While Not Working

"It's so nice to be out of the city!" sighed Roger as he settled into his camping chair and sipped a glass  plastic cup of mineral water.  A gentle breeze ruffled the leaves of the trees and corellas (both little and long-billed, if you're interested) wheeled like confetti over head. "Listen to the birds!" "Much more melodious than cockatoos!" I agreed, as I watched a herd of caravans circle, looking for a spot for the night. We were in Geelong Showgrounds after a pleasant day spent saying farewell to BD, having allowed her to wheedle a final cup of coffee out of us before we went. We ambled down to Geelong along the coastline, stopping regularly to sniff the sea breeze and to take photos of the last view of Melbourne. Last view of Melbourne from Williamstown.  No, this is the last view of Melbourne, from Williamstown. Trust me, this was the last view of Melbourne, from Point Cook Coastal Park. We drove right past the new embarkation point for the ...

We've been in Melbourne for six months for a total of four house sits, five small dogs, one cat (twice), and one swimming pool. I know it may be somewhat hard to believe, but all this lollygagging around living in other people's houses and bearing the weighty responsibility of their beloved dogs and cats can get quite wearing after a while.  This morning we walked out of our last sit after witnessing a rapturous reunion between Cobwebs and her owner, and declared ourselves on holidays.  We're due back in South Australia mid February and until then are responsible for no-one other than ourselves and I promise we will remember to take ourselves for a daily walk and make sure we brush our hair regularly to prevent matting.  Or I will, anyway, Roger being free from coiffure concerns for the rest of his natural life. For your enjoyment, and as a memory aid for myself, here's a brief synopsis of some of the things that didn't make it into the blog from our time in Melb...

We'd  been in  Melbourne for six months, promising all the while to visit Roger's relatives, and never quite got around to it.  With less than a week left to go, the time for drinking tea with relatives was upon us so we collected a local Melbourne relative and jumped on the V-line to Ballarat. Roger and relative (AKA the Purple Twins) on our purple train.  They were so well camouflaged I kept losing them.   The train was gratifyingly fast, overtaking the traffic on the parallel highway and gladdening Roger's  heart all the way to Ballarat where we were met at the station and taken home for a nice cup of tea before heading out to tour Ballarat. We circled the lake and saw the beautiful old buildings in the main street, chucking u-eys with gay abandon as we wended our way back home for lunch. I must say, had I known the relatives would feed us so well I would have encouraged Roger to visit them sooner. As it was we lingered happily over a sumptuous meal foll...

I know a man who plays the piano.  The piano, as you know, is quite a heavy instrument. Musicians may carry flutes, trombones, even full size cellos to their musical events but pianos, as a rule, stay in a room and the musicians come to them. Not this man.  To make a hard thing sound easy, he popped wheels on his piano, popped the wheeled piano in a trailer, and trundled off to busk with his piano in random places like Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, and anywhere in between that seemed like a good place to play the piano.  Along the way he got minor musical players to sign his piano, like some dude called Bruce Springsteen and a bunch of other bands. Speaking of bands, a fancy-pants performer by the name of Elton John was due in Australia on his farewell tour.  "Hmm" thought the slightly mad man.  "EJ's autograph would make a nice addition to my piano signature collection."  So he popped the piano into the trailer and trundled the approximately 700km to Melbourne...

 Roger took himself off on the train to South Australia for a week, so BD and I decided to have some adventures of our own, albeit not as exciting as riding the interstate train to Adelaide and getting to have an up-close stickybeak at the flooded Murray River. We took ourselves off to the Ormond Lookout to watch the sun set instead. As did rather more people than what we had anticipated. Mobs, in fact. We found a patch of dirt grass and settled in.  "I'm gonna come back here!" declared BD.  She wriggled around a bit: our patch of grass was on quite a slope and she kept sliding out of her shorts.  "With a chair," she added. In between admiring other people's dogs and taking observational lessons in 101 Ways To Take A Selfie, we watched the sun trundle slowly toward the horizon. No sunset is complete without a picnic. There she goes. Further down the beach, a container ship puttered across the horizon under the gaze of a lone beach-sitter.  And us, of course...