Spicy, decluttering, greenery

Ghost sign on Victoria Street, Albert Park

I made a tasty chicken curry from scratch for dinner tonight. I had most of the spices already (including fenugreek seeds, of all things!) so I thought I might as well make the curry powder rather than buy it. I used a coffee grinder that a friend gave me to make the powder - much quicker and easier than trying to make a fine powder in the mortar and pestle, that's for sure.  I love the smell of all the different spices. I made enough powder to make several more curries.  

I cleaned out my bathroom cabinets and laundry cupboards this afternoon and got rid of quite a lot of stuff. Well, all the half-empty products I no longer use are sitting in a box while I work out where to dispose of them. Although they aren't strictly hazardous chemicals, I don't want to empty them down the sink. Next weekend I plan to do the kitchen, including that one draw full of random crap that everyone has somewhere in their house (the one with duct tape, sparklers, a cigar cutter and widgets with no readily discernible use.) 

We bought some new indoor plants yesterday to replace the ones I bought years ago that eventually gave up and died a while back. We got a spathiphyllum (aka peace lily), a syagrus and a fittonia, which is the prettiest little thing.  A bit of greenery always brightens up the place, doesn't it?

Old signs and cute cottages in Seddon

That one yard in the neighbourhood...

Luke and I went west for brunch today, to the inner western suburb of Seddon, which is tucked between Footscray and Yarraville. We had a nice meal (with friendly service) at a Spanish cafe called Lola and then a wander around the streets...well, actually a drive because the wind was too icy for wandering on foot.

I might have mentioned before that we're a bit snobby (which I should be ashamed of, being a working class bogan from the bush, but I can't help it). We've never lived in the western suburbs and we've never want to live in the western suburbs because....well, it's the western suburbs. 

But let me tell you, Seddon is delightful. DE-lightful. We were utterly charmed by its streets of beautifully renovated little cottages with bullnose verandahs edged with intricate iron lacework. We drove along,  looking from side to side, exclaiming, "Oooh, that one's nice!" "Look at those windows!" "Oh, they're all so cute!" "IT'S ALL SO PRITTEEEEEE!" (Those last two were me.) I even liked the few the unrenovated ones because I like urban decay too.  (I didn't take many photos because I wasn't on foot.) 

We liked Seddon so much that when we got home we looked online at places to rent in the area, but sadly there were very few in our price range. Boo. (Not that we're looking to move now, but we'll have to sooner or later because the flats in out building are being progressively renovated and then rented at much higher prices.)

There was also some stellar ghost signage in Seddon and surrounds.  

 ETA peanut butter...makes you glad you're hungry 

The ETA sign has been retouched (regrettably, in my opinion), but the others haven't, probably because time has revealed two signs on top of each other  ('Grocer' up the top and 'TJ Cawthorn' underneath), which I'm guessing would be a trickier restoration job.  

 Drink Cinzano

I was pretty chuffed when I saw the Yarra Coffee Palace sign above. I got Luke to pull over and then I was thrilled to see this on the side of the same building: 

Temple Bar Tobacco...Mild & Mellow

Tense knee caps, fungus, Fitzroy wanderings

Awesome Collingwood ghostsign (or is it Fitzroy?)

At pilates today, while I was executing a bend over hamstring stretch thingo, the instructor told me to "relax my knee caps". I laughed instead. 

There's a crop of little mushrooms in the garden out the front of my flat. There's more of them today than there were yesterday. I'll check again in the morning. (I tried taking photos but they're too small and too far from my reach to get a decent one.) 

Luke and I had lunch over in Fitzroy today then wandered the streets and alleyways, looking at street art and ghostsigns. 

 Inward goods

 Manufacturing chemist

Mesmerising eyes

George Costanza

Then we went home and I napped for hours.  

The Dressmaker, dinner, laughing

A two-in-one ghost sign on La Trobe Street

I enjoyed The Dressmaker last night. It was funny and sad, and the scenery and cinematography were stunning. And the costumes! Gorgeous. 

We had another tasty dinner tonight, partly because I made potato salad and cucumber salad again. I reckon I could eat both every night. I have a very high boredom threshold for food I enjoy. We also had corned beef and curried cabbage. 

