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Melbournians sunning themselves outside the State Library on a warm Spring day

Observations on Melbourne

Melbourne city centre has undergone an incredible transformation since I last lived here. Of course when I actually think about how long ago that was it isn’t surprising. It was 24 years ago.

The changes to the city have made it much more of a people’s city with many more gathering places for people to sit and socialize.

#Melbourne

Morning coffee with Denyl and Janet on the first day

AICCM Book and Paper conference

I’ve come to Melbourne this week to attend the AICCM conference. It’s a good opportunity to catch up with colleagues in other States and also a professional opportunity to write a conference paper and present it. I set myself this goal about 12 months ago and I’m really pleased to have achieved this.

There are about 100 people here and it has been very interesting. The variety of papers presented was exceptional and I’m looking forward to tomorrow already.

Melbourne has changed a lot since I was last here. There are many more shops in the city than before and this makes inner city living very attractive. I wonder about bringing the kids here for a holiday. I think they would enjoy being in the city for a few days.

Some things I noticed today about life in Melbourne include the floating rubbish collector on the Yarra, the bicycle hire station at Federation square, and the mini road sweeper which was the size of a large ride on lawnmower traveling the streets.

#melbourne #aiccm

Dog park

Walking around the Tuggeranong dog park near our home. I was hoping some other dogs would be here bur it must be too late in the evening. It’s lovely to have the dogs off the lead and not be worried about kangaroos or other wildlife being chased by the dogs.

I was looking the playground near the local shops pondering the huge sun sail sheltering the equipment. I didn’t see any playgrounds while we were away to know if they have anything like it in Seattle. In fact considering the rainfall in Seattle maybe their playgrounds are indoors.

Thunder and lightening. Oh yay, another dog has arrived to play with. I don’t think Champ likes the dog park. I don’t walk fast enough!

#dogs

Dramatic storm evening sky over Tuggeranong

Monday 8th November 2010

Today has been very dark and stormy for some of the time, and very bright and sunny for the rest. A very odd day. I can hear the thunder now as I sit at my desk. Thank goodness I replaced the windscreen wipers on my car yesterday.

Glenda and Allie have gone off to Sydney this afternoon for Allie's bone density testing tomorrow. They were hoping to go to Ikea on the way into the city - always a highlight for us! The money situation isn't so healthy after our time overseas though so I don't think they'll be buying anything much. They are bound to find something to buy in the last room before you get to the cash registers.

I've been working on a powerpoint presentation that I have to give next week at the AICCM Book and Paper Group conference in Melbourne. The paper was written a while ago so it could go in the preprints but the presentation was due last week and I just didn't have the energy to do it. Hopefully I'll get to work more on it tonight.

Generally speaking I don't like working at home. I find it very difficult to concentrate when there are other more interesting things to do. Hence I doubt I will ever be SES material! Work just isn't that important to me.

I managed to do a few tasks for the various Sweet Adelines conventions today. Arranging meetings, asking for quotes, answering emails. I try and keep this work to lunch times and at home - it's easy to get sucked into doing it more so I make sure people use my home email address when corresponding with me. That reminds me, I'd better check my email.

I need to get on with dinner.

Sunday 31st October

Well, reality is always a little hard to take when you return from holidays but the clean and tidy house that the kids presented us with on Saturday morning certainly made it easier than it could have been. Thanks kids!

The traumatic trip home turned out to all be OK except for us leaving our brand new jackets on the aeroplane in LA. I put them in an overhead locker and just completely forgot them. Doh! I rang the airline in LA and they said they would keep an eye out for them in lost property. I'll have to ring them again in a few days and see if they have turned up. One of our chorus members is coming back through LA in a few days and she may be able to pick them up.

The presents we bought the kids while away were mostly successful. Unfortunately some of the clothing didn't fit which was a shame but the candy is always appreciated.

Welcome home!

Canberra bound

Just boarding the flight to Canberra. Feeling pretty weary but glad to be home.

Teddy isn't happy about the delayed flight. Nor is Glenda.

Delayed flight

So now we only have about an hour and a half between arriving and leaving LA. Hope we make it otherwise we might be staying overnight in LA! We'll cross our fingers hoping it all works out!

Catching up with good friends

The Director of Westcoast Harmony Chorus is Joey Minshall and we first met Joey at IES a number of years ago and then caught up with her again in Hawaii in 2008. Joey recently married Yvonne (Y) in a ceremony we checked out via Facebook. Y sings in the chorus, as does another friend of ours Lisa Hills. It was so lovely to catch up with them in person again. We had some tea and cake with the chorus, handing out some Caramello Koalas as we chatted a d then went back to Joey and Y's house with Lisa for some munchies and a chat. I was able to ask some burning questions, such as why did some traffic lights flash green in Vancouver? We talked about this and that until about 12.30am when we thought we'd better let them all get to bed. It was really nice sharing the "How did you meet?" stories. We drove back to the city and went to bed quite late but happy. This morning (Thursday) dawned wet again but it didn't matter as we were driving back to Seattle. We had planned out the drive back to Seattle allowing for some shopping time in the outlet malls along the way. Well at least we thought we had but we didn't make enough of an allowance for the Seattle traffic. There were some very tense moments when we thought we were going to miss our flight to LA. After running from the hire car, leaving it expensively empty of petrol, all the way to the ticket counter, through an achingly slow bag check line, where Glenda was relieved of some very expensive jam that we forgot to check in our bags we made it to the flight with moments to spare. As it happens we are now sitting on the plane as they fix something. We've been here for 20 minutes so far and are expecting another 15 minutes delay. At least there is wifi here! Our time in Vancouver has been very interesting. I've enjoyed the helpfulness of people in the city, including ordinary people on the street. The drivers have all been polite and patient with no waving of fists that I saw! We saw some houses being built along the way today. They seem to build a wood frame like we do in Canberra but then they put ply wood up on the walls. Maybe I've only ever seen brick veneer homes being built and these are wood. Anyway it was interesting to me.

