NaBlaPoMo: THE END

It was so warm last night - the hottest November night in 111 years, in fact - that we slept without even a sheet over us and with the blind up so as not to impede the little puffs of cool breeze blowing through the window. But when the blind's up and I'm lying on my right side (my preferred side) the light illuminating the billboard on the Nylex clock silo shines in my face, which annoys me. 

To solve this problem, I moved my pillow to the foot of the bed and slept up that end instead. But I'm not sure this was a conscious decision, or if it was just the latest odd act in the bizarre nocturnal theatre of my life. I also woke up to find my bedside lamp sitting on the floor beside the bed, which does suggest sleeping up the wrong end was an unconscious decision... Either way, it was an effective solution. 

Here are some photos from my walk home from work.

 Vesper 1, Little Bourke Street

 Vesper 2 - Degraves Street

(Vesper + Clementine = vespertine)

 Clementine's is next door to the Little

 Bookroom I posted a photo of yesterday

 The footbridge over the Yarra has its Christmas clothing on 

 Jacaranda in Queen Victoria Gardens

 (for Piggywhistles)

 The trees are outgrowing their bark

 (also for Piggywhistles)

Luke and I meandered up to Bridge Road this evening for a burger and...yeah, Fritz Gelato again. I'm a gelati junkie. 

We walked along back streets on the west side of Church Street. We saw some beautiful old houses, some grand but most more modest and nicely restored. There were also quite a few that looked as if a stiff breeze would blow them down. But you might already know I'm partial to urban decay. At least dilapidated houses have more character than the modern concrete boxes dotting the backstreets of Richmond.
  

For those times when you can't control yourself...

We decided to walk home again after our gelati. It was a lovely balmy evening to be out and about. The streets were lined with people enjoying their dinner and drinks al fresco and the cicadas were buzzing. There was a gentle breeze. 

We walked along The Vaucluse, Richmond's hoity-toity enclave, which was pretty even in the fading light. Closer to home, the bubble dome was lit up and twinkling. We could hear the crowd roar as we passed by. A group of girls paddling canoes passed under Morell Bridge as we crossed over it.  

There was lightning in the distance as we neared home. Not long after we installed ourselves on the couch, scarier lightning lit up the sky and thunder rumbled. It rained a little too.   A nice way to end the day. 

Speaking of endings, I finished reading The Horologicon at last. It was an engaging and chuckle-inducing read, although not quite as captivating as The Etymologicon, which had me riveted from start to finish. Even so, I'm looking forward to Mark Forsyth's next book. 

NaBloPoMo also comes to an end today. I've made it through 30 days and 30 posts. *pats self on back*   Thank you for reading. 

Beautiful Melbourne, stormy, distracted

Here's some beautiful videos that have been posted by a couple of my Twitter friends. 

The first is a timelapse video of inner Melbourne. 

The second is a timelapse of storms shot near Melbourne. Awesome cloudage! 

Chasing the storm from Nathan Kaso on Vimeo.

Speaking of storms, we had a very brief storm this afternoon. There was rain, hail and a few thunderclaps. It only lasted about five minutes and then the clouds cleared and the sun came out again.  Actually, the rain lasted a bit longer. I was in the boardroom at work and out one window there was sunshine and rain, but out the other window it didn't appear to be raining at all! It was weird. 

During the meeting I was distracted by a small segment of rainbow that I could just see out the window and also a little slice of the sun-sparkly Yarra reflecting off a glassy building on the south bank of the river. Fortunately the meeting didn't require much input from me. 

Another find via Twitter - what Dr Seuss books would be called if they were titled according to their subtexts. 

NB For those of you who read Gleeful via email, I noticed the other day the videos don't appear. If you want to see the videos, click on the title of the blog post, which is a link to the blog itself. 

Stormy

More stormy weather today, but this time during waking hours. It was looking very dark and ominous when I headed for home, but I took a punt on being able to get there before the wild weather hit. I was walking in light rain for the last five minutes (very refreshing!), but I got in the door before the storm hit. Not that it was particularly wild anyway. It's stll raining now and there's a nice cool breeze coming through my window.