Dylan Moran is doing stand-up on the telly as I write this. I love listening to Luke chortling and guffawing. It's my favourite sound. 

A spontaneous Sunday adventure

Great Ocean Road from Teddy's Lookout, Lorne

Luke and I made an impromptu visit to Lorne on the spectacular Great Ocean Road yesterday. We had lunch in a little town west of Geelong called Birregurra just for a day out somewhere different, but rather than head back home on the highway, Luke suggested we head south to Lorne since it wasn't that far away. It's hard to say no to zooming along the GOR. 

With our bellies full of lamb snags (Luke) and beef burger (me) supplied by farms in the Birregurra region, we set off. The trip took us from farmland, through the forested Otways National Park to the coast.

Fabulous old petrol bowser at Deans Marsh 

A ghost sign on the building behind the bowser

While in Lorne we took in the view from Teddy's Lookout and visited the lush spendour of Erskine Falls - my first time there. It's not the mightiest waterfall we've visited, but the setting is beautiful. Cool, green and cavernous. 

 Erskine Falls near Lorne

Kookaburra sits in the old gumtree

We dropped into the secondhand bookshop in Birregurra (naturally) and while we were there, the owner dropped a bookstand on the floor near my feet. I picked it up for her and she said that meant I would get a surprise. Apparently that was a thing when she grew up - if someone drops something and you pick it up for them, a surprise will come your way. Country karma, I suppose. My surprise is due on Wednesday. I assume it's going to be a nice surprise. 

It might have come early actually. I thought the interest I pay annually in November for an investment thingo hadn't been debited from my account, but today I realised it had; it was just much smaller than usual. This means nearly all of my tax return can go towards other, more tangible things, like saving for holidays next year.  Yay. Oh, OK; I did buy some shoes too.    

Eye test, new specs, surprise sign

I had my eyes tested today. I like visiting the optometrist, although I don't enjoy it as much now that the goggle-machine is computer-controlled. It was more fun back when the optometrist had to manually switch all the lense testing things. I don't know why. Something about the noise. 

I wasn't going to get new glasses, but then I spotted some frames with black and white striped arms. They shall be mine soon.  Yes, my obsession with B&W stripes has reached new heights.

While I was in the waiting room at the optometrist overlooking Little Collins Street, I saw a ghost sign. 

Baths! 

This is the back of the Royal Arcade, which was built in 1896. Baths?? That's weird. Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I have learnt that this part of the arcade once housed Turkish baths! There was even fainter writing on the left of the building, but I didn't bother to take a photo of it because it was too hard to read. I have to go back to the optometrist for another test next week, so I'll have a look to see if it says 'Turkish'. 

I'm not working tomorrow. I have a day off for an appointment and I have a bunch of boring but essential stuff to do, but yay! A day off. 

Ghost sign and word nerd glee

Walking home tonight

Remember the ghost sign seminar I went to last month? The one that I haven't got around to blogging about? Well, I finally sat down yesterday with my notes and googled some of the names that came up at the seminar. 

The first speaker, Sam Roberts from the UK, started his talk by mentioning some of the pioneers of the ghost sign movement (I think I can call it a movement). One is William Stage, an American journalist, author and street photographer who published Ghost Signs: Brick Wall Signs in America in 1989.

Another is Frank H Jump, also American, who started photographing vintage signs in New York City in the late 1990s and maintains the Fading Ad Blog. Yesterday I liked the Fading Ad Facebook page and also followed Frank on Twitter. I mention all of this so I can tell you that he sent a request to follow me back and I'm a little bit chuffed. I'd better start tweeting more about my ghost sign finds.

I'm not going to write much else about the seminar now, but I've included a bunch of links if you want to find out more. I haven't had a good look at them yet myself.

Another gem from Let's Bring Back...The Lost Language Edition: quockerwodger, literally a marionette, but figuratively, a term for someone - a politician - whose strings are being pulled by someone else.

Ooh! I just remembered! The Inky Fool (author of The Etymologicon) is coming to Australia! Yay! But he's heading for Sydney for the Sydney Writer's Festival, not to Melbourne. Boo! I'm contemplating flying up there to see him at his Saturday afternoon gig. Return flights and the ticket would cost about $150... I think I'll sleep on it.