Finally, after much thinking about it and much frustration of plans through awkward time zone issues, I got around to having a proper natter on the phone with my brother & his family. It was lovely to speak to Chris & Kate again, but by far the biggest treat was the 20 minutes I was on the phone to Sophie! Chris told me he's never seen her speak so long on the phone before. I've certainly never had the pleasure in the past. I was talking to her little sister Livi about kangaroos on the streets of Canberra when she announced that Sophie was demanding the phone back again! It was great. And now I feel much less guilty about not ringing family. Just Michaela & her mob to go now (a call which is planned for this weekend) and I'll be reasonably guilt-free for a while again.

I am loving living in the heart of the city! I'm one minute from the best coffee in town, two minutes from a UNESCO World Heritage listed exhibition hall & museum, three minutes from a swimming pool (not that I've been yet; but I'm planning to) and four minutes from the top of the CBD. The weather has held for me and I've been walking to work & back. I'm doing regular exercise in the form of badminton twice a week. And I appear to be losing weight, in spite of shoving oodles of yummy food & wine down my throat at every opportunity!

The only drawback - if that's what it is, but I don't think so really - is that I have (at least for the moment) lost all desire to travel round the rest of this amazing country. Being a wage slave again has not been nearly as depressing as I thought it might be, because I'm doing it on my terms. The other day I even found myself enjoying using Microsoft Excel to do some graphing of statistics - and that should come as a big shock to any of you who have worked with me in the past and know that I would rather have sucked the grime from under my toenails than work with numbers when I was full-time in work. It's like, instead of doing day trips to touristy things, I'm doing day trips to someone's office and having a go at the local tribe's handiwork: typing; data entry; customer service calls, instead of basket weaving or whatever.

Actually, there is another drawback of sorts, which is that I don't have as much time to sit around using the internet. It means I'm not quite as speedy on the replies to emails (if indeed it is humanly possible to be less speedy than I am generally) and my blogs are less frequently updated. I note that over two weeks have passed since I started writing this one, for instance. I'm going to have to be brief, quite simply because I can't remember what I did that far back in any great detail!

So, highlights include catching up with Jodie for beers every now and again, most memorably in e55, where we got chatting with a mad bunch of lesbians who have befriended us. In particular, we have become friends with Toni & Alex, who are both gorgeous in every way and totally in love with each other even though they've only been going out for three weeks. You can feel the happy vibes emanating from them when they are near each other, and it puts a huge smile on your face.

Doing a variety of temp jobs has enabled me to meet a variety of people. One guy I got on with well is called Tom. He's originally from Minnesota (so I could share some stories from when my brother lived there) but has been living in Melbourne for upwards of twenty years. He lives in a seaside suburb called Altona, which amuses me because it makes me think of Hamburg, not Australia. I met him for fish & chips at the beach that's a five-minute walk from his house one Friday (he had the day off because he's renovating) and I could have been in Scunthorpe, the weather was that bracing! The stiff sea breeze was no impediment to the scores of seagulls that sat expectantly as we munched our food on the sea wall, and in the end their patience was rewarded - with one solitary chip. Well, I was hungry!

The best thing about the beach at Seaholme (as this up-and-coming bit of Altona styles itself) was the view it afforded back into the city: Melbourne really is quite small, the CBD surrounded by a skirt of very low-rise suburbs that are no more than a ten minute drive away, and all set on a big bay. But the weird thing is you really don't feel like you're by the sea when you're in Melbourne. Even the river seems remote and inaccessible, flowing as it does way below the level of the average Melbourne street. The only exception to this general shunning by the city of its maritime location is the ultra-new development around Docklands, but that's some years away from being a real piece of the city in my view. It's too unlived-in for now, but give it time.

The other day Rainnie & I discovered a gem of a restaurant, right by my house on Lygon. It's a falafel place where you build your own meals: rather than the staff asking you what kind of lettuce you want with your kebab, you just fill your own pita with whatever the hell you want - including unlimited falafels. And it's cheap too! The manager guy is also totally loopy. He brought our food out to our table announcing in a grave voice "Attention: this food may be humungous!" And it was. We're SO going back there.

Nearby we found a bottle shop where they rebottle other people's unsold vintages and sell them off at knock-down prices. The owner of the shop was this cool nerdy guy who I felt an immediate rapport with. I embrace my nerdiness wholeheartedly, and it's always a pleasure to have dealings with like-minded individuals. Shame the wine he sold us was a bit naff. But I'm willing to give the shop a second chance - especially since they do free tastings every other week for Gold Card holders (which we of course became).

I am enjoying the multicultural flair of Melbourne more and more. Perhaps it's homesickness for Europe. Anyway, I'm loving hearing Greek, Italian, Russian and the occasional French voice on the streets, and the European delicatessens and supermarkets are full of scrummy things that put me in a happy reverie. I've promised Rainnie I'll make her a tiramisu one of these days after I found a shop with all the ingredients - and plenty more things besides.

I was really excited when I got a text from my nephew Ryan the other day! And it wasn't even his mother doing the typing; apparently he did it himself. Cool! Kids these days are so technologically sorted, aren't they. (Oh my God I sound like some old codger!)

Okay, that's enough for now. I'm going to rest my foot - I twisted my ankle in badminton the other night - and take it easy. After all, four straight days of full-time employment have really taken it out of me! Hasta la proxima, amigos.