Bridie Things in Melbourne

Have I mentioned that I love Melbourne? (Only about a gazillion times, I hear you say). These angel-demon baby sculptures are all through the CBD as part of the Festival of Melbourne. Weird, huh?

Arrived Saturday night and Lian and I immediately went to Laksa King for our favourite Chicken Laksa.  Then home for a girlie movie (Matt was out). Yes, I confess it was bride-related: "Confetti" a mockumentary about wedding planning. Funny, very funny. Sunday morning after yum cha the task was to buy me a new phone.  You see, in a stroke of luck my old phone got itself lost a few weeks ago giving me the perfect excuse to buy....A NEW i - PHONE! I have been building a consumer hunger for one of these for about 5 years and it's just fabulous. I am nearly as enamoured with it as David is with his birthday i-Pad. He said to me the other day, while clutching his first love to his chest "...but I love you too..." We have entered the portals of the Apple Empire.

Sunday afternoon and the urban young things were in the mood for an outing in the country, so we went to the Dandenongs.



This area is very pretty, hilly and full of lanky mountain ash trees and scattered with prosperous little hamlets all adorned with galleries and tea houses and show gardens. We visited the William Ricketts Sanctuary, a life's work of impassioned sculptures set into rocks in a ferny forest hillside. I had also seen his work at Pitchi Ritchi in Central Australia when I was 14 on a school trip.

"He worked for more than fifty years on the transformation of a natural old-growth eucalyptus forest into a unique place of spiritual renewal and quiet reflection. The sanctuary reflects a spirit of place expressed through one man’s dream. Deeply felt connections to the earthly mother and the spirit of the land are explored in 92 ceramic sculptures of people and animals, which merge with the natural surroundings: a wise elder is as one with an ancient tree, his beard flowing into its trunk and roots; young children play with native animals among ferns and flowing water; and the human and natural spirit become one." (Wikipedia)

This ugly bully is the personification of Rickett's opponents - those who defile the bush, despise indigenous culture and kill native creatures.

 After the spiritually uplifting experience of the sanctuary, we had a lovely afternoon tea at the home of some family friends of Matt's, and went away loaded with produce from their garden.

Can't wait to get our hands in the soil of our new place.  The plans have gone out to tender by the way, so we will be choosing a builder soon! Hopefully construction will start before the end of December.