Easter has been and gone and I had a lovely celebration in my home away from home. On Good Friday the cell mates in dorm 12 spent the day in quiet contemplation, well, by which I mean, we wondered what we as unemployed bums could get up to on a public holiday when the rest of the world had either shut down or gone away to their holiday homes. They all have 'normal' lives, we are the oddities. Anyway, feeling a little bit lost without the usual weekend hub-bub then, we formed our own family celebration and took ourselves off the movies – ooh that was a real treat, lunch at Brunettis and hot cross buns. There was adventure in even that minor celebration. To start with the Loose-enders (kind of like the Eastenders without the drama and the horrendous accents), decided that we were bored enough to go to an early movie at Nova in Lygon Street, having chosen a French comedy called 'Pain in the Ass'. It was in hindsight, a bit of a mistake as by three in the afternoon, we were again – hmm, bored. The movie was over, we'd had our coffee and lunch at Brunettis already and all that was left to tick off on our Good Friday list, was the hot cross buns.
Down then to the hostel kitchen it was for the very first time. After sterilising everything we needed to touch, oh yes, believe me it is necessary, we cut the buns in half and stuffed them into the toaster. Here we have an exercise in the careful toasting of buns not exactly designed as toaster shape so are squashed up to the element. I have already had a ride in an ambulance and I was not particularly looking to add the fire service to my list of emergency services. But never fear, we were up to the task and enjoyed our Easter fare. Margaret bought a wee packet of Easter eggs to share over the weekend but we decided that we could resist the temptation for one more day. The hostel incidentally put on an Easter egg hunt starting at 10.00am but they hid the eggs too early. When I got up at eight to use the bathroom, I saw some coloured foil peering sneakily out from strategic places. Five minutes later returning to the dorm, they had already been scavenged. People are hopelessly greedy I tell you.
On Sunday then I had a great treat of going with my new friend Roger out to the Yarra Valley to the Rocheford Winery concert that had a line up of The Audreys, Tim Freedman, Missy Higgins and The Cat Empire. It was the usual picnic on the lawn in front of the stage affair and it was great to kick back and listen to more Aussie grown music. I made the comment that I had thought Missy Higgins to be Canadian because of her accent and Roger rather rudely pointed out that the Aussies only steal Kiwi bands, they don't plunder the rest of the world. All the bands were good although I have to say I probably enjoyed the Audrey's Celtic sound the best. Roger pointed out that even at a distance the lead singer was sexy and I could see his point, she could probably make cleaning the toilet look sensual, there is something very elegant in the way she moves.
All up the day was terrific, cruising through the very green Dandenong Ranges with the fragrant smell of eucalyptus in the high ups and the dank, earthy smell of fern tree forests in the valleys. The latter was a smell that reminded me of home. We tried spotting koalas but nothing doing however the drive, the concert and the beautiful Indian Summer, made up for the lack of wildlife.
