and find there is an Open for Inspection.

Nothing is perfect and when you get up close you can see that cracks are beginning to form and some of the concrete is chipping away . Nothing some maintenance couldn't eliminate but none the less the design looks better than the construction.


Next time you are passing have a look and see what you think of it.

Winter - Veg Out Community Garden - St Kilda

The Veg Out Community Garden can be fun but this morning this dear old bullock was standing, looking more forlorn than usual, as he watched the world through his wire cage - any moment he is going to give a heart rendering Mooooooo.

He has a purpose. He is succesful in scaring off the possums - the Silverbeet growing around him is flourishing. These beautifully healthy plants haven't a nibble between them.

Look at it. Ready to pick and cook

In my backyard garden, further down the road, the local possums have eaten all the leaves from my silverbeet, leaving the stems as a reminder of what could have been. But then I haven't got a bullock.

Pigeons taking a liking to Cafe Food

A cold day in South Melbourne and the pigeons have their eyes on the outside tables at Gas Cafe on Coventry Street. The diners had only just stepped away when these three descended.

Is the standing pigeon being polite or is he making a judgement call as to whether the food is to his liking??

Favourite cafes - thoughts from BookTalk in Richmond

I was in one of my favourite cafes the other day and I got to wondering what makes a café “my café”. One we chose over a number of others in the same area. "My cafe" may be too strong a statement – I am really talking about cafes that we feel comfortable. Cafes where we can wander in , order a coffee, drop down – sort of slump - and read the paper.

There are also cafes where we like to sit up straight and look our best. There are cafes where we know the food is good so we meet for lunch and cafes where we go because it is “my café” for one of our friends. These don't become our cafe of choice.

There is a café on Carlisle Street that I want to make “my café” but every time I go there, there is a problem with the table or I’m asked to move because I’m at a table for two or three and I’m only one. It is a cafe where I have received the wrong bill and had to argue about it. They supply papers and magazines and the decor is conducive to whiling away an hour or so, but something always jars. The food is good and this means it’s busy and the staff appear very concerned with getting the crowded in and out. It’s the sort of café where they are trying to take your coffee cup while you still have a couple of mouthfuls left. And it is hard to keep sitting at a table that has been swept clean.

When I was working in Elsternwick for a few weeks there was a café near the office where I bought my morning coffee. They were friendly and I read the paper while I waited. People had breakfast there and I like to see them sitting around. I got to recognize some of them and we greeted each other with a smile.

I was in the area recently and I headed there for a coffee. It’s closed and there’s a ‘For Let’ sign on the window. I’m glad I didn’t get too attached and I wondered about the people who used to go there for breakfast.

The BookTalk café in Swan Street Richmond is a café I feel at home in. It is one of my favourites. The café is in the middle of the bookshop and patrons are surrounded by new and second hand books. The second hand books can be read as you sip and there are magazines and papers for a shorter read. The chairs have the name of well known authors on brass plaques attached to the back. I must look out for Charles Dickens next time I’m there.

I’m back to my first thought and what makes a café “our café” I don’t have the answer but it is as well that we don’t all want the same thing. We don’t want to find there is no room in our chosen café and of course with the number of cafes in Melbourne we need to share our patronage between them.

Un Secret and eating at the Shakahari Cafe

While I was changing the ambience in my house I had hours to kill before I could go home again and walk on the floors. As it is mid-winter here I took myself off to the pictures. I saw Un Secret at the Nova Movie house in Carlton. It began at 10.30 -such a good time for those redecorating.

I have read and heard good reports of Un Secret but I found it hard to follow the shifts in time from past, present and future. At the beginning the story was engaging with the suggestion of a family mystery. At the end when the mystery was disclosed it fell flat with me. I also found it hard to understand the mother who took an action that was to ensure not only her death but her son’s as well.

I came out from the movie into a cold drizzle. A phone message said. “The floor isn’t dry yet”. So I trotted off to Faraday Street and the Shakahari Vegetarian Restaurant.

It is the best Vegetarian Restaurant I have been to and it is an institution in Melbourne.

The gas-log-fire was going and the room was cozy and I was lucky to grab a seat by the fire as it was vacated by an early eater.

