Do you know where this title comes from ? Think about it a while, it will come to you. The days leading up to this current sunny aspect were gray, gray and more gray. I was feeling was very Ingmar Bergman, very Blanche Dubois. The enveloping sky heavy laden with dashed hopes and misgivings about the past, UGHHH OHH.....WE ARE NOT GOING THERE, PLEASE. PLEASE STOP........PLEEEEASSSE STOP!!!

Whew ! Almost got into one of those entries again. I'll stop it. For the time being, at least.

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It was Thursday last.

The ferocious power of the Land Rover is leaping down the South Eastern freeway towards Portsea. I'm hung over. I attended the Piss and Wind wine club lunch the day before. Sister Sarah is at the helm, guiding this four-wheel mean machine like an F16 Tomcat Fighter jet. Little King Henry is in the back seat gurgling away, oblivious to the screaming wind rush and fleeting landscape. Anferneee; my brother-in law is scanning notes for a soon to be lecture on Penfolds Grange.It's for a few obsessed wine freaks, upstairs at the Portsea Hotel.

Coming into town you are greeted by a shady avenue of Cyprus trees, an indication of the types who inhabit this seasonal hamlet, at the tip of the mornington peninsula. While Anfernee is upstairs at the pub, I'm getting stuck into some King George whiting fillets and an Invalid Stout. Looking out towards the pier, the sky and and landscape are all shades of blue/gray. I take a wander out the back. The notorious lawn come new year's eve that will be chockas' with drunken boorish transport magnates sons and their ilk. The only admirer of the illegally watered lush lawn is; the gardener, some mangy seagulls and your well mannered boy.

Why is it called Invalid Stout ?

because that's how it gets ya'

Upstairs, I can hear Anferneee going on about "the lushness of the grape". Though it was the lushness of the grape that took hold of me Wednesday and sent me down the road of malaise and jarred nerves this day.

After lunch we all took a slow drive around the residential precinct. My God. The houses were HUGE. I mean, just for a holiday shack. A massive difference to some of the fibro sheds I stayed in as a child at Safety Beach, Rosebud or Dromana. I would need to be seriously cashed up, just to maintain the properties here alone.

One the way back to Melbourne, screaming once again along the south eastern. Just past Hallam I noticed a row of multicolored townhouses, tarted up and cheaply built and similar in design to Yorkshire mining cottages. They were all built right up high on the freeway barrier wall. In fact they were part of the wall itself ! The rear bedrooms must have faced the freeway. I imagined myself waking up in such a room, hearing the roar of the semi-trailers doing 140 k's plus, trying to meet their quota in the early hours of the morning.

The fleeting landscape at 140 km/h

Back now here to Bayside.

It's almost Christmas. Have just written out the cards. Late this year, very slack. I'm having a break from the pumpkin, will be back on Monday, this time to a new locale. Hawthorn. I will miss 35 Collins Street very much. I was there for ten years, though it felt like five. The new place is brand spanking. Very high tech in both design and lay out. I would invision it to be a hyper-regulated and monitored working enviroment. Just the ticket for a lay-about like me.

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I have now been updating this site about once a month with entries. I cannot see that changing except for the special little diversions like galleries and multimedia. Talking about which ....here's a H o v e l e-card

happy Christmas,

Michael.

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