Two and a half weeks in various parts of Victoria. It’s the longest family holiday we have undertaken. Here is some of it.
Sitting at a kitchen table in the Melbourne inner suburb of Richmond reading a piece by Frank Moorehouse in the Age, I became aware of a sense that I was at a place other than home reading about a place that I recognised as “home”. Given that we have been in Canberra six years now, I suppose that is to be expected, but it still came as rather a shock, given that at some basic level I still regard Melbourne as Home, most of our friends are in Melbourne (although that equation is changing), and I don’t really consider myself a “local” in Canberra. I suppose I had better start to acknowledge the new reality.
We went gold panning at Sovereign Hill in Ballarat. This is an important rite of passage which, having been negotiated, we can now cross off the list.
An unexpectedly memorable (but not unexpectedly pleasant; these two entertain us once a year during our visit to the in-laws) evening was spent with our good Geelong friends Wendy and Roger, eating fish and chips on Roger’s boat, which is moored at the Geelong yacht club, and which they don’t actually take out into the open water very often. Roger was kind enough to take the boys fishing, although they spent much of the time scaring the seagulls away so that they (the seagulls) wouldn’t crap on the boat.
We saw “The Incredibles” at the big Village Cinemas complex in Geelong. I particularly enjoyed the early appearance of a French villain called Bomb Voyage who inevitably but beautifully refers to Mr Incredible as "Monsieur Oncroyaaaable". Julius, the four-year-old, when asked if he would be able to sit through the whole film (he struggled with “Finding Nemo”), said “I can’t promise but I’ll do my best”. He did very well indeed; from about the 90 minute mark his inclination was to join the steady stream of departing fathers with small children, but he held firm (actually he was held firm, by me) and made it to the happy ending (another Pixar appearance for John Ratzenberger, this time as The Underminer - “I may live beneath you, but nothing is beneath me”).
Melbourne record shops, with one honourable exception, were a disappointment. My regular pilgrimage to Greville Records in Prahran served its nostalgic purpose (Warwick, the owner, spent most of the time that I was there walking around the shop talking on his mobile phone), but nothing jumped out at me as a necessary purchase. Gaslight in the city is now so dire that it should just acknowledge defeat and close its doors. Collectors’ Corner has taken the dubious approach of mixing new with second-hand, which means that “collectors” are forced to flick through much run-of-the-mill product as well as having to glance at price tags for each disc to see if it is new or used. Missing Link has moved to I know not where. Au Go Go has closed its doors. Didn’t get to Brunswick Street, where I suspect Polyester may have afforded my only chance to pick up the most recent David Kilgour disc, which thus remains unaquired. The discovery (I have, as in all things, here been well advised by Doctor Jim) was Metropolis, a fairly new establishment hidden away on the the third floor of Curtin House, 252 Swanston Street (the building is being developed by Tim Peach, who, coincidentally, sold our flat in Dalgety Street, St Kilda, all those years ago), where my needs were attended to by the genial, modest Oren Ambarchi. The range here is small, but uniformly excellent, from krautrock to 60s psych/prog to 1970s dub to electronica. (But no Masada.) Its location above the city streets, so the windows can be opened to let a breeze waft through, encourages browsing. I came away with Pluramon’s “Dreams Top Rock” and “Venice” by Fennesz, on the grounds that they were the ones least likely to be found in the nation’s capital.
Adrienne and I left the boys for a day with our friends Peter and Jenni’s nanny and took to the streets, visiting old haunts such as Pellegrini and Tokio, checking out The Little Bookroom and Metropolis Books (adjacent to Metropolis records, see above), where we found Tove Jansson’s picture book “Who Will Comfort Toffle?”, which we have been searching for for some time, and spending time in the Ian Potter wing of the National Gallery of Victoria, wherein lies the best collection of Australian art in this country. The Aboriginal art on display is breathtaking, as are the McCubbins and Drysdales, not to mention Jeffrey Smart’s “Cahill Expressway”. The new building is not bad, either. We also visited the Immigration Museum, which was particularly moving for me as Adrienne relived, via contemporary home-movie footage, her own passage to Australia as a six-year-old.
Another rite of passage negotiated: “Wind in the Willows” at the Botanic Gardens. The night we were there, they had a live broadcast of the weather report for the channel seven news, which may have included a glimpse of Carl or Jules, or an audio snippet of Carl in the background saying “Geelong?” as the weatherman read out the expected temperatures for various regional centres.
We spent a lovely afternoon in the rock pools at Point Lonsdale with the Glaspole Yeatmans (whose Melbourne house we were allowed to mind for six nights; thanks guys, you now have the dilemma presented by owning the first of Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly’s“Little Lit” series of “children’s” books: do you leave Chris Ware’s “Road Rage” intact, or pull out the pieces and play the game?).
Thanks to everyone who either put us up or put up with us, the making and breaking of arrangements that seems to come with travels with children (or is it just us?), and apologies to those whom we managed to miss this time around: please don’t take it personally.