The menu is interesting and I ordered ‘Croquettes Fululu’ – I have had them before which makes me very boring. Next time I’m there I am going to go for the ‘Stay Legend’
They also have the most stunning dessert ‘Black Rice and Sago Pudding’ It is a dark grey colour which could be a bit off-putting but the taste is to die for. I washed my meal down with an Organic Sauvignon Blac from Richmond in New Zealand. For an organic wine it was fine at the price of something like $7.50 per glass.

If you are our dining out give the Shakarahri a go. http://www.shakahari.com.au/

You don’t have to be a vegetarian to enjoy the food. The menu is labeled for vegans and if the dish is gluten free.

On Holiday

I have been on holiday for two weeks now and it’s become relaxing time.. The first week a friend stayed with so she and I rushed around Melbourne. We had a great shop in Brunswick Street and on another day when we were in the CBD with all those lovely arcades. I can spend days in those and my favourite is the Block Arcade with coffee at the Doumo Café. I love showing it off to out of town friends.

We spend Sunday morning at the Camberwell Market. I found a lovely old wire plant stand. Very rustic with the bottom two shelves bowed from the weight of plants. I saw one the same the other day in Prahran for 160% more. It was in a slightly better condition and it was rustic- worn-white rather than rustic-worn-grey. I couldn’t believe the price of $160 on the tag and had to have it confirmed. I was happy with my bargain of $10 but on seeing what I could’ve paid I was over the moon.


A couple of weeks ago I bought an old music stand from the market to display my photos.
At my last assignment I was working opposite Office Supplies and I found I could buy A4 photo paper reasonably cheaply so I have used it to print out some of my favourite photos. A lovely old music stand with the lyre on the top is just the thing for a changing display.

The last week has drifted by with chilly weather. I have watched videos, gone for walks, fussed about my fence. Some days it has been warm enough to lunch outside.

The blissful thing about holidays is that as the evening drifts on, I can drift with it without worrying about the morning alarm.

Morning on Sydney Road, Brunswick

These photos were taken at 8.50am near Blyth Street on Sydney Road.



It takes me about an hour travelling to get to my two day a week job in Brunswick. During that time I have moved to a very different part of the city

It’s an area of Melbourne I didn’t know and I find that life lived here is very different from life lived in the Bayside suburbs.

There’s the lack of the beach of course. But that wasn’t the first thing I noticed. On my first morning I left in plenty of time to negotiate the traffic and I arrived rather early at the top of Royal Parade. Great, I thought. I’ll have a coffee and read the paper. I drove along Sydney Road only to find it shut. I’m talking here about 8.20am. There were no people about and no cafes open. I found a news agent that was really a tobacconist. He had a whole wall of cigarettes and huge area of fancy lighters and amongst this two copies of The Age, one rather battered so I bought the other one.

I parked near the office to listen to the radio and read the paper. Opposite me was a medical centre. It wasn’t open either but there were 7 people queued up outside. One elderly man kept looking through the front window while another held forth on some topic and every now and again a couple of the women laughed with him and made a comment. A youngish man learned against the wall and pretended he was the only one waiting there.

It was curious. None of these people looked particularly sick and they couldn’t all have had an appointment at the same time. Yet you would hardly think the centre would operate on a first come first served basis. They were still there when I left and their numbers had swollen with the addition of a stocky middle aged woman.

By lunch time the area has come alive. The pavement is crowded. All the shops are open. The lines in the Post Office and the banks are long and the cafes are open and full.
There is a great place for sushi rolls and there’s a great café in Victoria Street that I plan to visit again.


















This is the place to buy your Wedding Dress. The shops are everywhere and the designs stunning.

I have never seen so many fabric shops so if you are a dressmaker this is the area to be. It is also the area for a bargain. Two Dollar shops and Variety Bargain shops are everywhere. See my previous post for my wonderful find.

I’ll be back there next week so I will explore further.

Sydney Road, Brunswick

I am working two days a week in Sydney Road Brunswick. It’s a drab street with fusty and cluttered strip shops.

I found this stunning dish there. It’s bright clear colours are the very opposite to the street colours.

I have it on my table and smile every time I see it. It lightens my mood. It’s made in China and I would love to tell the people, who will have earned a pittance making it (it was ridiculously cheap – the cost of a pizza) how much pleasure it is giving me.

