Music to my ears

I've sampled some of Melbourne's music scene at long last. I have always been keen to do this but was quite frankly daunted by the choice. I mean it's like being a kid in a candy shop.

“Okay dear, what would you like? The strawberry lollipop or the jersey caramels?”

Um – um, can I have it all? Not on your budget remember, Louise. It's important to be selective with your entertainment allowance and choose wisely. Ah, but the difficulty with that is that when there are so many different groups and acts that are completely alien to me, what is a gal supposed to do? Stick a pin blindfold into the map? Well it worked for exploring Melbourne on the trams so why not. Fortunately I know people now who know more about the places to go than a pincushion. It's the old – not what you know but who syndrome.

Okay, so the other Thursday night my new 'wedding singer' pal took me to Manchester Lane. He suggested the notorious Espy Hotel in St Kilda but my involuntary shudder must have alerted him to my reluctance to ever set foot in that joint ever again. Manchester Lane was more my scene. A quiet, well, on a Thursday night anyway, cabaret club. On this particular night we only just caught the end of Fats Wah-Wah, having spent a bit more time chatting over supper than anticipated – hey, anyone that knows me will not be surprised that I talked for too long. Fats Wah-Wah was fronted by a skinny dude, with bright pink hat covering his dreadlocks, singing like Joe Cocker.

The next Tuesday I took my room mate Lauren back to Manchester Lane to hear the resident act, The Gabriel Lynch Band. First up though we were treated to the dolce tones of Just Desserts, a sweet, clean-cut duo in the vein of The Carpenters. We also met the Just Desserts fan club, Faezeh, Amman, Adeline, and Messel. Meeting new and interesting people made the night.

Sunday night this week, I was very lucky to have the opportunity to see a couple of hot acts at The Corner Hotel in Swan Street. My friend Roger had won tickets to see the Adelaide act Sia, a singer who reminded me of Debbie Harry in her early career. I knew nothing about the singer but couldn't really pass up the opportunity of sharing Roger's lucky win now could I, so off we went. I have always said that the best experiences are not sought and totally unexpected so not knowing anything about Sia meant that I had a lovely surprise. She has apparently made it quite big in the UK but was relatively unknown in her home town, Australia. Her Australian career has recently started taking off in a big way which was obvious by the sellout concerts greeting her in Melbourne. The warm up act was also interestingly called, Bridezilla. Four young girls with classical training have turned their violin, saxophone, and guitars to Gothic Celtic. They pulled it off by looking like butter wouldn't melt in their mouths.

So there you go, I've been induced into the Melbourne music culture but there is still a long way to go. My other room mate Sarah is keen to go to Wicked but the only affordable way to get there would be to put our names into a draw two and a half hours before every performance and then hang around waiting till show time. A bit of a waste of time if you ask me.

Weekend Watermelon Weather

Rose Street Market in Fitzroy is one of the many craft and artist markets in Melbourne. I went there this Saturday with friends Debbie and Zanetta. It was stinking hot, 33 C with a wind to sweeten the bargain but not however, a refreshing one. Rivers of sweat trickle down my back between t-shirt and pack as we walk. It's dry heat though, not debilitating humid blah, and I have the energy still to make the most of the day rather than wanting just to lie in bed with my head the freezer. Take a shower in this climate and realising as you reach around the shower door to grab the towel that you have left it in your room, is not a big deal. Your arm is dry already anyway and like some futuristic scanner-towel, your body soon follows. By the time you step out of the shower box to hunt down a flannel or t-shirt to wipe yourself with, you're dry anyway. Great! Saves on laundry!

“It should be cooling down by now,” Debbie complains. “It's March for godsake. About seven degrees less would be nice.”

Deb is not really a sun bunny. When she moved over to Melbourne last year, she was dreading the promised 40 temperature over New Years and so when the mercury topped at 47.5 I was wondering how she was coping. Actually I half expected her to decide that a Christmas Antarctic cruise was a fine sounding option but no, she was here, sweltering. When we caught up at the weekend, I asked her how she had weathered the heat and was surprised to see her shrug as if the painful memory, like childbirth, was one best forgotten so it could be repeated.

“I just stayed at home lying in the coolest part of the flat,” she said.

The image in my mind was of her lying spread-eagled on her back in the middle of the living room floor, dressed in swimsuit, ice packs surrounding her, moaning. That may have been the case but her shrug wasn't admitting it.

So we sweated our way around the market on the fine Saturday afternoon. It's watermelon weather and speaking of which, a nice, ice cold watermelon granita would not go amiss right about now but a cup of zuppa inglese gelato was next best thing. Mmmm.

