Reasons to be cheerful about living in Canada:

• no springtime hayFever in September-December!
• no shroud of smoke covering the entire city where you live so the buildings are only faintly visible (ie. your entire country is not on fire).
• no days spent inside cowering from 42 degree heat.

Seriously, i am sitting looking across the city of Melbourne, and i cannot see the city skyscrapers. A faint outline is all that remains. Can only imagine how crap life is for people living in the bush. Fires joining up all over the shop, and no water to fight them with. Ouch. Your heart goes out, dunnit!!

extraordinary loveliness
i have had the most wonderful birthday celebration, the final in a big series (a glamorous and wonderful affair at Northcote’s magnificent Open Studio.. with the very incredible Tzigas playing their gypsy jazz under the stars).

Jude and Jody-Lee surpassed themselves in cooking, hospitality and astounding generosity. I have no idea how i shall ever return such huge favours. People who missed out on these Footscray Gourmandes’ sumptuous sausage rolls, goat’s cheese tartlets, cucumber and feta wraps, as well as Annie’s lemon slices – are the unluckiest people in the world, i’m very sorry.

Among the very few things to go horribly wrong were: no Martini-Mahers, and no sister KT. Oh and Lola couldn’t make it either, despite being coincidentally in the Dandenongs that night. Many apologies, and a few unexpected absences, thanks to the 37 degree heat.

Healthy, happy, but Grumpiness Approaches
Yes the evil buckwheat monster has left my body, and i am healthy again, fresh as a light thunderstorm in sunny springtime melbourne. Phew.

Now it’s back to study time, so my Grumpy-meter will be rising. (No, no, michael, embrace the joy of learning!)

(Here’s an old halloween entry)
i have been spending far too much time online as usual, and found this astonishingly silly ‘tv’ serial: “The only thing dry about this Halloween was the Canada Dry.”