Wedesday afternoon, evening

We drove from Horseshoe bay back across the Lions Gate bridge and then past the city to Granville Island. Since it was 7pm the island was all closing up but we got to walk through the markets briefly and enjoyed the bright and colourful lights.

Somewhere along the way our GPS started sulking and wouldn't talk to us any more. I'm not sure what that was all about but we then spent the rest of the evening with Glenda reading the instructions out to me so I had an Australian GPS voice instead of the US one. That was until she started using other accents. That didn't last long though. We tried going to an Avis shop to get it changed but got there too late. We'll try again today on the way back to Seattle.

We arrived back at the hotel in the evening and decided to pack all our bags. We borrowed scales from the hotel to make sure we were within limits - amazing that we made it considering what we've bought! Then we were just sitting down considering dinner and doing a bit of facebook when Glenda read that Lynn Gerard was at Westcoast Harmony Chorus rehearsal that night and maybe we could catch up with her.

We'd already considered earlier in the week whether we were going to try and make it to a chorus rehearsal but we then kind of forgot about it. We looked at the clock (9pm) checked the website and google to see how far away rehearsal was (36 minutes) and what time rehearsal ended (10pm) and leapt in the car to drive to rehearsal. As we arrived (driving through the car park on the wrong side of the road) Lynn was driving out and saw us. She leapt out of her car and ran over to give us a hug. We hadn't seen her for a couple of years so it was lovely to see her, but she was on her way home (an hour away) and her lift was leaving, so after the hug hello, we had the hug goodbye.

Then we got to go in to Westcoast rehearsal and say hello to everyone who were having their celebratory coffee and cake. Westcoast won the 2nd place AA Harmony Classic this year. Their performance was very moving with some great singing and some great songs.

Got to go, more later....

View from my coffee spot at Horseshoe Bay

Horseshoe Bay

We’ve had a lovely day driving around sunny Vancouver. The weather is beautiful and crisp with warm sunshine.

We started the day driving around Stanley Park looking at the beautiful sights of snow capped mountains in the distance. The totem poles were interesting, the floating petrol station in the middle of the bay (for the sea planes) quite funny and the raccoons and black squirrels were all delightful. You wouldn’t believe that we managed to find somewhere to spend yet more money (on Christmas presents) along the way. We then drove up Cypress Mountain and bumped into Glen Hancock from Northern Beaches/Endeavour chorus. LOL you just can’t get away from Sweet Adelines! It was lovely to see a familiar face so far away from home.

We’ve just stopped for coffee and then I think we’re off to Granville Island. I had hoped we would make it to the museum but we’ve run out of day.

The sea birds here are ginormous. It’s hard to take a photo of them that gives the correct perspective. We have only seen about 5 flies while here and no other insect life really. There aren’t many birds either but be did see a sparrow!

Wednesday - relax day

I had great plans today to do all sorts of tourist things but in fact I've decided that the nicest thing to do is to lie in bed chatting to Glenda without any pressure of needing to be anywhere or do anything. We even managed to resist the urge to get any iphones or ipads out and connect with the outside world. We just reviewed the wonderful events of yesterday and caught up on conversations we had each had with friends.

The reality of seeing two friends who are both women get married was very moving and even though Glenda and I were able to have a Civil Partnership a couple of years ago when the Australian Capital Territory legislative assembly passed some new laws. It just isn't the same as marriage. When the laws in Australia allow same sex marriage we will get married, but I'm not sure it will be a big party since we cherish the party we had when we had the Civil Partnership. I guess some people renew their vows regularly, so having a party when we can marry is just another opportunity to catch up with friends and family.

One of the great things about the wedding was the relaxed and friendly atmosphere. Reflecting on family weddings I have attended they have all been quite formal affairs where only the fathers of the bridal couple, the groom and the best man give a speech. The fact that so many family and friends spoke about their relationships with Mo and Viveka really made the occassion a grand celebration of who they are, as well as the families they were joining. Our Civil Partnership was a bit like that in that Glenda put a lot of effort into creating a 7 minute powerpoint presentation that the children narrated. The presentation featured photos of the years that we had already been together and the family holidays we had had. People afterwards said that they felt they knew our new family much better after seeing us over the 5 years we had been together in the photos. We are very proud of the family we have created from being together, and the way the children have accepted the change in their circumstances. It hasn't been easy - putting together a noisy family and a British 'stiff upper lip' family has been traumatic at times but we seem to have reached an equilibrium. The experience of reaching ths equilibrium has been enriching for all of us. I've started to learn how to work out how I'm feeling about things and actually verbalise it! Of course the trick then is to work out when it's OK to say what you are feeling and when you should keep it to yourself!

Getting to know Magdalene (best friend of Mo and Viveka in Stockholm City Voices, and attributed to be one who brought them together), Kerstin (Viveka's Mum) and Cathie (Mo's big sister) a little at the wedding was so much fun. To hear their stories of who they are and to have them so interested in our story of how we got together was lovely. It's always fun telling the story; I usually leave it to Glenda to do the talking!

So lots of navel gazing today in the blog! Weddings do that to me. Now it's time to be on with the day. I think a drive around Stanley Park in the daylight is on the cards, and maybe a drive to Granville Island and then to the nearby Museum of Vancouver.

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