Ha, finally I have found the cure for the affliction I had last sojourn of, feeling like an outcast Nigel No-friends at the weekends. On my last visit, I had been happy as Larry, amusing myself and fruitfully occupying my time during the week when I had writing and exploring to do. It was at the weekends however, when the rest of the world was out bonding with family and such, that I felt the lack of community being here solo. This time...wait for it...I have friends to hang out with. Wahoo! Debbie and Zanetta to go to the market, Lauren, Margaret and Sarah out finding Lauren a flat, it's wonderful. Melbourne is really a lovely city for getting to know people. I've been told that it is so friendly, in comparison to Sydney where people move away if the random stranger lady starts talking to them. I'm glad then that I am here and not in Sydney then. However it is poetic justice that I come to Melbourne to hang out with an Aucklander and a Hamilton girl. It really is a small world.

My dormies and other animals

A word on hostel living. It's not for the faint hearted but it is full of adventure. You meet the most interesting and infuriating people and...you have to share a room with them. So far on my two trips to Melbourne I have stayed at four hostels, The Nunnery in Carlton, Victoria Hall and The Greenhouse both in the CBD and Collingwood Backpackers, no surprise for guessing where...in Collingwood. My pick? Well for friendly, welcoming character and atmosphere, it would have to be The Nunnery. It is run efficiently by The Nuns and Brother Francis the cat and if you live by the convent rules, it is easy to stay for long enough that it becomes like home away from home.

I believe that The Nunnery was originally built for a doctor but it has definitely done its time as a nun run hostel for single females in the 50s and in the 70s, a refuge for Vietnamese refugees. Religious icons fill its high studded rooms and a comforting fire burns in the fireplace throughout the winter. It is really handy to town and in the most beautiful tree-lined neighbourhood that has become my favourite part of town.

So my worst pick thus far? Would have to be the squalid Collingwood deal. Oh, I could list the multiple ways that this place scored a 'boggie' well under the golfer's par but if I did, my mother would be on the phone straight away begging me to come home. Never fear mama, I'm outta there and well shot of the place. I have to say though that the reception I received from the anaemic-spirited manager, was the worst example of customer service I think I have ever come across.

The moral of the story is that when you share a room you either bond with, or want to strangle your room mates, especially if their nightly snoring registers on the Richter scale. So far I have not had any occasion to throttle the people I have intimately shared a six-bed dorm with but there have been times of isolation and indifference experienced immersed in a strange culture. Last time I bunked with a chaotic model, a down to earth and warm-hearted nurse, a sweet Taiwanese girl who called Melbourne “Morabin”, and some ever-so English backpackers. This time I have made friends with a lass from home. To quote an old Scottish granny, “she's from Hamilton but she's quite nice considering.” Funny how you can cross an entire ocean just to hang out with the girl next door. Other dorm inhabs (or should that be cell mates) include a Tasmanian with a colourful (I'm talking rainbow here) past, and a doctor from the north of England with pastie winter legs that should be left inside trousers until they have learned how to be sociably acceptable. I have not yet been quick enough at looking away to miss the sight each morning of nightie and pants descending on me from the bunk above. She needs some sort of landing warning siren considering the number of times she has fallen yelping from above.

But all in all, times in the hostels have been full of – okay I admit it, material for my books. Oh, the stories I could and will eventually tell, thinly disguised as fictional characters. Watch this space.

Songs about love and rain

So many songs have been written for the love of rain. Raindrops keep falling on my head, Rainy days and Mondays, It's raining men. Well okay fair enough about the last one on that list, but heavens praised, the deluge is upon us at long last. It began last night with a sudden opening of the heavens. The downpour splashing large 'v's on the lane, lasted only fifteen minutes that time but freshened an afternoon air that had been unusually humid and uncomfortable. Melbourne is not as accustomed to the humidity as the girl from Auckland so there were many bitter complaints about what I considered to be quite mild. Still, when the sky released its first brief purge of wet, it was welcomed by all. Welcomed by not exactly enjoyed. Out came the umbrellas, mad dashes to doorways, sheltering under eaves and verandahs. It has been so long coming, predicted day after hopeful day, that a collective sigh of relief could be heard breaking the routine bustle of the city but nevertheless they accepted this strange new sensation as inevitable. The rain would happen everyone had to believe to survive, so when it did, it came as no surprise. What has happened to our appreciation of the wonders of the planet that we do not savour the prayed for blessing when it arrives?

