Happy Days.........

I have been here two days now and have turned my body clock around remarkably pain free. I did sleep a bit more than usual on those two days, but not enough to make the days go by without knowing it ! Yesterday we drove down the Mornington Peninsula which is the tip end of Melbourne Bay, so I was shown the wonderful mix of very exclusive and expensive old properties facing the bay as well as some amazing new houses which were quite innovative (!) in their style - I think it is the equivalent of living in the posh suburbs of Edinburgh or in Richmond Park, but with the sea added in ! The pier at the end of the peninsula was great and I had the full panorama of the huge bay, where Steven says they do have some sharks, but nothing worth bothering about ! (That was for Eileen !) and an amazing vista of the city on the opposite side of the bay.

We stopped at the Yacht Club for a coffee and hot chocolate and gazed out on to the blue  bay in the slightly more cool sea breeze, then zipped back home to collect Tom from school and go to his swimming lesson. It was very nice to meet some other mums and children, and makes the visit more like really getting to grips with the life here, than a hotel holiday, however the indoor swimming pool temperature must have been at boiling point - or my personal thermostat hasn’t quite adjusted yet. It is a lovely house here with an enormous and very shaded deck so I can read and write comfortably until the heat hits about 25, then I am done in ! 

The main village around Emily’s house, and the main road is the Skye Road, and just off that there are small townships called Armadale and  another very local to us at home, which I can’t remember as I am being distracted by the booming loud calls of the Myna birds and screeching parrots.......another bird is totally amazing - in the tree adjacent to the living room window the Carolling Magpies sit all day singing a song which has so many notes and lasts for so long that when I first heard it I thought it was a radio ! I got a recording of it yesterday but don’t know have to put it on the blog as yet.......

The rainbow parrots were positively dripping off the gum tree this morning and just jewel like in their colours, flashing red wings and vivid blue and yellow backs. To me, they seem as though they must have escaped from a zoo ! PS I just did it and managed to upload the Magpie, and a screeching parrot !

Emily and Steven are looking after me so well it is a real pleasure and a privilege to be here. Steven is ‘map man’ supremo, so I now know exactly where I am and the history of the state of Victoria. The place is, if I am ruthlessly honest, much more beautiful than I expected, green, fertile and full of gorgeous twisted and convoluted trees filled with wildlife. 

On the pier at the end of the peninsula

A panorama 

On the decking

I did it ! Wait until about halfway and listen to the song ! The banging is the next door neighbour in the garden ! 

WORLD OF COFFEE 7

A true Australian Flat White which was excellent - the flat white was invented in Melbourne, I did my research !