An up-date on the toadstools - they have all died and left a greyish mess around the plant. I am now wondering if I will get any more.

Lavender Farm Daylesford - Mentor

A beautiful day and a beautiful Lavender farm. The Lavender farm is called Lavendula and is outside Daylesford in Victoria. It has the quaint address of, 350 Hepburn-Newstead Road, Shepherds Flat. The road has a couple of farm houses but there is no way of checking a number. The farm is identified from the road with a large sign.

I seldom leave Melbourne – the city is my stamping ground. The people I was with said it felt as if we had stepped into France or Italy. The smell of Lavender was everywhere and the day was enhanced by stunningly tender steak and chip potatoes cooked on an outdoor wood fired kiln and washed down with an Italian style local wine. We ate this under a canopy of shady trees. Grape vines wound their way around veranda poles and we looked through bunches of fattening grapes to view the geese. They weren’t fenced in. They just seemed to want to stay in ‘their spot’. This is an arts and craft area of Victoria where many artists live and there were stalls displaying their work.

One of our party was rekindling a dream she has about living in the country and how she could make it happen. I mulled over my goals and achievements as I sat in the dappled sunlight. I still haven’t got this sorted but I did realize that there were a number of tasks around the house I have talked about doing but haven’t started and I think getting them done may be a way to begin. That is: Stop Procrastinating!

I felt the presence of a dear friend. She does that sometimes: pop into my consciousness. When she was alive I had the warmth of her presence and now I have the legacy that she left. She is a mentor for so many things. She didn’t procrastinate!

There is so much about her that I admired and benefited from. She came to mind while I thought of tasks not completed or even started. Was it the French feel – she was a great Francophile? Or do people come back to us to jog us along? I’m never sure about this.

I am beginning this week with a list of tasks to get under way and positive vibes from her to motivate me to get started. I have already made progress on two of them!!

The sight and the smell of Lavender have stayed with me.

Victoria Market - Christmas Eve

My family has developed a new Christmas ritual since we have lived in Australia. On Christmas Eve we turn up at the Victoria Market with a long list in our hand.

It’s an exciting time. Today we left home at 6.30am. The roads were quiet yet when we got to the market there was a queue to get into the car park and the traffic was at a stand-still. We whipped around the side of this queue and found a park nearby where we have parked every other year.

We hurried through merchandise area and saw one or two lone people beginning to open up. We noticed that we could buy a new barbecue brush. Cleaning the barbecue at our place is always a problem. I’d love to know how other people deal with this.

It’s exciting to enter the Food Hall and hear the stall holders shouting their wares. It’s always a joyous moment when we know that we have become part of a huge crowd all gathering goods to prepare for the same celebration.

Buying steaks and sausages is the easy part it’s fish that everyone wants.

The area was jammed with people and their shopping carts. We don’t take a shopping cart as it could only add to our struggle as we try desperately to check out the prawns and oysters. We saw a guy struggling with a large cart and an eskay on the top level. Today wasn’t hot enough for it to be useful.

I often wonder if the fish stall at the beginning of the Food Court is the best. We have never been able to see it. The buyers are about 10 deep and trying to wriggle through and see the merchandise is impossible. I am only there on Christmas Eve but I must go some other time to check-out this stall. My belief is the crowd gathers because it’s the first one they come to.

The fish purchased, we moved to the Delicatessen area where the crowd is thinner but increases where the bread is. We have bought some disasters here in the past and I think it is an expensive place to shop. This year we bought a Danish Blue cheese to add to the ones we already have.

The whole place abounds in good cheer. People smile, laugh, chat, remark on the size of the crowd and wish strangers Merry Christmas. They allow themselves to be served in the order they arrive rather than push ahead. The spirit of Christmas is alive and well here. But this is early; people are surging in as we leave. The atmosphere could get less tolerant and festive later in the day. We vow to be even earlier next year so we can get a really good look before we buy.

We were too early for the Spanish donuts. We ate them last year. We bought a wire brush for the barbecue and were home for N to go to work and me to get myself to the gym where my favourite instructor ( see my blog dated October 3rd) took the pump class.

He began by saying, “Gee it’s a long time since I did one of these but I know how it goes”, and grinned cheerfully at us as he cranked up the music.

I noticed the time table doesn’t have him down for another one so he’s not keen to come back to it.