I understand that spring has sprung in the Northern Hemisphere. I am so happy for all of you as I know what a brutal winter I missed whilst living in the Land Down Under. There is something special about that first bunch of daffodils popping up or the first time you can leave your winter coat and accessories behind and don your new spring jacket. And of course glorious daylights savings starting to do its thing when you wake up and head home from work. As for us down here we are having a glorious Indian summer! It has been positively delightful to get a chance to still wear my summer dresses, drink outside with friends and not have to worry about a jacket quite yet. I did see that we will be entering daylight savings ourselves Easter Sunday so must take full advantage of the next week or so!

The last couple of weeks I have been enjoying spending time here in Victoria til most of my family get here a week tomorrow (!!!!). A few weekends ago I went out to breakfast with some book club friends and had what is known as a Japanese breakfast. It consisted of a few pieces of salmon, omelette rolls, potato salad and a bowl of miso soup. It was not you everyday Western breakfast but for something different it fit the bill perfectly. After we headed to an incredible vintage market I have been hearing about since I first moved out here. Probably best for my savings that I only just went now as this place is what can only be described as my happy place. Stall after stall of beautiful vintage clothes in almost all great condition. I walked away with a 1970’s and 1980’s dress. I would like to treat myself to a few more things once more before I leave. In the early afternoon my Thanksgiving friends Liz, Gabe and I headed out to country Victoria for a day away from the city. We drove around the Macedon region which is looking particularly stellar at the moment after all the rain we have had recently. Sometime before I leave I will write a post about my experience living in a drought ridden state. We drove by Hanging Rock but would not be going up it. Instead we thought it more suitable to try a variety of wines at the Hanging Rock Winery. We then made our way to a classic Australian country town by the name of Kyneton. Sadly as it was Saturday and we had made our way there too late we missed out on lunch. We did though enjoy a few pieces of homemade chocolate at the town’s chocolatier! We then made our way to Woodend which is a very posh country town where I had a slice of the best quiche I have ever probably had. It was melt in your mouth goat’s cheese. It really was a wonderful afternoon and as always a pleasure to escape the city for a spell.

Last week I met with a friend after work to have a dip in the bay around the Port Melbourne area. This is a really posh inner city suburb that has much more appealing beaches then the popular St Kilda. We had a beautiful sunset to match. I feel I probably have not taken enough advantage of living close to the beach this last eight months. Also last week was one of my favourite holidays St Patrick’s Day. I have enjoyed this day in various capacities over the years. My final year of university I thoroughly enjoyed a bar crawl through the West Village. This also marked the day I met one of my dear friends Mr Queen Park Ben! A few years ago I was in Dublin for the holiday when it fell on a Saturday. That was the day I really truly realized how amazing Guinness can be when poured correctly. And the joys of an Irish breakfast and black pudding to line your stomach with to start the day off right. The Irish might not be culinary superstars but they certainly have their breakfast down pat. Last year for the holiday I was out in my neighbourhood with friends enjoying £2 pints of the Dark Stuff. This year it was time to meet some friends of friends for the first time in a few months. Emma and Steve are a couple from Stirling that my Hogmanay host Sandy put me in touch with. They are over here on skilled visas (teacher and software programmer). It was great to finally meet them and compare stories as they arrived here just shortly after I did. We went to a famous Irish pub in Carlton which has hosted an outside street party for many years. Sadly with the state government cracking down on bars (Google Save Live Australian Music for more information about this tricky time for bar owners in Melbourne) the license was only till 10 this year versus the usual 12:30. We still had heaps of fun though and headed to another Irish pub later. The next day I finally went and saw something in the French film festival my local cinema group has been hosting for a few weeks. I saw a very camp and cheesy French version of their James Bond. It is the second in the series and was a perfect Thursday night cinema outing. Sadly the festival ended this weekend so I was not able to see more. I have though been invited to attend the opening night party of the German Film Festival at the end of the month which I am looking forward to. This weekend my housemates and I hosted a cocktail party! We decked the garden in fairy lights and made pizzas to line everybody’s stomachs with. In the end only my friends turned up but we still had a great night. For those of you who are curious we made Lemon Lime Tom Collins, Blackberry Punch, Iron Butterflies and Piña Coladas! Our guests made us hummus, rice paper rolls and M&M cookies. They also treated us to homemade Strawberry Daiquiri’s (so fresh you could taste and see the seeds!) and Pomegranate Mojitos! It was a wonderful evening especially as my friend Alana joined us after returning from her two week holiday in Japan where she got engaged! The only downside was that we did not get to spend as much time in the garden as we would liked as the mosquitoes were their usual brutal self. Let me tell you I will not miss those suckers at all! My legs look horrific at the moment.

