Hi Ho Hi Ho, It’s Off To The Big Smoke We Go

I am still letting my feet hit the ground after a busy extended weekend in Melbourne…starting with the annual bloggers brunch hosted by Kids Business in St Kilda on Friday morning. This was my first year attending, after several years of invites but often with a newborn and didn’t make the trip down the highway to Melbourne. Eleanor made herself quite at home at the nail station of BoPo though (she had never had her nails painted before, guess that ship has sailed now!) whilst Harriet generally looked forlorn being left with the childcare’s whilst Mummy tried to hold adult conversation with brands like Brauer, Ergo Pouch, Mastela and Ryobi. A fun morning out for my two country mice and putting a few faces to names on a screen.

Never ones to let something like lack of time get in the way of doing aaaaaallll of the things whilst in town, we made our way over to my sister in Kensington for an early breakfast in her hipster hood (despite having a birthday party to attend at 10.30am). A lovely part of our fair city, some great pram and dog watching to be done whilst having breakfast, apparently you need a dachshund or pug or malamute or whippet to really make it in the inner west.  I had a pretty delicious shakshuka, which was actually eaten mostly by Harriet (of course). I’m not sure if my girls appreciated the hipster organic fig laden fruit toast or Aunty Louise’s penchant for a soy latte, but the fact that the cafe was on a train line was definitely a highlight! House admiring was done on our stroll of the pretty leafy streets, anyone got a spare $2.4mil? Non whippet owners or bugaboo pushers need not apply.

Across to Brunswick for cousin birthday fun at CERES. Cake, treasure hunting, pass the parcel, musical cushions, more cake, filthy hands and happy smiles. Our illustrious children’s birthday career continues! Feeling a tad blessed to have cousins of similar age to our munchkins, little people we get to celebrate with and love upon as they grow (like mushrooms!) Eleanor has recently been all talk about how Santa is going to bring her a magnifying glass, then low and behold guess what she got to find in the treasure hunt! All of her Christmases have come early…and the big bloke in red will have to put his thinking cap back on. Harriet meanwhile just wanted to play in the sand, whilst covered in cream from the butterfly cakes, a winning combination according to her.

If you haven’t been to, or discovered it even exists, I highly recommend a visit to CERES if you’re visiting Melbourne, or even a local who is yet to find this gem! Once a refuse site, it was transformed into the beautiful community garden space it is today by a group of likeminded progressive visionaries in the 1980’s – of which Matt’s aunty and uncle are some of the founding members. A special place for Melbourne, the Saturday market was humming when we were there on the weekend, and a music festival about to begin, roosters crowing and children’s birthday parties amongst the veggie plots.

Home again home again with some very tired small people (and big!) to a Sunday baby shower lunch for me and then straight into feeding shearers this week. No rest for the wicked! Busy-ness is okay with me though…in short stints. Just enough downtime would be nice to catch our breath and do it all again, but grateful indeed to live not too far from Melbourne, where family and cousin-friends live, and then be able to tootle home for farm jobs and Gippsland shenanigans too. As we went down to Melbourne on the Thursday night and home again on the Saturday night, it felt like a very extended weekend – shouldn’t all weekends have three days? It’s that extra little bit that makes all the difference. All day Sunday I thought it was Monday! Watch out this weekend, where us Victorian’s enjoy a strange four-day-weekend-that-isn’t-a-four-day-weekend (unless you’ve taken the Monday off like my husband has, woop woop!) Hope you get to enjoy some pseudo-long-weekend relaxation, or busy-ness, whatever takes your fancy.

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The bloggers brunch was held at Encore in St. Kilda.
We enjoyed breakfast at Premises in Kensington.
CERES is in Brunswick East and open during daylight hours.