The joy of reclaimed land

After dropping Meg at the railway station last Friday for the last day of school before the holidays, I decided to go straight up to Northcote to do the shopping. When I got there, I realised that I was too early for the particular shops I wanted, so I took advantage of the extra time and went for a walk around All Nations Park - something I haven’t done for months, despite loving it every time I do.

Having started out as a landfill (for non-putrescible waste), All Nations Park has become a focal point for the local community over the past six years since it opened. I admire the foresight of the people whose houses abut the park, as much as I admire those who made it, though for different reasons. When it was a tip, it was a dust bowl, and now it is green and leafy and beautiful. Wouldn’t mind having it outside my front door…

I’ll save you the pictures of ducks, today, and instead show you the very groovy toilet block (albeit one of those scary talking ones). I love that even a humble toilet block can be turned into something attractive. Got to love architects (which I do, by the way, as I am married to one).

Talking toilet block

After wandering around the lake and watching the ducks (and the toilet block), I came across a sign, the back of which had been painted so that the eyes looked out at you from over the reeds and other plants.

Peek a boo

I don’t know anything about this particular piece of art - like whether or not it is a ’sanctioned’ work, or has just been done by someone for the fun of it - but either way, I love it.

When I got to the top of the park, on the bluestone hill that was created as a focal point, I thought I’d try out the panorama function on my phone camera. The results are patchy - especially the view to the East, where the rising sun really caused the camera some grief - but it was fun to try, and was such a clear morning that it was just nice being out for a walk.

The view to the East

The view to the West

Street art and stationery

Words almost seem superfluous today, with all of these wonderful colours, so I’ll keep it brief.

Above, more street art, this time off Centre Place in the CBD. This amazing cat has unfortunately been covered in tags, posters and second and third layers of graffiti, but the talent of the artist is still evident.

In town again to drop off my last assignment for the term, I discovered that I’d left my wallet at home. Seeing I had two hours to kill before meeting Meg, and no money for shopping, I started wandering instead.

Half an hour in a prominent craft shop looking at books was followed by a trip to another equally prominent newsagent to look at magazines. A trip along Elizabeth Street saw me finally visiting Outre Gallery (I love the art of Shag - particularly Glorious Lifestyle), and then into another shop I’ve meant to visit for ages - Bookbinders Design.

The photos below are from there. This shop specialises in beautifully crafted journals, notebooks, photo albums and the like. If you’re like me and have a thing for stationery, you’d find this shop irresistible too. Just as well I’d forgotten my wallet…

Michael Buble in concert

My brother, overseas for work, was unable to get back in time to go to the Michael Buble concert at Rod Laver Arena on Thursday night, so I went in his place. All I can say is WOW!

Actually, I’ve got a lot more to say than that. It was one of the best shows I’ve ever been to.

I have one of his cd’s, which I love, but didn’t know much about the man, so I did a bit of research on the net before I went. I watched his most recent Rove interview,  and read a review and watched another interview here, which gave me a good feel for what we ended up seeing. There is quite an extensive entry on Wikipedia, too.

It must be said, first of all, that Michael Buble is a fabulous showman. He includes his audience in the show; his singing is every bit as good live,as it is on his albums, and he is hugely funny. Cracking jokes at his own expense, a couple of times in a very bad Australian accent, he had us laughing so much that I am still hoarse.

Some members of the 13,000 strong audience were a bit of a worry, but no more than you’d expect, given his appeal. Regardless of the number, shape, size or age of the women throwing himself at him, he still threw himself into the crowd and hugged, kissed and accepted flowers from fans.

Before MB came on stage, a seven-piece acapella group called Naturally 7 came on to warm-up the crowd. They were amazing, doing everything from vocal gymnastics to an incredible version of Amazing Grace. You can hear some of their material on YouTube.

I must apologise for the quality of the photos - my phone camera simply was not able to handle the contrast. Stupidly, I didn’t think to take any other camera with me, though I might have if I’d realised before we got to the arena, that we were going to be sitting in the dead-centre, five rows from the stage! I’ve included them to give you a feel of the atmosphere, even if the highlights are completely blown.

 

 

 

Images and reflections

Walking through town on Sunday, from Queen Street, down to Melbourne Central, these were some of the sights…

This building (above) looks boring at first glance, then if you look closer, you can see all sorts of distorted reflections in the windows, with each one showing something different.

 The multiple panes of glass produced unexpected reflections…

A shop with an odd combination of shoes, in between university campuses and office buildings. One of those that you would have to stumble across to even know it existed.

The back of a car park sign, covered in various layers of stickers and tags, but interspersed with stencil art, makes this side far more interesting than the ‘business’ side.