I probably won’t get a chance to update before the majority of my family get here next week but you can bet I will be keeping notes for all of our travels so that I can give you a detailed round up of our fantastic adventure! For those of you who don’t know we will be spending five days in Victoria exploring the Great Ocean Road, going on my walking tour of the city that I have honed the last eight months, having kangaroo at a restaurant I have been wanting to try for ages and celebrating Easter at an ocean front restaurant. Easter Monday we will be spending 3 ½ days at the world famous Great Barrier Reef. We will end the trip with 3 ½ days in Sydney. Three states in just shy of two weeks! I can’t wait!

I hope you all have a wonderful and restful Easter weekend filled with sunshine and family.

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When I was living in Amsterdam I had two wonderful colleagues Haidee and Charlotte who I exchange books with. They lent me out a handful of particularly stellar ones that I still think of often when I think of great literature I have enjoyed since finishing my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (you don’t get a chance to read a lot of literature in a theatre degree understandably!). Marley and Me was one that had me both in fits of laughter and an uncontrollable sobbing at the end. I even enjoyed the film adaptation. A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier was one of the most intense books I have read in years. I am a very fast reader as many of you know but this book took me a few weeks to read as the content was so deeply disturbing but something I am so glad I read. And then there was Interpreter of Maladies a truly wonderful collection of short stories. This collection is what sparked my interest in short stories, a genre I did not typically gravitate towards when reading. Shamefully I have not read more of Jhumpa Lahiri but maybe I will suggest her for my next book club selection in a few months.

I am thrilled though at the moment to be reading two different collections of short stories and I just finished another collection last week. The latter was the first time I read one of the great American writers we lost last year Mr John Updike. In high school we were required to take a Contemporary American Literature class where we read Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, Steinbeck and Tennessee Williams. It was a fantastic selection of books to be reading at sixteen. I plan to before starting my Masters to reread many of these books a decade later. But back to Updike’s collection I read last week, My Father’s Tears. One reason I have never enjoyed Hemmingway is that I find his writing too simple and bland. Updike is a very simple writer too but the simplicity was far more enchanting and had me hooked at the end of each story. I look forward to reading more of his stuff in the future to see if my enthusiasm for him continues. Do any of my faithful readers have any suggestions of which to read of his next?

This week I have started reading this months book club selection Nam Le’s The Boat and on the side Peter Allison’s Whatever You Do, Don’t Run. The Boat is a collection of Vietnamese short stories written by a local Vietnamese Melbournian. I have only read the first one but he already has me hooked and I am excited for the next two hundred or so pages. I have a feeling I am going to have to head to Little Saigon whilst reading this book to fulfil my Vietnamese craving as Le writes in detail about delicious food. Allison’s book was lent out to me by my friend Alana and is written by a Botswana Safari Guide. Having been fortunate enough to spend nearly a month in South Africa when I was eighteen on a life changing trip I am able to relate to a lot of what he is talking about. No I was not a guide at eighteen (Peter started off at nineteen!) but I came across many of the animals he mentions on my excursion and slept under the stars night after night on one of the worlds most beautiful terrains.

