Tiny Pleasures #68: Ironic Signs
I reckon they might have renovated in the early 1980s. Rooms still have a fax number and a state of the art hairdryer for perm styling.
Tiny Pleasures #65: Running for the Train
It would, of course, be preferable if one didn’t have to run for a train at all. In a perfect world you would stroll at a comfortable pace to the platform, hop on the train, find a seat and then the train would pull out of the station. In reality, I find myself
Tiny Pleasures #57: Old Signs
Things are constantly being updated, modernised, renovated and revamped. Which makes it all the more fun when you come across remnants of the past in the middle of the city. I caught a train from Flinders Street today and as I exited saw the old signs painted on the tiles indicating the platform
Tiny Pleasures #55: Meeting a Train
ink sketch of man waiting at train station
Tiny Pleasures #54: Fruity Coffee
Melbourne’s coffee has a well-earned reputation and sampling its brews is one of the pleasures of a trip to the city. This morning my taste buds were delighted and awoken by the black gold at Disciple Coffee in Brunswick. It is a tiny roastery down a back lane boasting a total of six
Tiny Pleasures #42: Ficifolia Flowers
Take a drive through Western Victoria in late summer and you’ll find that many of the small towns are a mass of bright flowering gums. Corymbia ficifolia is actually a native of south-west Western Australia but her flowering exuberance means she has been planted far and wide. In Dunkeld, at southern tip of
Tiny Pleasures #41: Magpie Accents
It’s interesting when you travel in Australia and realise the birds have different accents in different places. The magpies always sound very definitely like magpies, but with slight variations in their warbles. I had a little chat to this magpie in Portland who sounded like it was a master of copying accents. At
Tiny Pleasures #40: New Growth on an Old Tree
Vibrant green growth against the dark grey bark of an old tree is a wonderful reminder that the new is always a possibility. Today’s example is an old monkey puzzle tree on the foreshore at Portland in south-west Victoria. (Which is, by the way, the oldest white settlement in Victoria). I love the
Tiny Pleasures #17: Rainy Day Coffee
The sky was dark and the rain bucketing down this morning in Melbourne. I had failed to check the weather forecast and thus did not have an umbrella to protect me from the downpour. I was quite bedraggled by the time I arrived at Chapter House Coffee, a hole in the wall in
Happiness as Anarchy #134: Mate
No, not ‘mate’ as in your Australian friend, ‘mah-tay’ as in the Argentinian tea. Everybody drinks it constantly here to the extent that water dispensers have hot water so you can top up your mate on the go. The Yerba Mate plant is a species of the holly genus and is a native