Cafe culture moves up two floors...

One of the biggest differences between Europe and Australia is that old European buildings are still lived in and used in everyday life, while Melbourne's oldest buildings often seem to have been reserved for museums, or condemned to crumble into obscurity.

In the year or two before I left last year, that started to change, as Melbourne started to preserve its significant heritage buildings and rediscover its gorgeous past by putting old spaces to new uses. Witness the exotically restored Forum theatre (IMHO the best place in the world to see that most eclectic yet together of Melbourne bands, The Cat Empire), and the redevelopments of the old police station D-24 and the Herald Sun building.

Some of the best new cafes and bars in Melbourne have been installed in formerly derelict offices above central city shops. Places like Cookie, Madame Brussels and upstairs at The Lounge all do a fine and slightly quirky line in food, drink and fun, balconies opening onto leafy green vistas that make the street-level chaos below seem a long way off.

Yes, they can be damn hard to find, but that just adds to their allure - there's nothing like sitting smug with your mates in a suite of battered antique couches, knowing that two more friends are lost in the laneway below, trying to find the door.

I dunno who dreamed up this revitalisation of Melbourne's 'balcony' culture, although I wouldn't mind betting it was someone who lived in a big ol two storey terrace house, sharing a battered couch and some old milk crates with 3 or 4 housemates...

O Beautiful Day...

Planned for many months, yet when it came, circumstances bent it into shapes we hadn't at first imagined. Nevertheless, the day Anthony and I wed was just beautiful as any we could have dreamed up.

We exchanged our vows in one of Melbourne’s oldest buildings before just two witnesses – thankyou Glennee and Kate! - promising to hold the other ‘beloved’ until the end of days. Then we joined those family and close friends who could be with us on stoopidly short notice and feasted on prawns, salads and sunlight. Our lovely pal Josh took some excellent pix, and so did my cousin KT, on my camera.



As day became night we went back to where it all began, rejoining the merry band of musicians at the Sunday ‘session’ at the Dan, very nearly two years to the day after we first met there. I have never shared music with another as I do with this one: its power has held us strong through long and sometimes difficult months over this past year, and it flowed around us both that night as we celebrated with old songs and new.

At last, exhausted, we retired to a gorgeous hideaway – the generous gift of my darling cousins and ‘Ant Dee’ – to celebrate on our own, and break our fast in the morning of the first day of 'ever after'.

If I have learned anything these last 3 years, it is that the marriage of true minds succeeds not because the two are perfect, but because they are perfectly matched. Together they give all to see the beauty that life holds even on dark days, and lend one another grace and strength when it is needed, to make each stronger than either was before. We have travelled far to arrive at this beginning, but it has been a good beginning.

Nothing like leaving things to the last minute...

Beneath all our recent travels has run an undercurrent that I dared not describe until we knew the outcome. But today I can. Anthony was just two days away from returning to Australia alone, when the happy news came that the Work Permit my employer has been seeking to enable me to stay on had at last come through!

We’re still not sure whether we are on our heads or our a*ses, but our bags are packed and we are bound for the 2am bus from Oxford to Heathrow, and thence to Melbourne. Marriage and more paperwork await, but we hope that in 3 short weeks we will both be back in the UK, having caught up with the people we love. Needless to say, dear readers of the Antipodes, there will be a bed for you all whenever you desire it!

Croeso y Cymru (that's Welsh for 'Welcome to Wales'... I think!)

Ants and I decided to start the new year as we intend to continue it, with a weekend exploring somewhere new. The Welsh border is just 2 hours from Oxford, so on Friday night we packed a hire car and trundled down the M4, past Bristol and over the massive Severn Bridge which, at 3 miles long (5.1km) puts Melbourne's humble Westgate to shame, and serves as a metaphorical, as well as literal, gateway to Wales.

I've learned a great deal about the English side of my heritage since I've been here, and been panned by some of my English chums for always siding with the Scots and the Irish. So please don't take this as yet another anti-English rant.

But there is no better word to describe southeastern Wales than 'denuded'. Mined heavily for coal and metals, barren misshapen hills rise above the motorway, bare of trees or even buildings, the soil exhausted, spent, infertile. Massive processing plants dot the coastline between (or even right beside) brightly lit towns: Cardiff, Swansea, Port Talbot.

We stayed in Cardiff (Caerdyff), which, since the re-convening of the Welsh Assembly, bills itself as "Europe's newest Capital". It certainly feels like a city in a hurry to go somewhere - extensive construction zones litter the inner city. There's a juxtaposition of old-beside-new that reminds me of a lot of Australian cities - although while we have grandstands to rival Millennium Stadium, which rises beside the river Taff, we've nothing to match their gorgeous castle.

Found some lovely foodie spots and some cosy Victorian-ish pubs that were just lovely, but our real adventures took place out of town....

My Lord Earl of Pembroke

When we finally arrived, Pembroke was well worth the drive.

It's not cool to love the Normans too much in this part of the world, but my favourite Norman - William Marshall - was Earl of Pembroke, and built much of the castle that still stands on a massive promontory overlooking the town. His father-in-law was Earl before him - an infamous fellow named Richard de Clare, better known as Richard Strongbow - the fella who claimed Ireland on behalf of the English, lies buried in Dublin and gave his name to an international brand of cider.