Sisto was the first to relish the rain with enormous appreciation. As soon as he saw it, he stepped from the open side door of the cafe into the laneway, raising his arms to the sky, praising above with outstretched hands. He promised his wife that if it rained he would take his shirt off and dance in it like a crazy romantic. He didn't quite go as far as au naturale in the middle of the street but his smile spread wider than usual and it was so wonderful to watch him delight in getting absolutely wet that I could not myself resist. Rain is not such a novelty to an Aucklander but I love it when the leisure to enjoy the sensation of water on my skin is there. Now was the time to completely immerse and absorb the liquid and so in my light summer dress, I joined my friend in the street. A couple of ladies sitting in the window of cafe within arms reach smiled, content to watch us from their position of dry. They were laughing with us not at us Singin' in the rain.

It was quite possibly the most delicious water I have experienced. I have to admit that I envisaged a more dramatic response from the general populace when the drought finally broke. I expected the city to come to a halt and for there to be joyous dancing in the streets as Sisto and I were doing but life went on as usual, the theatrics left to the last of the true romantics. This morning the rain continues, set in hopefully for the day. It is heavy but I am still declining an umbrella purchase to avoid chasing it away. I am happy to walk uncovered in the rain, it freshens me as well as the streets and already that is apparent. Last night's hot wet produced the smell of oil on tar, this morning's fresh has brought out the long forgotten scent of leaves and grass. On the street I breathe in Eucalyptus and lavender, fragrances touched and released by nature. A colourful array of umbrellas have opened, an unusual sight this sea of spreading cover over heads used to being bare. There is one sound however that does not bring cheer, the sound of sirens as emergency services race to accidents on roads coated heavily in oil and now slick in the wet. Drivers have forgotten how to cope with slippery driving.

This morning I sit with the old regulars at Tiamo in Lygon Street. The talk, usually centred around the AFL trials and first games of the season, today is all about the weather. It should continue like this for a month, they plead with smiles wide on their faces. Then we would be saved. If only it was that simple fellas. It had stopped by midday and the sun came out again to evaporate the results.

Blessed drops of Liquid Rain

I have brought with me from Auckland bottled rain, but no one here is complaining, rather regarding me as some sort of Angel of Blessed Relief to souls in Need. Call me superstition but I even announced that I would not buy an umbrella but walk instead in the rain to ensure that I do not chase the liquid love from the sky away. The temperature today has dropped to 19 degrees and not expecting this, Melbournians have reached to the back of their wardrobes for their winter wear. The fashion on the street today is last season's unprepared and therefore still crumpled trenches and parkas. (Do parkas even still exist or am I showing my age?) Anyway they brace themselves against the weather with hunched shoulders and grumble about how freezing it is. I raise disbelieving eyebrows in response. Freezing? Last week the wail was that it was unbearably hot? Weather is a curious thing that it affects folk so. I am still happily wandering around in my short sleeves and simply enjoying a walk in rain that will not frizz my hair into a humid bird's nest. My eyes are raised and my face pringles with as soft drops of liquid love hit my skin. There is mercy in the universe after all.

A wind from the furnace of Hell

I am sad. People have been pouring out their hearts to me with stories about the Victorian fires and although I intended to come here to bring them freshness and cheer, I have been already been touched and by their sadness. I sense their need to release some sorrow and am therefore glad to be a shoulder for them to come to but I feel the weight. There is an atmosphere of dampened spirits and strain to my dear Melbourne friends as I listen and watch their ashen faces tell of how the tragedy has affected the whole state.

Flying in over the territory it was difficult to decipher obvious fire damage from above. The landscape appeared ochre as usual, a dry dust bowl without a blade of grass showing, drier than I remember it only a few months earlier but not scorched as I expected. The very distant hills were shrouded in a haze like the mists of Avalon, jagged outlines revealed in staggered gradients of colour as the hills appeared through the smoke.

I had been told that I might be able to smell lingering smoke even in the city but have not found that to be the case. Melbourne City, apart from the emotional damage, is untouched and life continues as normal despite a collective look of disbelief on the faces around the streets. My friends have described, each in their own words yet strikingly similar, what the 47 degree temperature of Black Sunday felt like. This was the day that melted power lines and started some of the fires. The wind that carried the waves of heat straight off the desert, directly up from Hell's furnace, was the agent required to spread the destruction. One friend talked about standing on Bourke Street that day with mouth open, and feeling a force that was like holding a hair drier in his mouth. I imagined a scene from a disaster movie where a wave of nuclear explosion rips through a city melting everything in its path. It might sound dramatic but this it becoming the reality of the global climates.

