For the second year in a row I spent my birthday at Melbourne Zoo. It's just about the perfect day out when one also has evening plans: cute and weird animals to look at, fresh air, and not taxing on one's energy for socialising. Adrian gave
Yesterday I took a drive out to Mount Macedon to investigate the possible existence of weird fruiting fungi. I can now confirm it exists. It was a much-needed trip, a distraction from the very recent passing of our beloved Lottie and to make good use of my last week of
I completely forgot to mention I have started a new watercolour course. I am doing Open Studio Watercolour at The Art Room (TAR), which is for people who have progressed beyond beginner and want to focus on things like composition, creative goals, colour theory and so forth. It goes for
It's been a little while between posts but fear not. As per my previous posts (hehe) I've been on leave from work and preoccupied with bulk cinemagoing. I'm only one-and-a-bit weeks into my three weeks off and it already feels like a huge mental
The past five days I've attended every session of the Fantastic Film Festival at Lido (excluding repeat screenings). I've been logging reviews of each film on my Letterboxd account. Now in our third year of attendance, one thing is certain and that is that this festival
Last night we headed into the city to see Joshua Ladgrove's show for Melbourne International Comedy Festival. This is an almost-annual event for us and is almost always accompanied by dinner at Nam Loong on Russell Street. Nam Loong (not to be confused with the other Nam Loong,
A little local adventure, not quite to plan, but with lots of good bits. The original plan was to ride my bike along the Maribyrnong River Trail in the upstream direction from Footscray Park to Brimbank Park and explore the trails there. I took my first wrong turn just after
Last year I decided to get into fungus. I bought a copy of Bruce Fuhrer's A field guide to Australian fungi, signed up to iNaturalist and started looking. I did not have to look far. My local area is absolutely bursting with weird, colourful, tenacious fungi. I love
5 April 2025 in Melbourne, featuring doktorb, Wet Electronics, Daydream Deluxe, Dark5lalom, Killawarra, Mada Yana (まだヤナ), JR / KS and Post Dive. A feature of the past few weeks at our place has been Adrian, also known as doktorb, rehearsing for this show. It was the brainchild of Benjamin Chesler who
Last night, my team (the Western Bulldogs) played Adrian's team (the Carlton Blues), making it the divorce round. Attending has become an annual event for us. We're still working through the circumstances in which this match would lead to our divorce. Whatever happens, one is faced
Last night we saw the Australian premiere of Death of a Unicorn, screening for the launch of this year's Fantastic Film Festival (If you want to know what I thought of the movie that's what Letterboxd is for). We discovered this festival back in 2023. We
My neighbour and I had pencilled in a ride for the Sunday just gone, a perfect late Summer day (some might call it early Autumn, but not I, not today). She had to cancel (she traded in her scooter–more on that later!) but I went out anyway. I rode
Music
21 March 2025 in Melbourne, supported by Ferla, Hearts and Rockets and No Hoper. Sniff! The excellent Bench Press are ending. This was the first of their two farewell shows at The Old Bar. We were sad to miss out on tickets to the final-final show but this night'
Internet
There's a yarn shop with an emailing list, and I'm on it. I got there the usual way after buying something from them, and I stayed on it because I genuinely liked their emails. They're good at picking out patterns that match whatever yarns
Music
11 March 2025, supported by Mick Turner. Here I am back seeing another international touring act. I promise the next show I see will be something local (I already have the tickets). I feel like these live music posts end up being venue reviews too. In this case, I'
Motorcycle
My downstairs neighbour Sam just bought herself a new scooter, a very nice little Lambretta V-Special 200. I have no idea what the '200' in the name signifies as it's 169 cc. So today we took our tiny bikes out for a ride and to practice
Nonsense
Back in the early 90s the world invented the techno bunny, a youth subculture of illegal rave attendance and enjoyment of dance music. For more info--well. A Duck Duck Go search of "techno bunny" found me this little nugget which is best viewed using Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.
Music
2 March 2025 in Melbourne, supported by Freya Josephine Hollick I swear I don't only go and see touring acts, but you wouldn't know that looking at my schedule in early 2025. This was my second Kristin Hersh show in about a year and a half
Sportsball
We are mere days from the opening round of the 2025 Australian Football League (AFL) season and the sports writers and talkers are struggling for content. After all, no sportsball has yet been played, there's nothing to write or talk about. It's the perfect time to
Neighbourhood
I have just come back from a lap around the block with our friend Lottie the Pointer. Lottie is 14 and a half which is already a very good innings for her breed. She's an old dog. She's feeling good. A couple of weeks ago she
Neighbourhood
Mipasto, a local pizza shop, has closed. When they were first preparing to open many years ago, I observed with interest as they covered every opaque external surface with stick-on rustic stonemasonry. Next, the name 'IMPASTO' went up. I can only assume that they found out too late
Watercolour
I took up watercolour as a hobby maybe two years ago. It's both simple and hard. I found it difficult to get going on my own and I'm still a long way away from having the basic techniques down pat. But I feel like I'
Music
15 February 2025 in Melbourne, supported by Mach Pelican, The Stripp and Raging Hormones. My friend Ange was into The D4 when she lived in New Zealand 20 years ago. I had no idea who they were and neither did the husbinator. But, we are yeppers, and we like live
Knitting
I have been really enjoying knitting lately and had been looking forward to this project for a long time. Now it is complete! A few years ago I picked up a secondhand copy of More Modern Top-Down Knitting by Kristina McGowan at the Castlemaine Vintage Bazaar. It's a