Places in Melbourne to be Alone

Melbourne is so crowded, and at this time of year everyone seems to be wearing a brightly coloured scarf and a blooming red face; it is obvious that some sporting events are coming to a conclusion. Therefore it is even more important to find some solitude, some places (within walking distance of public transport) to be with oneself, and not screaming boofheads.

The North Melbourne Railbridge
This bridge between the Metropolitan platforms and the railyards is often deserted, but the best time to visit is dawn on a cloudy Tuesday; a vista of Industrial Melbourne opens up before one. Both the Bolte and the Westgate bridges, freight yards, the bustle of interstate rail, and a weak sun lightly touching the stunted weeds.

The End of Platform 2A at Southern Cross Station
Especially on a rainy Sunday. This Vicrail platform pokes out from under the wave-like roof at SthnCrss and into trainspottingland; I missed 2 trains yesterday watching shunting engines and departing intercountry trains. I found it very restful.

Point Gellibrand Coastal Heritage Park in a Howling South Westerly Gale
I went to Williamstown to look at the sea and walk about in the wind to give my melancholy a more romantic and picturesque aspect and was nearly blown back to Newport. Point Gellibrand has a long and sordid history and I was the only one there to enjoy it.

After that I went into the 'nice' bit of Willietown and managed to find an unpretentious cafe to have tea and cake. I was warm and tired and needed only a pot of English Breakfast and a muffin to make me happy; this is why we subject ourselves to physical stresses. My anxious heart was soothed by struggling against the freezing wind and by watching the boiling sea.

Outside my Window

Waitresses

Obviously I spend a lot of my time in Cafes. When not reading (or complaining) I am watching people. Alright! I am ogling the serving personnelle. Those who annoy me particularly might find themselves in my sketchbook; or maybe if they merely intrigue me I might draw them. But perhaps I draw comely waitresses to assert that I too matter, even tho I am not comely, or rich, or even very nice to those who serve me bad cups of tea.

A Tram

Last night I drew this tram; a combination of a Melbourne Z class and a Brisbane tram from the 50's. Some evenings when I see my tram (the 55) going through the Royal Park it is possible to forget the sordid insides and boring passengers and imagine it is a fairy carriage twinkling through the trees.
I think I will make this picture (not quite as romantic as I intended) a cover illo for a guide to an imaginary city.

Fog

Now that it is Autumn, finally, I am remembering that my city used to be blanketed by fog at this time of year. In my childhood the whole street would gather up the fallen leaves from the European trees and set fire to them. In my mind there is a picture of small columns of smoke from smoldering fires all along the gutter; so perhaps the 'fog' was actually smog.
I still miss it.

Linden Postcard Show

Yesterday I was cheered by a delivery of about 100 postcards from Linden of my image of a wasp girl (very like the one below). The trams are small and smelly and rattle past like abandoned factories on wheels, full of selfish, miserable, ugly zombi, the busses are bursting with noisy children who have never been told how to behave in a confined space; every day I dry my hair with diesel fumes, and there is no truce in the war between me and my neighbours... but at least I have some nice postcards to give to my friends.

Imbibing

Imbibing

Tea is a marvellous drink, but occasionally one needs something stronger. I did these drawings for a Fringe Festival exhibition last year called 'Ugly, Drunk & Stupid' which also had many of Melbourne's Comix creators.

Penny Royal

Monday afternoon, I wandered into a cafe in Union St West Brunswick and was served a coffee drinker's idea of a nice cup of tea. Needless to say I did not drink it and was also put off by the proprietor/chef's whistling along to the music on their stereo. I seem always to encounter poor service when I am too weak from inanition to object or flounce.

I drew this sugarbowl in Cafe Rosamund, a pleasant little cafe in an alley behind Smith Street Fitzroy.

sugarbowl

A pleasant cafe story

Last week I took my delightful teenaged niece to a café I had never been to just off Sydney Rd on Albert St. after a strenuous afternoon's Oppshopping.
La Paloma: silver pot of tea for two, milk jug shaped like an owl and perfectly appropriate porcelain teacups and saucers {I thought for a moment as the tea things were passed across the counter to us that the cups might be shaped like Pandas or Pinecones}. The staff's slightly rowdy children were also underfoot, but one must expect these things during the school break; especially as this is the only time I get to spend a day with my niece. I was so delighted that I suppressed my fear of novel technology and took a picture of our afternoon tea with her digital camera. When I tried to take her picture, the batteries failed.
Alas.
We spent the rest of the day in the Coburg Cemetery discussing monotheism and drawing stone Angels.

Café 3A

A cold and low-clouded day in Melbourne; a perfect day to stay in the house and do bugger-all. In the streets and trams and busses, all you will meet is drunks, freaks and children; it is school holidays.
On Sunday, after drawing for a while I suddenly started to feel very, very sleepy. Then I decided to throw up my breakfast {$5.00 organic sourdough bread, 6 slices, toasted, buttered with $2.20 butter from the local milkbar, and Vegemited with Vegemite I smuggled back from a recent trip to Tasmania. Also, an egg that wasn’t completely soft-boiled. Perhaps that is what made me feel queasy; the transparent yolk on my toast soldiers. Oh, and about 2 litres of weak Earl Grey tea.}. Then I lay about, watched Sci Fi and moaned for what remained of the weekend.
I ate nothing until I walked to Café 3A in Edward St. Brunswick on Monday afternoon and ordered a pumpkin and fetta pide and a Darjeeling tea. The pide need not concern us here, it was merely 20 minutes in coming and is in danger of exiting my body as I write. The tea however was another matter entirely.
Café 3A used to have cute little pots of tea, but in the pots was a kind of mini pomade on a chain that leaked brown water like incense out of a censer. Now they have removed the pots altogether and have a huge bowl of water with a hand stitched bag swimming in it.
If I am going to be treated like a pariah, I would prefer it to be by a pretty 20something woman - waitressing while she completes her Marketing, or Sociology, or Balinese Dancing-Girl degree. Not by a balding, portly middle-aged man, even if he is the proprietor.
"It's still leaf tea," says the gnome, when I raise an objection. No its not; it is a teabag, even if I have to fish it out with a runcible spoon.
On the bright side, the tea was only $2.50, even if I couldn’t drink it.
Oh, well. One more café off the list.

More bad tea tales

Café la terra, at the corner of Campbell st and Johnston st Collingwood. The décor is slovenly and disorganized, but the staff are not correspondingly friendly and easygoing.
I wandered in on a cold Melbourne night and saw 'English Tea' on a handwritten menu by the front counter. (A bunch of people were eating at a table further back in what seemed like a family atmosphere; encouraging.) The chairs looked comfortable and I had been walking around the worser parts of Collingwood in the dark for some time, so I asked a girl who came purposefully up to me for a cup of tea.
'Tea?' She looked baffled. 'I will have to ask,' she lisped. So she asks and yes, it appears I can have tea.
Well, we shall see.
From the pile of lemons and knick-knacks on the counter the woman in charge asks if I want milk. I do. When my tea comes it is of course a pot of hot water, and a bag of some no-name brand in the cup.
I anticipate a quick getaway so I say; I will pay now. $3.00 is the advertised price. But no, the girl with too many teeth in her lower jaw says $3.50.
It says $3.00 on the menu I say. Mum behind the lemon piles says 50 cents is for the milk.
Fifty cents for milk is simply outrageous, I say, having as recently as last summer bought a small carton of milk for $1.00.
In any case, the tea was undrinkable, and I lay a spinster's curse on Café la terra.