Laneways of Melbourne

My apologies for being off the radar but computers are wonderful until they decide to roll over with their legs in the air, i.e. they die!  So I'm back again although I'm not too sure about the photos bit, hmmm ..... I'm sure I'll get it sorted.

So, the weekend before last, I flew to Melbourne with my Mother's Group, a fabulous group of girls that first met at the Early Childhood Centre when our first borns were only a few months old.  We've been having a weekend away for a number of years now, however as this year will be our 25th year together, we decided to splurge and headed to Melbourne for 3 days.  Melbourne is quite a different city from Sydney with it's myriad of laneways to explore, trams running up and down streets and lots to look at along the way.

Our flight was uneventful and after checking into our hotel, we headed to South Bank to explore and have some lunch, followed by more exploring.  For dinner on Friday night, we headed down Hardware Lane which is full of restaurants with spruikers!  Wow, talk about competition, all wanting to give you a better deal then the previous one.  We finally settled on one which gave us a two course dinner plus a bottle of wine for $30 per head.  It was quite yummy too and for an extra $4 we finished with coffee.

On Saturday morning we hopped on the City Tram, a freebie which takes around 45 minutes round trip, with a bit of a commentary as well.  You can hop on and off as often as you want along the way and is a great way of seeing a little bit of the city.  We were heading to Docklands, but two of us decided on the spur of the moment, to explore Fitzroy instead, a suburb on the edge of the city with lots of interesting shops and old buildings.   By the time we returned to the hotel it was around 3pm and our feet were tired from all the walking.

After putting my feet up and refreshed with a cup of tea, I headed out again by myself to explore a bit more. The other girls had gone on guided walking tours which started after lunch and much as I would have liked to have joined them, our Fitzroy walk had taken longer then I anticipated.  I had a lovely walk up and down lanes, past a couple of weddings and finally thought it time to head back to the hotel again.  So down another lane I headed, this time largely deserted, and much to my surprise there was a hotel half way down the lane which I thought was an odd place for a hotel.  I few steps further on, I found myself falling off the kerb into the lane!!!  A couple coming out of the hotel kindly helped pick me up and hoping I hadn't done too much damage I slowly walked two blocks back to the hotel.  All was well until I went to go up the steps into the foyer when my knee started complaining.  Feeling just a wee bit shaken, when I got back to my room, I sat down with another cup of tea until my room-mate came back from her walk.

By the time we went out to dinner, I was definitely feeling stiff and sore, but nothing like Sunday morning when I could hardly get my knee to move without shooting pain - OUCH!!!  My immediate thought was "how was I going to get through today with more walking when I could barely hobble across the room?"  Very slowly was the answer and as I got moving my knee started to feel a bit better and the shooting pain ceased, thankfully!!!  We caught a tram to St Kilda Beach where we had breakfast and then browsed the craft markets which were really nice and where I bought a new handbag.

So, almost two weeks on, the bruises have faded except for the one on my knee.  My knee is still sore and doesn't like steps but is getting better.  If it still isn't right by another week I guess I will probably need some physio.  All in all though, we had a fabulous weekend in Melbourne!!!

After getting home on Sunday evening, I went to check my emails, facebook etc but the computer wasn't at all interested in turning on, oh dear!  A friend came to have a look at the problem and it was decided fairly quickly that it had died.  So a new computer is up and running but not everything has been loaded, always a few wrinkles to iron out !

I must be off now though, as son #2 is off today on his USA adventure and we'll be heading to the airport shortly.  Son #1 will be following on Tuesday and they will meet up in LA to begin their tour.

I will be back soon with more crafty stuff, so thanks for listening to my ramblings about my weekend away with the girls.

Happy crafting!