Loads has been written about William Marshall, who served King Stephen, Henry II, Richard the Lionheart and King John in succession and after more than 50 years in the saddle, was never unseated in a joust. He's often thought of as one of the first men to embody the ideals of courtly behaviour, and his marriage to Isabel de Clare, daughter of Strongbow and a Princess of Leinster (whose father invited Strongbow to invade), is thought to have been a happy one, even though they were cursed and their bloodline had all but died out within a generation. You can read more about them here, here and here, so I won't bore you with further details.

As for the castle... wow.

Two things strike me about the castles of Wales I've seen. First, Wales was weeks of travel away from the Norman strongholds in places such as London, so they tended to be fortresses in their own right - the two we saw this weekend (more about Caerphilly later!) both had massive moats - made from flooded rivers and dozens of metres wide - even bigger than in the movies! Second, their very remoteness (and the tendency for English lords to hold several titles and therefore have multiple residences) meant that many of the Welsh castle/fortresses weren't much used after the 13th century - so apart from maybe being blown up by Cromwell and put back together again in the 1800s (as this one was), they haven't changed much. Anyway, William Marshal built the most fantastic fat round tower, four tall storeys high, right next to the great hall and living quarters completed a generation before by Richard Strongbow. Much of it still stands - rising above the massive cavern that once served as a water entrance and before that was home to neolithic people for some 12,000 years.

We thundered back to the present with pints at 'The Cromwell' before winding our way back to dingy Cardiff, certain that we would have to see more of the 'real' Wales on Sunday.

Sunday - St Fagans and Caerphilly

After a quick brekkie and checking out from our hotel, Ants hit upon the fantastic notion of checking out the outdoor Museum of Early Wales at St Fagans, about 4 miles from the centre of Cardiff. The weather was looking doubtful, but we decided that this open-air museum was worth a shot. We were right. The museum comprises several dozen buildings, ranging in age from 1500 to 2001 that have been painstakingly moved from their original locations and rebuilt in the grounds of St Fagan's castle (below)- which is more of a manor house really, built in the grounds of an yet another Normal keep, and surrounded by the old fort's original 12th century walls.

The old houses range from a reconstructed Celtic village, tiny16thC farmhouses on 'real life size' plots of land (made from clom - a mix of clay, straw and pebbles, and complete with pigsty, box beds and smoky chimney) to an entire shop and a row of workers cottages. Replica furnishings and implements adorn each, along with solemn Welsh guides all too happy to impart their knowledge of each building, how its tools were used - and even a few words in the local tongue.

Ants was a little disappointed by St Fagans Castle though ( little more than a 16th century manor house now, although the 11thC outer walls from the original Norman fortress still encircle the grounds.

So off we went in search of more, 'proper' olde worlde grandeur. Enroute, we managed to lose ourselves on several of the massive roundabouts that feed into/off the motorway (these babies are HUGE, hundreds of metres across), cutting a full lap round some of them before we found our way, arriving at last at Caerphilly CastleWow. This monster was built by Gilbert de Clare, who I think was a brother of the legendary Strongbow. He planned on making his castle impregnable, so built these massive water defences (see above) around it. These proved great at keeping out the local natives, but not so flash when proper seige warfare took hold, and the castle stood for barely a century before being captured and sacked. It never really recovered, and, to add insult to injury, was well nigh blown to pieces by Cromwell in the Civil War (he did that to a lot of places - the rotter!). Even today, parts of towers stand at precarious angles. Never truly restored as many others are, it's still a cracking example of an unadulterated Norman castle, and if the age blackened stones and open roofs don't make it appealing as a residence, they do add a great deal to its old world romantic appeal.

Well satisfied, we headed home to Oxford, with even Anthony confessing that he's all castled out for a bit...



Please note, all pix on this entry reproduced from the official websites mentioned above

Sorry, Brit cricket fans, I can't help it

Many of my English friends have lately and gratefully ended nights at the pub with ‘oh, and thanks for not mentioning the cricket’. It’s actually hard to be smug about flogging the poms at cricket when your mates follow the losing side. However, I couldn’t let the greatest sporting whitewash in 85 years go by without mentioning it just once. Oooh ahhh, Glenn McGrath. Hurrah for Michael Clarke’s stunning debut, and that heroic last bastion of fair play and wicked wicketkeeping named Adam Gilchrist. Three cheers for that understated British newsreader who said ‘Shane Warne... oh how we’ll miss him’. The look on the faces of my workmates Will and Pete … priceless. ‘Nuff said.

New Year's Eve, and 'Christmas... the Sequel!'

New Years Eve always carries expectations (nay, compulsions) that everyone MUST have a cracking good night and do something amazing. We figured the best way to guarantee it was to wander in to the regular Sunday session at the Half Moon with our friend Lynne, (who also joined us for orphans Christmas.)

Quite a late one, as nights at that pub often are, but a happy time, lots of singing and general laughter. Cider, whisky, Baileys, and a cab home at 4am. Bliss.

New year's day was one of my happiest ever, I think... went over to a friend's place for brunch - arrived to find Barnes absolutely ratted and giggling on the couch, while Sal and Alan ('nother music mate) stood in the kitchen with guitar and melodion in hand, writing a song about how it must feel to be Barney when he's hammered.

As always at their place, the food was abundant, and gorgeous - smoked salmon with lemon juice and fresh crusty bread, scrambled eggs, oven roasted tomatoes, wild boar sausages, and bubbly. Yum.

It was hard to tear ourselves away from there, but we had to then get away for "Christmas - The Sequel", an annual dinner that my workmate Z and her partner Marc hold at their place, involving baked ham and turkey with all the trimmings, cheesecake, some very blokey blokes from the local rugby club, drinking games and some Little Britain. So glad to have had the day off today...