We started June off by going to a Tubular Bells concert. It wasn’t Mike Oldfield himself, apparently he’s a bit of a weirdo. But these guys played all of Tubular Bells I and parts of II and III. There were two percussionists, a keyboard guy, two guitarists, a bass player, a singer, and an electric cello guy. They played sooo many different instruments each. It was fascinating to watch.

I loved this concert so much. It was so nostalgic. They came around at intermission and sold ice cream in little dixie cups too. All the oldies looked like they were having a great time.

Sweat bros doing a private drilling session with our prize vouchers.

Overstimulated bros doing trivia.

Brown Falcon
Black Kite

This month’s photography trip was back to the Western Treatment Plant. It wasn’t that long since I was last there, but the trip was planned in the winter to try and find some endangered parrots. Which we unfortunately didn’t see. But we did see lots of raptors somewhat close so that’s cool.

Garlic update. They all sprouted! Fingers crossed for a good harvest this year.

Lara’s younger sister is visiting Australia from the Ukraine for a few months so they had us over for a dinner and board games night to introduce us to all their friends at once. European kids are so much cooler than Australian/Canadian kids lol. I welcomed her to Australia by absolutely destroying everyone at Ticket To Ride Europe hahahaha.

Pic by @markelbourneshoots

Priscilla and I competed in the Pride & Paddle pickleball comp at Raya. It was a fun day but extremely tiring. We had to play six games to 15 with no bye, and then made it to the finals so we had to play a best of three to 11 for bronze. We won the first game of the finals but then ran out of steam and ended up losing the next two, so ended up in 4th place. Too bad, because the medals were really cute. We played well all day but just didn’t have the stamina to last the longer games… almost every game we lost we actually made it to 11 first, but then ended up losing like 13-15. We are working on this!!

It was super nice that so many pickleball friends came to support us through the comp.

Our #SMAJ event was trying out the new souffle pancake place at Chaddy. We got fried chicken and pancakes and Biscoff pancakes. They were redonk. Now I want to try and make them at home.

I think it is very funny that Lara wanted to take her Ukranian sister to a (unlimited) pierogi restaurant in Melbourne when she is FROM UKRAINE. But I guess pierogies are always great. I ate less than last time but it was great going in a big group, lots of laughs. Kira says I look like Mavis from Hotel Transylvania.

More sweater progress. I decided to work on both sleeves at the same time. I would do a step of the instructions on both sides before going to the next step. It made it easier to remember what to do so it’s very matchy matchy.

Unpictured Stuff:

  • I last minute planned us a weekend away in Moonambel for Kings Birthday since we didn’t have anything going on that weekend. I’ll write about it in another post.
  • I got botox in my jaw to help with pain from clenching. It’s great!
  • I went to a work trivia night and my department won cuz we are the biggest nerds.
  • We went to KBBQ with Gav and Aura. So nice to catch up with them again after not seeing them for ages. We learned so many things about teeth.
  • Scott worked ~55 hour weeks for three weeks during Semester 1 exams.
  • Then the day after exams finished he got made redundant. IDGI.

May was a little bit calmer. I had to pull back on a lot of activities to try to recover.

This is the armour I put on to go out into the real world. Why is the real world so loud and bright.

We played a bunch of crokinole until Scott got too good at it and I had to put it away again.

We went to Noah’s 21st birthday party (Part 1) and got to meet their new puppy. Then when Part 2 began and all of Noah’s friends started arriving we all GTFO’d and left them to it.

Went out for dinner after pickleball with a few new friends and had a Korean junk food feast! Fried chicken, seafood pancake, two types of stew, tteokbokki, and banchan. It was great!

We saw Kooza. i thought it was great. We loved the big wheel thingy of course. I would love to try it (just the inside part).

New Holland Honeyeater
Nankeen Night Heron

I went on a bird photography outing to Blind Bight. We saw lots of birds in the morning and got plenty of good photo opportunities. I stayed for lunch and then headed home after that, and ended up getting called into work that evening!! A big day.

Scott organised for us to go to Dingo Ate My Taco which involved him leaving work early and lining up in an alleyway for an hour. I got to show up right at opening time and skip the line. :D Good work Scott. Love sitting at the counter where you can see into the kitchen.

We had escabeche and a bunch of tacos and a spicy margarita. Very tasty.

And then Kariton afterwards for some soy soft serve. The first bite tastes like tofu and then it tastes like regular ice cream after that. I love it.

I could see on the website that there were a lot of ladies signed up for the Saturday intermediate tournament at MPC for once, so Scott and I signed up, but then they put us in Pool A with ALL MEN!! And all the ladies and mixed teams were in the other pool. I was so annoyed. It’s not fun for me to play against all male teams, I just get smashed.

I finally made it to a crafternoon again. My margarita was extremely delicious and we had a variety of pickle flavoured chips to nibble on. I liked the venue (Nubilum), it was chill in there and the chairs have backs.