As for this shirt - look closely and you’ll probably do the same double-take we did. I mean, please - where would you wear it? It’s a sexual harassment claim all on its own.

The lovely Shirley Davis

In the centre of Melbourne, on the 15th floor of an ordinary office building, lies a hidden treasure - the Blue Diamond Club.

The views from the club are extraordinary, as you can see…

 

The sights and sounds inside the club on a Sunday night are pretty amazing, too, when you get a band like Grand Wazoo performing. In the intimate space formed by the glass-walled penthouse club, the effect can be like having the band play just for you.

I was excited to hear them perform - enjoyed dancing to them more than a little - and was blown away by the vocals of Shirley Davis, shown centre stage at the microphone, in these (poor and grainy) pictures.

Random things

Here are a few random images I’ve taken over the last week or so. This first image is of the ceiling at Northland Shopping centre, in the open space at the foot of the escalators that lead up to the cinemas: an unexpectedly creative ceiling and one that is easy to miss. I mean, how often do you stand around at the shopping centre, gazing at the ceiling?!

This second image has appeared recently on the wall of an old garage in Fairfield, at the northern end of the shopping strip. I like the fact that whoever painted it, used a rectangular hole in the wall (made by a missing brick,  perhaps?) as the mouth.

This morning when I walked past, someone had put a stick in it, so that it looked like it was eating.

My next image is another one of the shot tower at Melbourne Central.

In black and white you can really concentrate on the strong lines and contrasts. This was taken coming up the escalator from the station.

 

Finally, a detail shot of the carved paving at Federation Square. When the light hits it at an angle you can see all the carving in great detail, providing yet another focal point to consider. The more time I spend there, the more I discover and the more I like.

Wednesday’s notes.

What a day!

It began with cleaning the house, moved onto meeting with a friend from choir to discuss our respective work schedules (a new plan, suggested by the lovely Ingrid, to assist us both - as lone workers - to keep ourselves on track), then saw me in town watching Meg sing at Federation Square (with VoxRox - the Kew High School vocal ensemble) in celebration of the World Harmony Run.

 

After the event at Fed. Square had finished, Meg and I wandered up to RetroStar to check out their amazing range of vintage clothes, something we’ve been meaning to do for ages. I was particularly interested in the cowboy boots, as they are just the thing for our choir, Lipstick & Spurs, but was gobsmacked by the number and assortment of items on sale. Having seen what they sell, I just wish I had access to my grandmother’s wardrobe!  Her astrakan coat and crimpelene slacks would have gone down a treat!

 When we left Retrostar, we headed up Swanston Street in pursuit of lunch. As we were walking down the street, admiring the art of a man named Barry, we received the best news… Very dear friends of ours have just told us that they are expecting a baby.

These guys didn’t meet until late (in biological terms), so the odds were stacked against them, making this baby especially precious. I can’t imagine two more wonderful people to bring a new little person into the world. They will be wonderful parents, and it will be a very lucky child to have them. Can’t wait to break out all the baby patterns now, so that I can start sewing!

 Getting back to Barry (above), whose wonderful chalk paintings we were admiring when we received the exciting news. He was reproducing the work of Caravaggio in the most meticulous detail. The talent you see everyday on the streets of Melbourne staggers me sometimes.

I could bang on all day, but I won’t bore you. Wherever you are, I hope your Wednesday was a good one, too.

Oh, there is one last thing. Here, as promised, is the flyer from Lush outlining their anti-packaging philosophy (relating back to my last post).

It makes good sense to me.

Cheers,

K.

Things you don’t expect to see at lunchtime…

Imagine my surprise when, walking down Swanston Street yesterday just after noon, I saw a crowd gathered outside my favourite beauty products shop Lush. The crowd itself wasn’t surprising, but what had drawn them there, was…

 

A bevy of beauties dressed only in aprons - some of whom are shown above sandwiching a very amused tourist - were promoting Lush’s campaign to reduce packaging on beauty products, by removing the packaging from themselves!

They were a great bunch of girls/women - all having a laugh and a bit of fun for something they believe in. There were a lot of stunned faces in the lunchtime crowd when people realised what was going on, but a lot of flyers were taken, too, so maybe the point was made.

(Maybe it’s the mum in me, but I’ll admit that I was pleased to see two police officers watching over them, to make sure no one got out of line with the girls, but there wasn’t even a hint of that while I was there…)

I’ll scan the flyer and post it here over the next couple of days.

Slow Monday

I can’t believe that, after having been so busy last week with BAS paperwork and other book-keeping tasks and with medical appointments, I am sitting here today wondering what I should do… The obvious answer - post to Blogday, of course.

