The Daily Blog experiment – hello winter

Yesterday was a top of 20 degrees Celsius. Today, it was 14, and even cooler up in the Hills. MidWife and I had lunch at Miss Marples’ Tea Rooms in Sassafras.

I don’t know why people rave about the Devonshire tea. Because I have never had a good scone out of that place. The gluten ones are cut and have the consistency of a cake slice. The gluten free one I had today fell apart, was coated in flour, and tasted like flour all the way through. Dry as buggery too. Urk. Oceans of butter might have saved it, but all I had was good raspberry jam. I gave the scone up as a bad job, and contented myself with the pumpkin soup, which was excellent.

It was very obviously a tourist bus day. Every company tells their mob to eat at Miss Marples, which they dutifully do, then run around a Sassafras in the 90-120 minutes given to them to find the epitome of a Sassafras souvenir. Will it be raspberry jam? A tea cup from Tea Leaves? Woollens? A plush flying possum? whatever it is, it must be packed and if a size to go on the bus.

We trooped in and out of every shop, skittering between rain showers, and increasing cold. Fog lingered in the folds of the hills.

I can’t wear wool, but I do like stroking it, so I searched for skeins to buy and knit with over the winter. I didn’t see any. I suspect I’ll have to head to Healesville for that.

I got back into my car around 2.30pm, and drove slowly down the mountain, heater on, and Joan Anderson’s A YEAR BY THE SEA chattering quietly.

A happy, if chilly, day.

The Daily Blog experiment – Australia Zoo

Even though it wasn’t on my bucket list, I ticked off a bucket list item, yesterday. (And yes, I know it’s not a daily blog if it’s not daily, but I’m with my grandkids, so shut up). Australia Zoo.

ThirtiesGirl and her family have been Queenslanders for five years. While I secretly hope they will come to their senses and move back to Victoria so I can get weekly grandkids doses, I know they love the Sunshine Coast lifestyle. I have to say, it’s enticing. Warmer weather, slower life. I’d have moved already if it wasn’t for my parenting-caring-guardian responsibilities with ThirtiesPerson. Who DOES NOT WANT TO MOVE NORTH, THANKS.

Here are: PizzaBoy, myself, Miss J, Logie B, and Super C.

We hit the ground running with an early soccer game for Logie B, then off to the zoo.

Cheetahs, tigers, and lemurs, oh my!

I haven’t been to any zoo in years, so it was good to get amongst wild animals again, and see some up close that I’d never seen before. The lemurs are just as cute as you think they are. Those long fluffy tails – why can I not have one of my own. And if you’ve ever thought something similar, go read ‘The Conglomeroid Cocktail Party’ by Robert Silverberg. I don’t care how that story turns out, I still want a lemur tail of my own.

As you can see, it rained. Welcome to northern Australia and monsoon season. It was still warm, but the lemurs and many other animals were moving towards their heated shelters. And yet, we humans were waking around, buying up cheap plastic ponchos. (@Australia Zoo, how do you justify the plastic ponchos when you’re all about reducing plastic use in the world, especially one-use plastic?)

The giraffes, zebras, and rhinos live together in a large communal enclosure. This giraffe seemed to be going out of his way to bug this zebra, continually breathing on, nibbling, licking and nudging. I guess your older brother can be from another species, and you can bug him like the brat you are.

The croc show in the Crocoseum was headed up by Bindi Irwin’s husband, and two young women. This pale croc is called Casper, and ‘always brings 110%’. Must’ve been a slow day, because he shlumped around. Then again, this show must be a bit like a sushi train. If you don’t fancy the rats and chickens today, meh, because you’ll have another opportunity in a few days.

Even so, I cheered and yelled ‘Crikey!’ with the best of them.

Super C and I kept commenting on the ‘excellent bin chicken show’, whenever some wild ibis landed and poked around. “This is what I flew north to see,” I told him.

“I moved here for this!” he replied.

And I don’t care what species these snakes actually are. Miss J and I called them the Stacks On snakes.

By the end of the day, we were all chilly, and worn out, so home to dry couches, soft blankets, and down time on iPads.

I’m really happy to have had this day with my family, and to have made some new memories.

The Daily Blog experiment- Bruno’s Sculpture Garden

Last time I visited Bruno’s Sculpture Garden in Marysville was a couple of weeks before the deadly Black Saturday bushfires in 200o.

The fires burned through Marysville, and devastated the Garden. Some of the terracotta sculptures survived, but huge trees fell on others.

Bruno always vowed to rebuild, and I think I sent him $200 towards that goal.

