Zany New Housemate: From May, 2007

One of our closest friends in Melbourne, Zane, moved in with us for a few months from early May, in preperation of his upcoming world trip, starting with China where he is hoping to get some filmmaking work.

Zane is a marvellous person, and something of a phantom housemate. He gets up about 4-5:30 a.m. to start his day with some writing and is out the door by 7 a.m. He comes home from his editing job and either rugs up in heaps of winter gear, a jacket, scarf etc. and watches a film outside so he can abuse his lungs and liver with wine and cigarettes or he climbs straight into bed. We are more fortunate with Zane sightings on the weekends when he can often be seen as above, in lounge mode but not far from the computer.

Annabelle's Visit: April 23-28, 2007

One of Zoe's oldest and dearest friends, Annabelle Wax came for a very quick five day visit after she had been in New Zealand for several months. We hung out in Melbourne, eating, dancing, walking and talking. We went out with our good friend Zane and Anna killed us in Texas Hold 'em poker. Anna had just gotten her first taste of the sea in NZ, and had fallen in love with sailing. So we tried to help Anna make her decisions about whether to return to the US or sail off into the Pacific Islands or enter a skipper school to get some sailing and boat chartering credentials. It was a breif but really lovely time together.

We went on a camping trip down the Great Ocean Road, to our longtime favorite camping spot. Annabelle and Craig had a surf, we had a few walks by the coast and even ventured a dip in the icy sea at an amazing cove.

Craig, Joel and Andy still looking at the waves after a good morning's surf

Craig and Annabelle

Morning walk to the beach from our camp site

Wallabies camped with us too

Sleepy Koala still manages to keep his balance

Picnic Breakfast and Morning Yoga on the wild beach

Fresh from the cold Autumn sea, we had this spectacular beach to ourselves

Anna developed some sort of rash after arriving at our house, we wondered if it was the New Zealand sandflies, or perhaps German Measles or some kind of disease. It was after the camping trip and a sleepless night in the tent for Anna that we realized she had picked up bedbugs in New Zealand sleeping on a boat. Thus most of the end of her trip was spent thoroughly cleaning all of our sleeping bags and then drying them at the laundromat. But two months on, there is still no sign of bedbugs in our house.

Easter Vacation: April 8/9, 2007

The blog has been slowly slipping away, receding into our again busy lives, busy I guess, since about Easter. But I am going to catch everyone up on the last two months or so, though details might become vague at times. It has been a busy period for us, we have entertained wildly different notions on what to do with our lives back in Melbourne, mostly different work directions. The constants have been our lovely house-nest and all the great friends and family who we've been catching up with.

Easter is a reasonably big deal holiday in Australia, a good 4-5 days of public holiday, school holidays for about a week, and beautiful early Autumn weather for everyone to enjoy. Over our week of holiday, Craig and I set to work on the back deck and garden. We sanded down and re-oiled everything, and planted heaps of flowers, herbs and vegies. It was very satisfying work.

We also had a big Easter lunch at Craig's mum's house with Craig's brother Neil and his girlfriend Stacey. I insisted on a backyard Easter Egg Hunt, and as always there was one tiny egg noone could find anywhere. It was a gorgeous and relaxing day. We realized it was the first time the whole family had hung out together for years and years, and indeed that combination of people have never gone away together before. This lead on to the idea that we should find a holiday house somewhere in the countryside to have some easy access to nature and to go away with special groups of people. We spent a bit of April and May looking for a shack in the bush or nice home by the sea but these plans are now on hold for a few more months.

We went out for a day hike at Kinglake National Park, enjoying some surprisingly quiet forest and met a few wallabies as well.