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The company I am currently temping at for five weeks has some seriously nice staff. No question is too big or too small. People are always willing to help. And there are 500 of them to entertain me in some way throughout the day. People are also pretty generous giving away things. Something I appreciate greatly. I don’t know if I told you about when the second to last time I was here I helped wrap the employee Christmas gift. It was this pretty fantastic picnic set with what they call an esky* attached. The picnic set included a pair of knives, forks, spoons, wine glasses, napkins and a bottle opener. I am a sucker for these kinds of things and was defiantly envious as I wrapped it up for them all last year. Ah well the picnic gods must be smiling down on me as I was handed one the second day I was here last week. And speaking of picnics I have just sent out invites for another potluck picnic in the Royal Botanical Gardens. Hopefully either summer or an Indian summer will grace us with their presence. In the late afternoon we will make our way to my friends place to play various board games! I am guessing Risk for the lads and Scrabble for the ladies! Along side the picnic set I have also been handed a decadent chocolate tort which I am slowly eating this afternoon as it’s too rich to eat in one setting. Plus I know my hostess this evening that I am going over to for dinner is making me banoffee pie from scratch…

The weekend before last I made my way back to the Belgian Beer Garden as I explained in my last post for an American meet up. This one had the biggest turnout I had seen but still almost all couples! In the evening my friend from the club and book club (Alana) had a barbecue at her amazing CBD apartment. The building tenants can sign out a fantastic 8th floor room and terrace with tables, chairs and a barbecue grill. Melbourne outdid itself again with another spectacular sunset for us all to enjoy whilst eating.

Last weekend I went to one of the two birthday drinks I had been invited to in St Kilda which also turned out to be a double celebration. The Swedish birthday girl’s Australian boyfriend had proposed to her that morning at sunrise on a hot air balloon! Oh my! Whilst there I befriended a colleague of hers who it turned out lived just up the road from me. She was going to drive me home when she remembered there was a gig on at the East Brunswick Social Club. I decided to tag along as I have not seen nearly enough local live music. The band was called the Tea Leaves and they were just charming! They were a wonderful seven piece folk band with really heartfelt lyrics. Said work colleague and I are going to another gig near us on the 24th. Saturday the weather was overcast and cold so I opted to stay in catching up on life via the wide world web. In the evening a friend and I met up for icecream! There is a fantastic place near him that does the best mint chocolate chip I have ever had. This time I had a scoop of the mint chocolate and a scoop of peanut brittle. The latter was equally as incredible. Sunday Alana and I went over to North Melbourne to check out a clothes market. We were a bit apprehensive it was going to be pricey but found $5 dresses upstairs! I walked away with two. After she took me to a crepe place nearby she knew where we shared a savoury and sweet one. It was an ideal way to end a great weekend.

It is Labour Day this weekend meaning I have my first public holiday as an employee to enjoy. There is something about the magic of three day weekends that just lifts everybody’s spirits. I especially enjoy the Sundays as everybody is looking forward to a nothing to do Monday. On Saturday an old friend from London and I are meeting up for the first time in just over four years. She moved to Los Angeles a few years ago and we seem to always miss each other when we are both back in the UK. The last time we properly met up was November 2005 when she was visiting NYC. We had an eventful weekend of vanilla vodkas and ginger ales (it tastes like Christmas in a glass), dancing til all hours in the East Village and an all you can drink mimosa brunch in Hells Kitchen. It was an eventful weekend. This time we have manicures and pedicures planned along with fine dining and local Victorian wine. Otherwise I am not entirely sure what the weekend has in store but I fully intend to get up to something on the Sunday evening!

Sunday will also mark four months left in the Southern Hemisphere, a daunting realisation that I am in total denial about. I am sure once winter blows through and the hours shorten next month it will ease the pain of leaving as I prepare for my third summer in a row. Speaking of weather, Melbourne continues to not be able to make up its mind about what season it is. Monday was the first day of autumn and boy did it show. Tuesday was the same cool windy autumnal feel. But then Wednesday and today have gone and surprised us with 30 degree sunshine (about 85F). And to keep us on our toes it drops down to about 18 by next week sometime. Layers are the name of the game.

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*Australian word for a cooler but can also be a special pouch which you would add ice packs too which is what my picnic set has