Melbourne getaway

My first escape from CAnberra was a two day getaway to Melbourne - an early birthday present, same as a couple of years ago. It was great, but the weather was awful. Cold, rainy, windy and some sweeping rainstorms coming through. I don’t think this picture quite captures it - I took some more from inside the coffee shop I took shelter in (it’s Melbourne, there’s great coffee on every corner, and cake, because it was a birthday event, even though my birthday is in August) but they didn’t work very well. Photos of streaming rain on glass.

Oh bugger, I’m doing this on my iPad and it does a stupid thing where it won’t let me scroll down properly. So I’m going to put all the words up the top and then try and fix the photos later, and if it doesn’t work I’m sorry...... 

So I went to the National Gallery of Victoria where they had the terracotta warriors that I kind of wanted to see ... but obviously not very much because when I got there and saw the queue ( it was half-price pensioner Wednesday) I decided not to, and just wandered around the main exhibitions instead. Which were fabulous! It’s not like I see it every day and have to go to the new and exciting stuff for some entertainment. And it was almost completely empty, so I inspected the random Gainsboroughs and assistants-of-Rembrandts to my hearts content. 

I normally can only do that for about an hour without getting bored, but I turned the corner into some different exhibition and they started putting frocks among the paintings! Genuine couture articles from various time frames .... I came in the wrong door so started with Lacroix, back through YSL, Dior, Chanel, Vionnet...... Unfreaking believable. It was a complete treasure house of gorgeous dresses. The only downside being you’re not allowed to touch them dammit so I couldn’t do what I really wanted to do (pick them up, turn them inside out etc) but it entertained me for another couple of hours easily.

The next day I went up to Queen Victoria Markets where I hadn’t been for easily twenty years, then walked over to a fabric shop on Brunswick street, then discovered that walking up and down Brunswick street is hilarious fun - hipsters, designers, vegan shoe shops, many many cafes and artisanal handmade paper shops.... so I did that for ages, stopped for lunch, walked over to another fabric shop, took a turn down through Fitzroy Gardens before going back to the hotel for my bag and taking a bus to the airport. According to my phone I walked 16.7 kilometres .... so I got off the plane after an hour or two in one position and found that I’d seized in every muscle!! So old, so creaky....I hobbled out and my husband picked me up, which was very kind of him, given I’d been selfishly indulging myself for the last two days! It was lovely.