The weekend just gone started with my parents coming over for tea on Friday night, as it was my Dad’s birthday. Without doubt, too much food was consumed, but it was all so good! The menu included wild olives from the Grampians in west Victoria; Marisa’s sopressate; Grandfather salami; bocconcini; Blue Castello; brie; aged Tasty; dried tomatoes and figs - and all this was just the entree!

School in the afternoon had been fun, as usual, and was crowned by an opportunity to photograph a fabulous piece of graffiti art in Westgarth, just next to the station. You can see a number of photos of ‘Snail-tale’ in the gallery. I love the main characters in this piece - they have such expression in their faces that they make me smile every time I see them.

Saturday was market-shopping day with the requisite early start to beat the crowds to the Queen Victoria Market. The 5.30 start is always worthwhile - in the fifteen years that my mum and I have been going, we’ve made some good friends among the sellers, and going early means that we have a chance to talk to them as well as get our produce before it has been completely picked over by other shoppers.

The other advantage of the early start at the is that we generally get to see the balloons going over the city from the crowd at Balloon Sunrise. This week there were seven of them.

I don’t know what it is about hot-air balloons, but I just love them. Luckily, where we live is on one of the main flight paths, so I often see balloons five days out of seven, but I just never tire of them. Some of the photos above show the balloons going over the city. They unfortunately have been reduced to big specks by the extreme wide-angle of the phone camera lens, but you can still see them.

We did have to adjust our routine a bit though, seeing as I have been told to lift nothing heavier than a phone book (yes, my  limit has gone from two kilos to about 3kg!). Dad came with us to push the trolley and help load/unload the car and I just had to walk along twiddling my thumbs!

This problem with my neck is taking some adjusting to. I’ve realised that I am a poor judge of what things weigh and am still inadvertently carrying too much weight when I do the shopping or even just work around the house. Oh well, nothing has happened yet, so hopefully it won’t ever.

Sunday was to be for market shopping of a different sort, with the artisan’s market at the Abbotsford convent. It was very disappointing, though, in the range and number of artist’s displaying or selling their wares, and we came away empty handed.

A trip to Victoria Street in Richmond soon made us feel better, though, as we happened upon a fantastic Vietnamese/Chinese restaurant doing Yum Cha, and with one empty table in an otherwise very crowded room. The food was great, the atmosphere buzzing, and the prices very reasonable. What more can a diner ask for?

So - there ends the diary of the weekend past - with lots of photos to make up in part for the fact that it has been a week since I last posted (again). Cheers.

 

Ducks in suburbia

 

Driving Meg to school one morning last week, we were thrilled to see three ducks wander across the side street in which we park, to forage in the dirt of a building site.

I don’t know what type of ducks they were - they were brown and speckled and cute, and completely unfazed by us - but what variety, and whether they were wild or domesticated, I couldn’t say.

I know it is a little un-pc, but we hastily pulled a piece of bread from Meg’s sandwich and the ducks happily took it from her. It was a lovely way to start the day, with an unexpected sight and the chance to get up close. Their comfort around people makes me think that they were probably pets. Either that, or they are so used to being fed by well-meaning passers-by that they are completely accustomed to the company of humans.

 

On the previous Sunday, a trip into town to see the VCE Top Arts exhibition at the NGV in Federation Square, provided its own excitement.

We made a point of going because we know one of the exhibitors - Andrew Fanning, the brother of one of Meg’s friends. Andrew was selected to exhibit two of his pieces: a self portrait and (in Top Designs at the Museum) an intricate chess set.

It is amazing to see the talent of the top year 12 art students in the state, and the calibre of their work, but not a stretch to see whose names will be appearing around the art world before long.

 

On leaving the NGV we wandered across to catch the City Circle tram and I was struck, as I always am, by the intricacy of the Forum Theatre building. The cross-hatching on the building’s facade makes me think of Moorish architecture - apparently with cause. According to the website Walking Melbourne, it is one of the few examples of this style in the city.

Built in 1928, the building was formerly known as the State Theatre.

I love it, though the angle I was on has given it a little bit of a lean in the photograph. Not one I can fix, either, without sacrificing the straightness of something else, like the traffic light!

My last photograph of the day was unplanned, but I quite like the result. Let me know what you think…

 

I like it for the strong diagonals, and the lone cigarette butt sitting on the right hand vertical third.

By the way, we were getting on to the tram to go up to China Town for yum cha, and due to queues at our restaurant of choice we ended up at another, less crowded establishment. Should I state the obvious, that it was less crowded for a reason…? If I say that it was the Chinese restaurant version of Fawlty Towers, would that tell you everything you need to know?

Next time we’ll wait, or at least go on recommendation. Oh well, live and learn.