Rolling, rolling, rolling

I  have so much to tell you but it's so very rude to speak with your mouth full.

Heavenly or what?

Drawing the short straw....

It happens to the best of us sometimes...

This picture was sent to me by a friend. Hope it makes you smile too. 

Have a fantastic weekend wherever you are.

It's a surprising and welcome sunny Saturday morning here in Melbourne - it's the middle of winter with a top expected of 14°F (57°F). An attractive view of blue skies & a not very attractive view of sprawling suburbia from my balcony. I'll enjoy the day as rain is expected tomorrow.

There's colour in winter

Oh Melbourne, your winter days start off so cold and grey.

but as the day goes on, you start to thaw out.



One of Melbourne's many gorgeous old Arcades. And it's Sale time.
 It's always sale time.

The pavement outside the arcade

I have to pass this every day - its cruel I tell you

Lunch

Melbourne has the best buskers. What a character this busker is
He never disappoints.

I saw these same guys busking in Stuttgart, Germany
a few years ago. Small world.

Hot pink and orange my favourite colour combination

Legomen, who can resist?

Even the post office dresses up here

Oh what courage - I love the hair.
It's a work of art.

So by the end of the day, you really do look like a different city.

.
I really love you Melbourne.

Vibrant. Colourful. Easy on the eye.

And so damn delicious

that I can just about forgive you for this freezing weather.....

or at least .......until early tomorrow morning, anyway.

Free speech, apples, swearing and Ukraine love

Life can get ridiculous at times. Here are some snippets from mine, just to round the week out.

Core blimey!



Last night while out at dinner my sister in law was telling us about her first time visit to an Apple store to buy an ipad for my brother. Everyone else at the table soon joined in waxing lyrical about the genius of Apple designs, their marketing and their OTT customer service. My daughter reminisced how she learnt to touch type on my first Mac when she was 5 and said she really wanted the latest ipad too.

Well, be careful what you wish for.

Early this morning she got a phone call from her bank. Someone had bought an ipad at the Apple store in London (about 1.30am our time), an Iphone from the 3 store and then tried to make a purchase of a computer using her obviously swiped credit card details.

Good job the Bank was on the ball but someone is running round with some ill gotten gains - a couple of shiny new apples.

I think it’s turned her off Apple ownership for the moment. Forbidden fruit and all that...

For F.. .ks Sake

Last Saturday I was walking in the inner city searching for an out of the way book shop. These days finding a book shop is like searching for a needle in a haystack isn't it?

I was preoccupied looking at the buildings on the opposite side of the road trying to find street numbers. 

I started walking across the road and suddenly I could hear a roar of voices coming towards me followed by a crowd of people waving Free Speech banners in the air.

Somehow I managed to get entangled in a public demonstration about proposed new legislation against swearing. As you do.

The most confronting thing though was their loud and angry chant.

F**K, F**K, F**K they screamed. Over and over.

I pushed my way through the crowd trying to reach the other side of the road in one piece. All the while thinking to myself, grrr, you people have taken the words right out of my mouth.

So, what could I do but join in.

Therapeutic, this freedom of speech thing is, I tell you. Like some kind of primal therapy.

The cloak of invisibility - does it exist?

Apparently there is an age where we females become invisible to the opposite sex. It’s 46 if you must know.

No, I haven’t made this up it’s supposedly a real research outcome which I will tell you about next week.

However, there are always exceptions to the rule.

Yesterday, my friend Marie was thrilled when she got wolf-whistled when passing a building site.

She took off her sunglasses and turned around to see whether the whistler in question might have been wearing coke bottle glasses.

The young guy looked at her, took his hard hat off and said very apologetically, Oh I am so sorry, Ma’am.

She looks younger from the back it seems. She was a tad disappointed.

Doesn't she know that a smart woman never looks behind or was that never leaves a man behind. Oh I forget now...

However, she will be walking everywhere from now on, guaranteed. She looks pretty hot in any direction. I would have posted a photo but she wouldn't be in it - supposedly she really doesn't like that much attention. Who knew?

Invisible and Stupid?

I was evaluating some beauty consultants for a makeup house last week. Unbeknownst to them, of course.

I had to go to two large department stores next door to each other and visit consultants from the same brand.

Consultant number 1 applied some foundation to my face and told me that it was the perfect colour, just beautiful, yade yade yade.

I then visited the next department store and saw Consultant no 2.

No 2 takes one look at the foundation applied by No 1 and says, “Oh no, that makeup you have on is not right for you”.

She has the perfect product, she says. Why, of course she would.

Out comes the exact same product and the same colour as No 1 used.

Then applied in the exact same way on the exact same face.

She told me it looked amazing, so different, yade, yade, yade.

Yeah great big tick, they lie sell really well.

And the makeup industry continues to thrive and grow exponentially…...wonder why…

And finally,.....

No matter what ridiculous things happen in my daily life I will always have this to cling on to……I have a Ukraine friendly blog.

The largest contiguous country in Europe (have no idea what that means but it sounds impressive right?) hits on me more than any other country in the world.

Maybe they think from the way I write that English is my second language too.

Didn’t you ever want to be a tiny bit big in the Ukraine…yes I thought so…but

Budmo!!!!!

Thank goodness for free speech and a little Ukrainian attention....life sustaining ridiculous moments in an otherwise topsy turvy world.

Have a good weekend everyone!