Finished my newspaper mittens! They are very soft. And chugging along on the confetti sweater.

Lil cartoon for Priscilla’s birthday.

Locking in and getting caught up on blogging.

We went to see Book Of Mormon. I am not a big musical person but it’s pretty unique, we enjoyed it! (Maybe not as much as the lady next to Scott who was laughing hysterically the entire time lol). I wore my knitted cardigan that I made two years ago and never wear.

Momofest was the best day out I’ve had in ages. I LOVE THIS FESTIVAL. There were at least 30 different stalls selling all different types of momos. We went with a group of friends so we each would go buy a plate of momos from a different place, and then regroup and share everything, so I got to try sooo many different types. Everyone was super friendly, it wasn’t crowded, and the lines were very manageable. A dude explained every single item on the menu at a dessert stall for me, and we decided to try one that was made of carrot, almonds and raisins. Always neat to try something new. Excellent day.

Jen organised for a bunch of us to go to a watercolour workshop where we painted some muchrooms. I haven’t used watercolours in agesss so it was great to get a bit of a refresher. We went out for brunch afterwards as well.

We went to watch the Melbourne-Brisbane game at the MCG. We sat with Scott’s Brisbane friends in the Brisbane section, so I felt even more weird in my new EXTREME PUFFY Melbourne coat but Melbourne won and also I was very cozy so yay. :)

Priz and I did an outdoor evening tournament in Noble Park. I forgot how nice it is to play pickleball outside. It’s way quieter and if it’s not windy it’s really calm and serene. I think I will try to play more pickleball outside this summer. We didn’t make it to the finals but it was still an enjoyable evening.

We got our travel vaccines for Borneo and went out for laksa afterwards. We have sooo many anti-malaria tablets.

I felted my slippers! I thought they came out too small but after squeezing my feet into them they actually sort of molded to my exact foot size and actually they are sooooo cozy and I never want to take them off any more. Some people put grippy stuff on the bottom of their slippers but I love to slide so I’ve not bothered. I don’t get to slide in pickleball any more so at least let me slide into the kitchen.

I also started making a pair of mittens with wool from last years Bendigo Wool Show. It’s 4 ply held double and I love how the variegation came out! It reminds me of newspaper.

I realised I had made a mistake on my cable knit blanket and had to undo several hours worth of knitting. Devastating. All fixed now though.

I think I’m about 70% through. Getting there!

My favourite dairy-free soft serves in Melbourne at the moment. Miguelitos ube soft serve Oreo sundae sub vegan coconut drizzle. Not so sweet, vaguely healthy. And Kariton soy soft serve Biscoff sundae. Super rich and satisfying.

Not very photogenic but radish cake and shrimp rice noodle roll. Really nice.

We had some nice food at home this month too. I roasted some pork for cubano sandwiches. Doreen messaged me out of the blue and asked if I would like some freshly caught tuna. UM YES. It was soo nice, really melted in the mouth.

Finally figured out how to make Fannie Farmer cookies in Australia and not have them spread out too far. It’s my favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe but I don’t know if the brown sugar is different here, or if it is the differences in measuring spoons, but it took a while to make them work again.

Unpictured Stuff:

  • We had a casual Easter lunch in Boronia.
  • We went to the craft cinema with Ash and watched Muriel’s Wedding and My Big Fat Greek Wedding whilst knitting.
  • We went out for dinner with Michael and Gina while Gina was about the pop with babby. It was a nice dinner except for when I thought I’d put our order through on my phone but it actually hadn’t gone through and actually Scott was eating Gina’s meal. LOLOLOL.
  • We planted garlic in the garden boxes again.

This month looks really fun on reflection but actually rapidly went downhill and I ended up in burnout and ended up feeling absolutely horrible at the end of the month. But I learned a lot from this and am doing much better now.

Scott organised us a chill weekend away in the Daylesford area for the Labour Day long weekend. I’ve never been there before!

We stayed in Guildford, in an actual Bed & Breakfast, which I found unsettling. The breakfast was pretty epic though.

B.A.T.

We went for some walks.

It was Pride Weekend in Daylesford. Some areas were quite busy.

We went to the Sunday market. Scott was very happy to get this beetroot lifter Tupperware thingy in the same colour that he grew up with.

More walking, around the lake. Seems like it would be a nice place to go in the summer. There aren’t that many lakes in Australia.

We decided to take a ride on the scenic train which slowly chugged along through the countryside.

We also had some great meals, played some board games, and had some relax knitting time. Overall a very pleasant weekend away.

My bird photography group went to Braeside Park in March and we saw lots of birds! It was my first time using my new BAL (big ass lens) (600mm fixed) and I was pretty pleased with the results!

Rainbow Lorikeet
Royal Spoonbill
Black Shouldered Kite very, very far away
Little Black Cormorants
Tawny Frogmouth
Eastern Rosella
Pacific Black Duck, Chestnut Teal, Pink-eared Duck, no idea what those two black ones facing the other way are.

Ducks are hard.