Bunyip State Park in Spring

One of the best parts of living in Melbourne is how easy it is to get out. A 45 minute drive from the inner city took us into the cool green forest paths of Bunyip State Park, abundant with 4WD tracks, peacefully empty picnic grounds and mineral rich streams under colonnades of native trees. I won’t be coy, once I saw the glittery sediment in the water I had strong hopes for finding a nice wedge of gold, but I was no less excited to find a rock with an edge of pyrite- fool’s gold! I’ll take it!

Where the city meets the sea

We have a regular battle of wills with the navigation system we bought for our car. It used to work a charm, but since bringing it to Melbourne it has been a tempestuous little bastard, sending us on wild goose chases through a city riddled with tolls. Sometimes I don’t mind being lost though. Yesterday’s plan for a late-afternoon wander on St Kilda beach turned into an evening exploration of a secret jetty overlooking the city. I recommend a visit but I’m very sorry, I’m not sure where we were.

 

Greyfriars Cemetery

Greyfriars cemetery of Edinburgh lies across a lush sprawl of greenery, wearing an omniscient shadow of superstition. Clean, silky light falls through massive branches that twist and claw at each other in a desperate arch, sheltering a pathway that reaches through the mossy plots. It is home to Greyfriars Bobby, and allegedly harbours the malignant spirit of George Mackenzie, but a place like this is definitely worth risking a few inexplicable injuries from an enraged phantom. More photos to come.

Past Life

I found a photo of me from one of my past lives. I don’t  know how it got on tumblr though. Weird.

Source

Daily Surveillance: Evening Vagabond

Living in Sin

Joy of joys! With the arrival of my love into our neat little apartment I now have company, music and internet! No more living the bachelor life. Which I am greatly relieved for, since subsisting on a diet that is 40% tinned fish and rattling around with only my ceramic heater for company is exactly as glamourous as it sounds. I think Nick Earls (one of my favourite Australian writers) summed it up well in his novel Zig Zag Street:

“I am not suited to living alone. I think few people are. I think we need to feel that there is some external monitoring of our behaviour or we regress badly. Our self-care and social skills deteriorate, and our interpretation of the role of objects can become eccentric.”

Upon my partner-in-sin’s arrival, my only piece of furniture (coffee table, $19, assembled by hand) was immediately swiped and re-appropriated as a devotional alter  desk for his Mac. He’s a kind soul though, he replaced my makeshift dining table with an even more makeshift option- the box his cursed Mac came in. It is a bullet-proof testament to the honeymoon period that even though our entire inventory of furniture is a wobbly bench, a mattress and a cardboard box, we still find the time daily to crow about how much we love our apartment.  Mind you, this is the view from my pillow…

Queensland

All photographs by Gavin La Grange of Electric Rocking Horse.

 

Icarus

I am not an anxious flyer. Very much the opposite- when I’ve taken my allocated place and the wonders of engineering, what is very likely the cleverest manipulation of physics, scoops us into the air, whatever it is in my chest that normally hums at a discord to the rest of me finds itself to be very gladly subdued.

Listening to: Thrice- The Alchemy Index, Volume III

ART 101: Drawing Babes for Noobs

I find it 100% impossible to absorb university lectures without doing something else as well. In high school I would drive my teachers up the wall; while they were explaining something critical to our ability to graduate, I would be locked in a scribbly embrace with my page margins. I think it was eventually justified when research started being circulated about the different types of learners- apparently scribblers are one of them- but it probably still annoys the beans out of teachers everywhere. Too bad suckers! My lectures are now also a noobalicious art class with my mechanical pencil I think I’ve had since 1998, my iPhone camera in lieu of a scanner and the Brushes application for whatever editing I have any remaining patience for.

Loosely based on model Anna Christine Speckhart.

Pretty Slick