Two days in Melbourne.

The front yard and entry to my building has been renovated over the last few months, making a big improvement to its appearance from the street.  Part of the makeover included securing the property with remote controlled security gates at the top of the driveway.  The gates were installed a while ago, but were propped open while we waited for the remote control mechanism to be activated.  It was activated on Friday afternoon.

On Saturday morning, the gates were not working.  They had been vandalised overnight: the hydraulic arms had been ripped out and the cord attached to the gates had been cut.  As a friend said to me, there sure are some dirt bags in the world.

I called my real estate agent immediately to report the damage.  (You never know whether people report these things, so I always take responsibility and make sure I do.)  I had one of those ridiculous conversations with the receptionist.  You know, the ones where they have no idea who you are, where you live.  She also seemed unfamiliar with the suburb of Yarraville.  Her first response was to tell me that there was nothing that she could personally do to resolve the problem.  No kidding!  Strange place for a receptionist to start the conversation.  

On a happier note, I've had a great weekend.  With no obligations to fulfill for a change I enjoyed visiting the local farmers markets on Saturday morning.  I stocked up on eggs (and offloaded a stash of  empty egg cartons), red gum honey, olives, grainy sourdough bread and vegetables. 

I spent the afternoon at "Chess" which I thoroughly enjoyed.  It's one of my favourite rock musical scores with some great songs for the very strong female characters.  The performances were great, the costumes wonderful and every song was a production number.  Loved it!

In the Chin Chin window...look carefully for a glimpse of me.
(c) divacultura 2012

Today I had a long lunch at Chin Chin.  We drank cocktails and shared a bottle of wine over some wonderful food and discussion about politics, computer security, corruption, films and science fiction stories.  We also pondered why our wine glasses were removed from the table the moment we ordered a pre dinner drink.  There seems to be no answer to this question.

My favourite dish was the barramundi with a green apple and coriander salad and caramelized pork belly.  It's the perfect blend of sweet, sour and hot.  YUM!  It was the perfect follow up to the gin, basil and lime cocktail I had started with and went very well with the pinot grigio.  We also had an aromatic yellow curry and a beef stir fry and shared a palm sugar, lime and caramel ice cream for dessert - too much for one person.

On my way home I bought a piano!  I sold my acoustic upright when I moved from Brisbane to Melbourne because my accommodation was too uncertain to be lugging a piano around.  Looking back, I wish I hadn't done that.  I never really got around to buying another.  The keyboard I bought as a substitute didn't really light my fire.  Then digital pianos started to really improve in their sound and feel and today I bought one for myself.  (Swooping like a vulture as the news of Allans Music going into administration circulates.)  I am so pleased that I will have a piano in my life again.  It's been too long.

I took some interesting photos as well.  I'll post them separately.

How was your weekend?