Bonnie celebrated her second birthday last weekend with a party at Clifton Hill. It was the place to be. Harriet and Patrick whipped up this Metallica-inspired slice - just a taste of the delectable morsels on offer. We're on a detox diet, so the furthest I got was some nut mix. And a beer. I'm not that strict on the detox, but we've been eating lots of salad, which I'm always a fan of.
Amanda made this awesome train cake, direct from the Women's Weekly cookbook. Everyone seems to know about this book - it's a legendary publication, and rightly so. Unfortunately, noone could find the candles, so Conor improvised with some matches. Bonnie was so happy!
I went skateboarding with Jason and Pete - this should come as no surprise.
Prior, a less regular but equally welcome attendee to our weekend sessions, came along too.
We skated the new park in Croydon, a slippery, scooter-ridden affair, but fun nonetheless. It will be a good one when the crowds die down a bit. Dave, who is in the midst of a
season at the Comedy Festival was also in on the action. A consummate professional, he brought along two pairs of sunnies - just for laughs.
On my day off last week, I rode over to Niagara Galleries and had a look at the Martin Parr show, which was in its last few days. It was very inspiring and now it is gone! Ah well.
We went to a show by the Wellington Ukelele Orchestra, who do cover versions of songs on the ukelele. It was fun and smiley, and not as whimsical as it sounds. My favourites were 'Africa' by Toto and a song by David Kilgour from the Clean. Oh, and 'Cry Me a River'!
It's been quite cultural around here lately. Joe Miranda's
Independent Photography Festival was on last week. I was feeling guilty for not submitting prints to the group show, but discovered there were around 200 people in it! A crowded event. Some impressive photos in there, too. I especially liked the one of the kangaroo on the hill and the fox in the sink. One of Tess would have been good - maybe next year.
Tait and Joe composing the presentation speech.
The speech - the kangaroo picture won best photo! You can see it up in the top left corner there.
Another IPF event, there was a screening of old friend Phil Evans' '
Format Perspective', a documentary about skate photographers. I wrote a little piece on it
here.
It was attended by a-listers such as
Dale, who is about to move to an island up north somewhere, the lucky bugger.
Jaymie and fellow Irish Jenny give their seal of approval.
As do I, following a cleansing detox beer.
We're onto our fourth day off in a row, thanks to Jesus. It's been great - I've nearly forgotten what it's like to be at work - packing lunch, getting guilt trips from Tess, thinking the same OCD things every day on my ride, emailing publicists, juggling words... none of that. We've been taking it easy, eating healthy food (only one hot cross bun!) and going for the odd bushwalk. This dog was fetching a tennis ball from the other side of the yarra.
I lost my sunglasses here when I chased after Tess moments after this photo was taken. We had to drive back to search for them.
