Just quickly, before I get into the main part of my blog, I would like to say that, as far as I am aware, no-one I know has been involved directly in recent terrorist attacks in London. If anyone knows of someone I know who has been, then please let me know.

Big excitement! After almost four months of being in Melbourne, I actually went further from the city centre than Zone 1 on the tram network last Sunday! Rainnie, Claire & I hired a car and drove to Healesville, which is about an hour and a half north of Melbourne. Then from Healesville we headed up Lake Mountain and above the snowline, just in time to catch one of the most magical sunsets I have ever witnessed.

What made this sunset so good, I think, was the way the freezing fog that clung to the slopes of the mountain only partially obscured it. The sun was a huge cerise orb, floating on a sea of milky vapours, and startling pink rays pierced the winter woods to illuminate the snow in patches of garish colour. Another reason the sunset was so amazing was the weird combination of two contradictory senses in me: on the one hand, I knew we had to be quick else we would miss it, so there was an urgency to me jumping out of the car and rushing to take photos that drove all else from my mind; on the other hand, when I looked at the sun as it set, I felt detached from the very dimension of time, and I was captivated by the crepuscular spell cast by that beautiful star.

The rest of the outing was fabulous too. We stopped at a few country markets (including one where I bought a sensational green tomato chutney), a lookout point affording views back to the skyscrapers of downtown Melbourne (where we took photos of the city sitting in the palm of our hands), a delightful all-veggie lunch (Claire is a veggie), and a drive through trees that were so naked and straight you felt you were in a forest of giant pencils. And it was great fun just to drive a car again! Rainnie and I shared the driving, so we could both appreciate the rolling hills and lush verdure that typefies southern Victoria.

Another culinary treat was waiting for us when we came down the mountain into one of the little ski resort villages at its foot. We treated ourselves to a High Tea of hot scones with cream and the most exquisite strawberry jam I have ever tasted: although to the nose it was quintessentially strawberry, in the mouth it was almost like rose petal jam, it had such a perfumed taste. After a hard day's tourism, this was just what the doctor ordered. We drove back to Melbourne sated and content.

I should mention what we did on Saturday though, because it was fun as well. Seeing as we had the car (it counted as only one day's hire even though we had it from Saturday afternoon to Monday morning) we decided to pop to Ikea. And there I made a bit of a commitment to Melbourne: I bought a bed. That's right, folks, I am now no longer sleeping on a shitty mattress on the floor. Instead I can be super supine on a comfy piece of Nordic chic. Ah, the memories!

Sleep's not quite as good as my Ikea bed at home, which has room enough to be a double I can roll around in rather than the single my bed here is forced by spatial circumstances beyond its control to be, but it's a damn sight better than I had it before. Possibly the nicest thing is not having to bend over to the floor to pick things up all the time; I can drop my rucksack on the end of my bed after work now.

Aside from furnishing fun, Claire, Rainnie & I had food fun too. We were joined for a Japanese meal in Albert Park by Fiona and a schoolfriend of hers called Galit, who is half Israeli and half Russian - and of course all Australian. After dinner we headed to Docklands and had a drink in one of the swanky new bars they've put in on the ground floor of the swish highrise apartment blocks there. There are some unfortunate wind-tunnelling issues at ground level, with icy blasts careening off the water and into your bones, but a pint of Beez Neez Western Australia pale ale soon sorted that.

Rainnie was feeling a bit tired, so she dropped the four of us off at our next venue, which was a Reggae club night behind the Victoria Markets. I was a bit so-so about going to a reggae night, but it turned out to be really enjoyable. The music was nothing I recognised but good anyway, and it was hot & dark on the dancefloor - and I don't just mean the lighting! I saw more African/Caribbean faces there that night than I have in the rest of my time in Melbourne put together. The bar was reeking of hash - I haven't smelt that much ganj since I was in New Zealand! - but as my friends know I'm all for religious tolerance, and I wouldn't want my rastafarian brothers to have to go without. Needless to say, everyone was in a good mood.

I headed back to Rainnie's with Claire in a taxi, and we enjoyed a late night tea & toast session. For the first time in a very long time, we didn't have to worry about disturbing Rainnie's housemates, because they've both moved out this weekend, and the two new ones don't arrive until this week.

I had to drop the car back off at the Avis office on Monday morning. The weather, which had miraculously cleared for us on Sunday, was back to its grey drizzly state of Saturday. And wouldn't you know it? I got hit up the arse by a taxi at a set of lights! Thankfully it was a minuscule prang, and they didn't even notice anything had happened when I brought the car back. And the taxi driver was mighty relieved when he heard me say (in my best Australian patois) "I think we're all good here" after inspecting for damage. He climbed back into his seat, a huge grin of tension relaxed on his face, saying "Thanks, mate!"

In other news this week, I bade a fond farewell to Theresa, a Californian who played badminton with me on Wednesdays. She has got herself a job back in the States, and had a leaving do in a nice vegetarian restaurant in St Kilda on Thursday night. We ate well and chatted for ages; it was the first (but hopefully not the last) time we had actually been able to talk for longer than the twenty minutes or so between badminton games! Her good badminton friend Eva (who, incidentally, SO reminds me of my good badminton friend Ruth) wasn't able to make it; I will catch up with her another time I am sure.

And on the work front, I can safely say that people in the "Nuts, Edible and/or Products" industry are a miserable bunch of bastards, whilst people in Aromatherapy are generally much friendlier and pleasant to talk with, at least as far as getting them interested in a labelling machine for cylindrical objects is concerned. (The prize for niceness is still held by Kiwis in general and those working in Microbreweries in particular; ah, that was a fun day and a half of telephone calls!)

Here endeth the lesson; Thanks be to Blog.