I’m so happy that, today, the Garden is recovered, many of my favourite sculptures are resurrected, and there are plenty of new friends to encounter around every corner.

A beautiful Autumn day, with early morning fog giving way to warm sunshine, as as I drove us through the Yarra Valley, some trees were brilliant red.

We stopped in Healesville for morning tea, and headed off again through the twisty turns around the Black Spur.

We were listening to Seanan McGuire’s book INDEXING, and that kept me from getting overly anxious about the drive.

We stopped in Marysville for take away sandwiches, and drove the extra 500m or so to the Garden.

This ‘poor poet’ is rich in my opinion. However, ask me again if I’m up here in the depths of winter.

PizzaBoy and I ate our sandwiches in the shade, sitting on a wooden bench, and listening to people’s reactions to their surroundings. One man didn’t have any reactions – he was intent on solving his Rubic’s Cube. I guess if that’s what it takes to get your husband to come with the family on an outing…

“Look through the wizard’s eyes, and get a surprise”

I noticed many more fantasy characters, rather than the ones that sprang from Bruno’s travels. He doesn’t show any sign of slowing down, and was out in the garden, pointing things out, and telling stories of the bush fires.

Of course, when I see an amazing life’s work like this, the urge to follow suit comes over me. “Get a bit of land, take some sculpture lessons, erect stuff to the fae folk.”

Sure, just like that. Maybe, Satya, you could start with some pottery classes and making a few terracotta lumpen things for your own small garden… (My ADHD pouts, because for a moment, it thought it spotted a new hyperfixation)

I guess we left the Garden around 2pm. As always, I debate with myself over buying a copy of the photo book Bruno has produced of his garden.

I know I’d end up cutting pictures out for art and to use on my altar and it seems a shame to destroy a beautiful book like that.

I’ll settle for printing some of my photos out and using those.

The drive home was tiring. I’d had gluten, a lot of sugar, and barely any fruit and veg all day.

I’m now flopped on my bed, and processing the day.

The Daily Blog experiment – The Bucket List

As a back up to my saved document on my computer, this is my Bucket List, as of earlier this week, all typed up, and only one private thing redacted.

Bucket List 2024

Otways – visit; do the Skywalk?
Drive some of the Great Ocean Road as a multi-day trip.
Whale watching Warrnanbool.
Whale watching Hervey Bay.
Visit Darwin.
See the Grampians.
Go back to Monkey Mia and do the volunteer dolphin feeding programme.
See Watermelon Beach in South Australia.
Do more African dance.
Gluten free sourdough bread class.
WAMED festival.
Plant and grow and lemon tree.
Tour Egypt.
See the Northern lights.
(redacted)
Enter the Birdman Rally at Moomba.
Buy a house.
Tour New Zealand: glow worm caves, mud pools, zorbing.
Abseil down a waterfall.
Air boat across an alligator infested swamp.
Dog sledding (again).
Learn poi.
Fire twirling.
Eat fire.
Indoor skydiving.
Drive a tank.
Paintball.
Go on a luge.
Conquer my fear of scuba diving.
Bathe an elephant.
Storm/tornado chasing.
Walk on a volcano.
Stay at the mini donkey place.
Walk the 1000 steps in the Dandenongs.
Hug a Redwood tree.
Milk a cow.
Name a star.
Shear a sheep.
Sleep in a yurt.
Sleep in an igloo.
Stay in the glass igloos in Scandinavia.
Stay in an Ice Hotel.
Go to mermaid school in the Phillipines.
Falconry class.
Karaoke duet.
Glass blowing.
Create a bumper sticker (?)
Water colour painting lessons.
Have my handwriting analysed.
Make a calendar with my own photos.
Try a mosaics class.
Learn to sew, and make a dress for myself.
Pottery (?)
Learn calligraphy.
See the Phillip Island penguins.
Pan for gold.
Sleep on a houseboat.
Stay in a treehouse.
Visit a glass beach.
Drive some of Route 66.
Visit the Alamo.
Visit the 3 country cairn that intersects Sweden, Norway, and Finland.
See the Appalachian Trail.
Visit New Orleans.
Yellowstone National Park.
If there are still Australian lizard races, go see them. Place a bet.
Go kayaking. DONE!
Try Tai Chi.
Try adult beginners ballet (again).
Ride on an electric scooter.
Learn to crochet.
Have a snowboarding lesson.
Have a ski lesson.
Ride in a limo.
Own a Stevie Nicks-style dress.
Attend a Renaissance festival.
Float in the Dead Sea.
Stay in an underwater hotel.
Wade into the Blue Lagoon or Sky Lagoon in Iceland.
See Autumn in New England.
Visit Jordan.
Carribean (?)
Swim with whales in Tonga.

