I took advantage of yesterday's gloomy weather to go to South Melbourne beach. No, not for a swim; to take photos and explore another part of Melbourne that I'm not overly familiar with. I love the beach on grey days.
I walked along the beach front from Kerford Road Pier to Station Pier and then wandered through the streets back to the city. Development along the waterfront is predictably samey and charmless, but the old terrace houses and the Clarendon Street shopping strip are quite lovely.
There were lots of shells on the beach, some of them even whole. I saw a live jelly fish in the water and lots of jellyfish washed up on the sand too. I love poking about on the beach to see what I can see (and in rock pools).
Unusual multi-lingual toilet signage, no doubt due to nearby Station Pier being the former port of entry for migrants arriving by ship
A plaque in the concrete at the base of a park bench near Station Pier
It's hard not to smile at the unrestrained joy of dogs at play. Tonight a little black dog playing in the park with its owner came running towards me so boisterously I laughed out loud. A few weeks ago I saw a little terrier spinning in circles on the spot with excitement as he waited impatiently for his owner to throw the ball to him. He was spinning around at such a dizzying speed I'm surprised he could run in a straight line.
I bought a new handbag made of beautifully supple leather a few weeks ago. The leather smells fantastic.
I've got a thing about Zooper Doopers at the moment, even when it's not hot. (A Zooper Dooper is flavoured ice in a tube). I like to leave them for a few minutes to get a bit melty before I eat them. I don't know why, it just makes them better.
I sent off my mix tape to my Twitter friend Jason today and then I arrived home to find a package from another Twitter friend containing a book and CDs about meditation, which I'm interested in learning about. Ah, it's the circle of giving.
Wordless
I have a Pepsi Max habit which sees me buying a 600ml bottle every lunch time from a place near my sushi outlet. In three months I have reached the point where I don't need to ask for what I want - or even open my mouth at all. They see me coming and reach for my beverage. It's ace.
Permanent
Oh, I forgot to mention that I have been made permanent in my job. It will be nice to feel like I properly belong somewhere again.
I didn't get any flowers today, but a CD I ordered from Amazon aaaaages ago finally arrived. It was delivered to my work this afternoon. It's Holly Golightly and The Brokeoffs' second album, Dirt Don't Hurt (which strangely isn't on iTunes). I'm uploading it to my iPod now....
I've bought so much new music lately my ears are overloaded. Overloaded with awesome.
I saw a rare sight today. Possibly rarer than dolphins in the Yarra. I happened to look up as I was walking to catch a train home at Southern Cross Station and I saw a rainbow in the clouds. Not a rainbow...RAINBOW COLOURED CLOUDS, PEOPLE!
"What the?" I thought. I wondered if it was my sunglasses (sometimes the polarised lenses give a rainbow tint to some surfaces) but the colours remained when I switched to my specs. Of course, I took photos to prove I wasn't going loco.
According to National Geographic (yay for the internet!) rainbow clouds are rare and happen when the sun is high in the sky and passes through high altitude, wispy clouds which have ice particles shaped like thick plates, and these plates are lying parallel with the ground. It's called a circumhorizontal arc. Cool, eh?
Here's to looking up. You see stuff.
Edit: According to this guy, rainbow clouds aren't rare, but hey, they're rare to me. I like how the last paragraph of his post echoes mine.
I went to the first of the four free Melbourne Symphony Orchestra concerts at the sidney Myer Music Bowl tonight. It was an evening of Mahler and Mozart. I love the Bowl. It's a magical location. And walking distance from home!
You know how I was talking about mix tapes the other day? Well, one of the people I follow on Twitter has created a 'twixtape'. She asked her followers to name one song, then she bought them all and made a playlist, which I am listening to as I type this.
Still a ways to go yet, but so far I love this (Pack Up By Eliza Doolittle). And this :
I suspect my iTunes account will be getting another work out. Thanks for sharing @annagconnell.
Yummy scrummy
I made a quinoa dish with roasted cherry tomatoes (among other things) in it for dinner last night (and tonight. Yay for leftovers). Roasting those wee tomatoes makes them taste even more delicious. I like to put them in my mouth whole and bite into them for a little flavour explosion. Tasty.
I bought Gabby Young's album Bear With Me last night. It's fantastic. Rollicking, theatrical, enchanting and beautiful, and all with that old-time circus/cabaret vibe. There's even one song set against the sound of distant fireworks. Lots of brass, accordian and, of course, Gabby's great voice. I loves it.
There's one song called Mole which includes a line I really like: "Can't we be children about this, because adults take everything far too seriously".
I'm definitely going to see her show in a few weeks. I've also bought a ticket to see The Waifs, one of my all-time favourite bands, who have a new album coming out next month. Hurrah.
Mixing it up
I've made 'mix tapes' for two friends this week. It's fun. You want one? It also makes me realise how diverse my musical tastes are (online dating experiences of yore caused me to cast the word 'eclectic' from my vocabulary). The playlist for one friend includes rock, garage rock, punk, alt country, blues, old school R&B, folk, French pop, psychobilly, and a couple of other songs that I don't quite know how to categorise.
There was a torrential downpour in Melbourne last night. It was ace. I've mentioned before how much I like the novelty of freak weather (part of me even enjoys extremes of heat and cold too, which is a bit weird). I don't like to see people's property damaged, of course, but I do get a kick out of seeing intersections submerged and plumes of water spraying into the air as cars go by.
Corner of St Kilda Road and Linlithgow Avenue. There's a kerb,
gutter and footpath under there
I was at a Southbank restaurant with my friend Luke when the deluge started. Within a few minutes the restaurant staff had to move diners out of the covered balcony area because the floor was covered in several centimetres of water, and then use brooms to disperse the little lake. When we left the restaurant, Luke spotted these funny little clouds in the city. We took photos and when we looked back half a minute later, they'd completely vanished.
We then went to see True Grit at the art deco Sun Theatre in Yarraville. I'd never been there before and had wanted to go for a while. It is indeed a lovely old cinema, although I was disappointed we were in the Davis cinema and not the more evocatively named Trocadero or La Scala. Oh well. The Davis is very aesthetically pleasing with the red, rose-patterned backlit panels down either side. (Check out the couches and the red lady triptych in the La Scala though!)
I've never been to Yarraville before either. I've lived in the eastern, south-eastern and northern suburbs, but never the west and I rarely have cause to go there. Although it was dark and the rain curtailed our wandering, I liked what I saw of Ballarat Street. The bookshop at the Sun Theatre is pretty ace too (but I'm not allowed to buy more books until I get through the pile on my bedside table).
This week's musical find
I saw a poster at Melbourne Central today for an upcoming show by a UK singer/songwriter called Gabby Young. I'd never heard of her, but something about her look piqued my curiosity. I looked her up online when I got home and...well, she's great. She has an amazing voice. I love the theatrical, old-timey circus look of this video - and the fast beat and big brass of the song. She's in Melbourne in a few weeks. I must go.
