saturday

wow we filled up saturday pretty well! after walking over to pearl oyster for breakfast (again) we met up with peter's family for nicholas's birthday. peter comes from a massive family so get togethers are always really fun because there are so many people. the weather was incredible - it felt like spring. i blew bubbles with the kids and peter played football with his brothers (in a tshirt no less!). some of my photos didn't turn out so well because the light was so harsh (i think there's a filter for that) so i changed them into high-contrast black and white in post processing. i think it kind of works! after playtime in the park we went back to the coburg football ground to watch the north ballarat roosters thrash the tigers followed by a few beers at the pub.

wednesday night

last night mum, dad and i paid a visit to harriet and alex's new apartment in westgarth. it's a great position; right around the corner from the awesome westgarth cinema. harriet's made the place her own already - she's all over it. we ate fish and chips and i trawled through her travel books looking for places to see when peter and i drive through louisiana, kentucky and virginia later in the year.

peter thinks that harriet in the above photo looks exactly like she does as a little girl. i'm inclined to agree:

friday night

friday night i headed back into the city with ruth and emma to see william's new play the mcneil project. jim mcneil was an australian playwright who wrote several plays during the seventies while in prison for armed robbery. he has since become one of australia's most well regarded playwright. william played a young, naive law student who ends up sharing a cell with two hardened criminals. it was an excellent play. we sandwiched the play in between dinner at the italian waiter's club (one of my all time favourite restaurants) and drinks at kent st.

thursday night

the melbourne writers festival doesn't kick off until august but we got a bit of a preview on thursday night by hearing richard ford speak about his new book canada at the atheneum theatre. i've only read one of his books and it was years ago but dad is huge fan. ford has this slow, introspective way of writing which isn't usually my thing. he's also the only writer in history to win the pulitzer prize and the pen faulkner award in the same year (for independence day in 1995). despite not being a huge fan he had a lovely slow way of speaking (completely with southern accent) and he was great to listen to.