Today Victoria is a desert environment. The state and the city, has been in drought for ten years with no sign that it will change any time soon yet everyone still prays for rain as if it is their only saviour. In reality the inhabitants are adapting as humans do to their new environment. A new coping mechanism appears, regulatory SMS are sent to 5 million cell phones, warning of strong winds that will further fan the lingering flames and dangers to avoid. The fears do not eventuate, instead a slight overnight rain brings a degree of relief and the collective held breath is released with a sigh. The city is eerily calm when reports are coming in of strong wind in the suburbs congesting roads. Panic is imagined rather than real but how much more tension can people take?

The answer? Life goes on. In reality the inhabitants are adapting as humans do, to their new environment and already the recovery is happening with charity concerts being orgainsed to raise money to help the victims of the fires and plans to rebuild smarter houses that will cope with the next fires because...no one believes that this is the end, only the beginning of a new landscape. And still they pray for rain.

Encore et toujours

Here I am, once again, standing on another precipice... So I begin with a line from a new song still mulling through my head. I'm at Auckland Airport again, about to return to Melbourne, the place from where all my adventures seem to stem. This time I recognise the process. I have been here enough times to know how it works and even the people closest to me are blasé about my going this time that there is little anxiety, no tears, just the briefest of hugs and a cheerio wave. And yet there are still those touched by my leaving just as there will be others affected by my return – I hope.

It is only at the airport then that I see the faces of strangers going through the mixed emotions of farewells with tear stained faces, red and streaked, supported by familial hugs. Are these people going further afield than across The Ditch? Will they be away for a longer time? This particular jaunt, I fly at four in the afternoon, a considerably more civilised hour and consequently there have been more offers to see me off than when I leave on a 7.00am flight. But here I sit now alone, two hours before my flight, surrounded by complete strangers shedding tears.

I have become a totally independent traveller. I pack my bags so that I can carry the total without assistance. I pay my own way, I make my own fortune but I understand too that I am not an island and the importance of offering and accepting help and sometimes even asking for it if it is appropriate. I have grown so much since starting out on my writing journey in August last year. I have remembered that the best company in the world is mine. I have known the splendour and serenity of solitude. I have discovered that despite being by myself, I am never alone because the world is full of strangers who are simply friends I have yet to meet.

At the airport there are oh, about a dozen flights all leaving at the same time and so the queue through security zigzags for what seems like an age. People jostle and vie for position and some have more reason to be anxious than others. Airport staff trickle down the line calling for passengers for Apia as they are holding the plane up. The Melbourne and Sydney flights are also receiving their final calls. Oh, wait, that Melbourne flight is mine and I am still in the queue being frequently nudged from behind by a girl who doesn't know how not to invade my personal space. A question that has been on my mind a fair amount lately pops into my brain. What's the hurry? Doesn't anybody know the virtue of patience any more? Are we obsessed with it all being about “ME” and regarding ourselves as more important than anyone and everyone else? Several people have already managed to work their way further up the queue by simply disregarding the presence of other people and I watch them all with irritated interest. There is a common look of arrogance on each of their faces. On the whole however, tempers and temperaments are more easygoing than they are in the midnight hour snake lines through customs. At that o'clock, after even just a short flight, people tend to look like their passport photos, drained, creased and ten years older. Trinny and Susannah need to invent a remedy for 'Airport Wretchedness'.

Eventually on the other side of the metal detectors, which surprisingly I made it through despite having a skirt held together by sequins, I can gather my possessions off the conveyor belt and walk briskly to the gate. Along the way I meet a woman heaving and sweating under the weight of three, obviously more than 7kg, bags. Earlier I saw her happy and smiling, draped with multiple, multi-coloured lai garlands of chocolates and lollies. Now they were stuffed into a bag, lugged desperately to her departing plane. As I approached her she whimpered a pitiful plea for help.

“Are you okay?” I asked fearing a heartache judging by the beads of perspiration trickling down her forehead.

“Pleese,” was all she had words for so I instead read her need from the strain on her face and relieved her of the least valuable looking of her bags. It happened to be the one with the lolly lais.

“Are you going to Melbourne?”

She shook her head.

“Oh where, where do I go for Apia plane, pleese?”

I had no idea but telling her to follow me brought a look of grateful relief so that was what I did. I walked her to the sign allocating gate numbers and pointed to her flight and gate number. Fortunately it was the one before mine so with a bit of juggling, we managed to get on the escalator (there was no way I could see her navigating the stairs without catastrophe) and the gate.

“God bless you,” she said as I handed back the bag.

I was having a conversation in the car on the way to the airport about the presence of Guardian Angels. My belief system recognises a spirit of guardianship and acknowledges that it is often channelled through the kindness of strangers. Okay, so I've done my Guardian bit for the day then.