Treat Melbourne as a tourism spot and jump on the Melbourne Explorer.
Blues train (?)
Puffing Billy special night.
Petra by night.
Belly dance masterclass in Cairo.
See the Midnight Sun in the Arctic.
Ireland – drive the Wild Atlantic way.
Explore the Fairy Tale route in Germany.
Cherry Blossom festival in Japan.
Florida Keys, Bermuda, see if I can get abducted by aliens in the Triangle.
Overwater bungalow in Polynesia.
Cook Islands.
Borneo to see orang utans.
Greece.
Morocco.
Turkey.
Iran.
Lasceaux cave paintings.
Trans Siberian Railway, and Russia.
Edinburgh Tattoo in Edinburgh.
Romania and Transylvania, and visit Vlad’s castle.
Nova Scotia, and Gander.
Italy and Amalfi coast.
Maldives (?)
See the Komodo dragons.
Rocky Mountaineer in Canada.
Giraffe Manor in Kenya.
Galapagos Islands.
See bioluminescence
Viking River cruise.
Danish Viking restaurant.
Orient Express.
Halong Bay.
Cambodia.
Silk Road tour.
Nepal, and flight over the Himalayas.
Catamaran cruise in the Seychelles (?)
Space Centre in Houston.
Train ride through Swiss Alps.
Learn to juggle.
Build a house with Habitat for Humanity.
Join a flash mob.
Learn underwater photography.
Sleepover Melbourne Zoo.
Visit the sky high toilets at the Sofitel in Melbourne.
A movie showing at the Astor theatre.
Adelphi Hotel swimming pool swim.
See the Aurora Australis (winter and equinox in September: Point Lonsdale, Cape Schanck, Flinders, Aireys Inlet, Anglesea)
Westgate Park – summer – pink lake
Tobogganing at Lake Mountain.
Walk the Tan.
Gelato at Pidapipo in Carlton.
Organ Pipes National Park.
Walk the Merri Creek trail.
Have bespoke jeans made at Dejour Jeans in Coburg.
Visit Old Melbourne Gaol.
Walk the Yarra Trail.
Go on the Sorrento ferry.
Visit the Royal Botanic Gardens observatory.
Visit Fraser Island.

The Daily Blog Experiment

Or should that be Bog Experiment.

The Japanese kawaii Unko (poo) museum is in Melbourne, much hyped. MidWife and I, on a constant search for the weird, thought we should go.

We were a little late for our session, so were flushed into the next one, which begins with a young lady urging us to yell POOOOO! It’s a morning out for kids, that’s for sure.

Then, into the first room, where groups of 8 had to sit on pastel-coloured toilets and make strained faces. A plastic poo emoji toy then drops into the toilet bowl, and you get to put your poo on a stick.

“You get to make your own poo!” we are told.

“Did that this morning!” I muttered to MidWife.

I sat on a pastel orange toilet and got…a grey plastic poo.

“Too much fat in your diet!” MidWife diagnosed.

My poo was meant to be silver I guess, but it looked steel grey to me.

We then wandered through a display of a plastic tea party, complete with poo cakes, a room containing large plastic ‘flying poo’, and a room where you ran around trying to stamp on all the poo computer-generated poo images you could.

The most popular thing was a room where you measured ‘how tall’ your scream was. MidWife managed ‘giraffe’. I managed ‘baby chicken’. I can dance like a mofo, but screaming is not my forte.

The fluffy poos could be patted, and if they weren’t all out of electrical charge, or on the blink, the tails moved. And here I thought I’d encountered the world’s only furry teapot.

We were done in about 30 minutes and found the experience underwhelming. We mused on the $30 we could have spent elsewhere (like booking to see yet another retro band), but I said: “Well, at least we won’t be on our death beds thinking ‘aw shit, shoulda gone to the poo museum’.”

Upon reflection, the toilet room could have chosen better flooring, now that I look at the photo again. Looks like every toilet leaks. Or maybe it’s meant to look that way.

Anyway, I would rate it 2/5. A few laughs, but lacking substance. The souvenirs do not include poo emoji earrings. Bad show, Unko people.

The day looked up when we visited Spellbox(both stores), had lunch at the Tea Rooms, and browsed Dymocks. Hello new book (Anna O, which is, alas, not about Freud’s patient).

Next week: Seeing Picnic At Hanging Rock for Valentine’s Day.

