Deliver Us From Swedish Furniture

Tulips from the Dandenongs

Well I am jetlagged, it’s official. There is no other way of explaining why it is that I keep getting up at times that begin with a single digit….and they aren’t even the afternoon! It is also bloody cold here around Melbourne, but this has provided one of the highlights after I saw several folk arriving at the airport when we went to pick up Mum, all dressed in board shorts and flip flops, emerge into the cold damp Melbourne night….I know, I am very childish!

Anyway, things that have changed about Melbourne since I was last here two years ago. Well Spencer Street Station is now Southern Cross station and is fully accompanied by lots of wavey roof type architecture and a bloody huge outlet mall on stilts next door. There has also been a continuing property boom, but unlike London where almost all the blocks being put up are pretty bland and uniform, they do like they funky details here (basically they paint them some weird and wonderful colours). Beyond that, I have had the energy to consume coffee and that has been about it….it is hell getting up at a ‘reasonable’ hour, I don’t know how people do it!!

So, Mum arrived on Friday night, so I was joined by another jetlag victim to fall asleep at about 8pm and wonder why as this is about 11am back in the UK, which also means I have had someone to talk to as we both wake up at these aforementioned ‘reasnable’ hours, which really aren’t….have I mentioned that before? Anyway my bruvver, seeign as it was the weekend, but he still gets up at ‘reasonable’ hours, thought it would be fun to take us to the tulip festival in Silvan….now I know what you are thinking, but it was actually a good move as Melbourne was full of people with face paint and screaming ‘Go Cats’, which was not some marketing thing for feline feed, but turned out was a reference to the Geelong Cats being in the final of the AFL (imagine rugby played on a cricket field with fewer rules and more referees) championship. This seems to be a big deal around here, but nowhere else in Australia really….anyway, Silvan, tulips, I remember….yes, well if you were going to grow tulips, the natural place you would go to grow them would be the mountain range wouldn’t it? I mean that’s where the Dutch grow them isn’t it….and it was a slightly surreal experience - lots of people dressed up in Dutch costumes in the mountains, selling ‘rookwurst’ and ‘poffetjes’ amongst the tulips, while a trad jazz band plays, er trad jazz, to an audience almost exclusively of Indian and Chinese as all the ‘true blue’ Aussies were watching the footy (meaning AFL - yes that is another game not played with feet that people seem to think should be called ‘football’….)

After having marvelled at the selection of tulips and ways of serving sausage, we headed off back towards the city, via the reservoir, the levels of which seem to be a bit of an obsession around these parts after finding themseles in drought conditions almost as often as we are in the UK, but having the excuse of not getting much rain. After we headed down from the hills, past a seemingly never ending supply of quaint tea rooms, we headed home via the seafront suburbs of St Kilda and Brighton. I am always amazed at the architecture along the seafront there - some of it 1930s mock tudor and British art deco, some of it 60s concrete, a fair amount of it looking like Miami deco (although built recently) and some looking like office blocks….. We stopped for a cuppa on Brighton seafront, while getting blown around a bit by the wind, just like the real thing, before finding out that the ‘Go Cats’ thing had obviously worked well and they had won by a record breaking margin of some points to not anywhere near as many. They were also happy about Australia having won in the Rugby thing too (World Cup or something?) but could I find any coverage or anyone that knew anything about proper sports to ask? I was really miffed that nobody had a clue about the Premiership results until I got back to my brother’s house and I remembered that with the time difference we are atually in next week and the football had not kicked off yet. Manchester City vs Newcastle kicked off around 9pm, fantastic! I sat down, tuned in and promptly fell asleep…..these bloody ‘reasonable’ hours!!