Mary Finnin in the State Library

Last week  (yes, I've been a bit behind in writing up the action around here) I set off at 6.30 to spend a day in Melbourne.

First I met Jess at the A1Bakery in Sydney Road for Lebanese coffee and hot, fresh-baked flatbread with zatar. So fragrant and delicious! You would never guess from this photo that there were in fact a lot of people in A1. I have a real knack for people-free photos.

 

 

Jess kindly gave me an Iphone training session so I can start to use the old Iphone I've been given.
 Then he went off to his lab and I went off to the State Library.

The best place in the city.

Paradise.

If only I could live in the dome and browse on books every day.

I spent the day in the rare books & manuscripts room reading Mary Finnin's poetry, and lazing a bit in the autumn sun on the lawn out front, with the rest of Melbourne.

Isn't this the most steam punk of sphinxes?

Stormy lake

Late last Thursday's blustery afternoon,

 windsurfers were flashing over the lake - and dipping in and out of it.

A little rain fell and I came upon this fisher right by the path.

She was so busy fishing I was able to walk right up to her before she took flight,

 

to finish swallowing her catch in a less public place.

I love the dark light before a storm.

A formal feeling

After a week of reading handwritten, nineteenth century documents,

and miserably cramped 19th century directories,

 (20 cent coin included to show how very miserably cramped the print is).


After wrestling with the internet, image-editing software, refractory cameras with missing attachments and sitting up far too late, I packed it all away, cursing both the 19th and the 21st centuries, and walked down to the Botanic Gardens.

 The gardens were very bright and stately.

Just right after a week of immersion in colomial bureaucracy.

I should have dressed more formally and twirled a parasol as I walked.

or taken a  book of Tennyson's poems to read by the fountain.

So refreshing.