Vietnam Vignettes 4 – travel blog

Thien Mu (Heavenly Lady) Temple, and the Perfume River cruise.

The Sweaty Betty tour wasn’t over. After lunch, we headed off to Thien Mu Temple. It’s the temple one of the Emperors had built for his mother as a birthday present. Again, for the woman who has everything, as seven-storey tower. To be honest, I was so hot and wretched, and still recovering from a virus that I didn’t care much. Oh, another stone tower. Goody. I didn’t take in a thing Mr Easy said.

The temple overlooks a prime bit of Perfume River real estate and was no doubt chosen for exactly that reason. What came to mind was the Parisian mansion that came just before Louis the something went overboard with Versailles. Two whole villages were erased to build the mansion and grounds. I wondered what had been erased to build this temple.

The temple is maintained by a working monastery, and the grounds are beautiful. Mind you, all I could think about was if I’d be beaten with whips if I took my sandals off and soaked my feet in one of the pools. Given that the water was murky and no doubt body temperature, it would have given me no relief from the heat anyway.

We made our way through the manicured grounds, with a rooster crowing incessantly somewhere behind the scenes. What looked like old cannonballs were used as garden decor.

Finally, it was time for our river cruise. Onto one of the many dragon-style motor boats that take tourists up and down the river, and off we went, put-puttering upstream back towards town. A welcome breeze came through the open windows. A young woman with a baby sat nearby. There was one toy, a small wooden cart. Otherwise, the baby sat on mum’s knee, or pulled herself up to stand. The baby had no teeth, so I originally guessed, by size and toothlessness that she was about 5 months old. But then I saw her pulling to stand, and I thought ‘well, that puts her at about 8 months?’ Mum didn’t have enough English to tell me, but I flirted with the baby.

Then came the hard sell. No, not of the baby, but the cabinet of souvenirs. Paper fans, conical hats, cheap carvings, scarves, handkerchiefs, postcards. Oh dear. No. No thankyou. No souvenirs. No. No thankyou.

“It help support my family. Help us eat.”

Oh dear. No. No thankyou.

I have apparently turned into one of those old ladies who need a helping hand to get out of a boat, and a steady arm to assist me up the embankment onto the footpath. And lo, it appears I have turned into that old lady, because I just couldn’t get enough of a good footing, or enough oomph in my thighs to get me up unaided. What next? A walking frame? Palanquin?

And hello, again, Imperial Hotel, to go with our Imperial City tour. We were very glad of the Imperial air conditioning, and Imperial restaurant. We were done for the day.

The Daily Blog: Sassafras

Sassafras is a small town in the Dandenong Ranges, about 90 minutes out of Melbourne. A pleasant town supported by the tourist industry. All days of the week, huge tourist buses park and disgorge swarms of tourists, mainly Asian, to wander the main drag. The famed Miss Marples’ Tea Rooms are a must-do, and people wait outside for an hour to get a table, all so they can have the Devonshire tea, which I found to be revolting. Floury, cake-like scones cut into a square, with jam of the day, and whipped cream, and a pot of boiling hot tea. The sought-after window tables are always full, and what you get is a view of the backs of people sitting on the benches outside, waiting to come in.

Next to Miss Marples is the Tea Leaves tea and teapot shop. Today, I made a dive there, because I needed jasmine flowers. I want to make jasmine syrup. Ideally, the syrup(sugar, water, flowers) is made with fresh flowers, but it’s not the season for that. So, I’ll make do with dried flowers.

Sassafras was full today. Scarcely any parking to be had, all the shops open, and I would have liked a browse in all the shops, but I knew I only had about 90 minutes before things started closing down at 4pm. So much for my ‘quick pop into Witchwood Grove, quick peruse of The Oracle of Sassafras, maybe time for afternoon tea’. I must think time is elastic. When I darn well know it’s usually only elastic within magical workings.

I got my jasmine, and then visited Witchwood Grove for the first time. A lovely shop, and a lovely owner who claims her Scots witchcraft heritage. We clicked, and had a lovely chat. I donated some books for her future secondhand book corner.

There’s not a lot in the shop at the moment, as they’ve only just opened, but I do like their layout, and that they’ve sourced many local artisans for their stock. I adore the rose bush wands cast out of pewter and copper. I’m very tempted, even though I have one wand I barely use. I tend to use my finger as wand, and athame.

One of the shops on the other side of the road has all its winter woollens out, while Melbourne sweats in its April indian summer. I don’t know how much business it was doing.

I really need to time my visits to these tourist places for mid-week, to avoid parking problems, and crowded shops.