Tuesday, October 13, 2009

On my arrival in Melbourne after an uneventful trip from Perth, I was met by my new host Greg Hanlon. Greg is a young man (I hope he won't mind me saying that) who is a very enthusiastic calligrapher and motorcycle rider. In fact, he tells me that he used to do club motorcycle racing, which I fear is not good on the hands!

On my first night there we went out to Williamstown, just east of the Yarra, which is full of restaurants of all types. We ended up in a pleasant cafe and had dinner, and then went on to the Hobson Bay hotel for a nightcap. Greg was very pleasantly surprised to find that one of his pieces of calligraphy hanging there, had sold, so the evening turned into something of a celebration.

The next day, Thursday, we spent travelling around finding art supplies that I needed. Then we went out to Camberwell (a name with which I was very familiar even though the one I knew was 12,000 miles away). My reason for going there was an attempt to track down a very old friend of mine and Donald Jackson's, Chris Snook and his wife Jenny, neither of whom I'd seen for some 15 years. I had tried to see them when I was last in Melbourne but they had proved to be in England when I was there. It looked as though I was going to be unlucky this time, too, because the shop was closed. However, there was a card in the window with a name and a phone number, so I called and Chris answered. It was great to hear his voice again and we arranged to have dinner together that night.

Greg and I then scooted over to St. Kilda for lunch before heading home to his place and a well-earned nap. In the evening we went over to Carlton and met up with Chris and Jenny, where we had a quite delicious dinner and caught up on all the news of the past 15 years!

On Friday, we had the one day workshop. Traffic was really bad going in and it took us almost an hour and a quarter to get there, arriving just before the start time. There were 16 people in the workshop and I was particularly gratified to see two people who had been in previous workshops: Lauchean Duncan and Deirdre Hassed. Lauchean had been in workshops in both Sydney and Melbourne, while Deirdre had come over to Australia from New Zealand. The day was really tiring, because, after the workshop a bunch of us went out for dinner and then returned so that I could deliver my lecture. I eventually returned home about 10.15pm having left that morning at about 8.15am.

The Saturday/Sunday workshop had 13 students and was a reprise of the "From the Sublime to the Ridiculous" one which I'd given in Perth. Of those thirteen students, seven had been in the Friday workshops and were thus becoming old friends. Most of the students were really quite accomplished and almost needed no direction from me. However, I think a workshop's main value is in giving the students hints of possible new directions in which to take their work, and I think I did that.

One of the things which I have to mention is that Melbourne has one of the most ludicrous traffic systems I've ever devised (apologies, Melbourne!). They have a wonderful network of trams which go all over the city. The ridiculous part is that (bearing in mind that Aussies drive on the correct side of the road - the left) where there are "safety zones", if you're driving a vehicle, you must make right turns from the left hand lane!! You drive up to the intersection and park on the left, across the intersecting road, until the light changes, when you then make your right turn; a wonderfully harebrained system presumably designed by a bureaucrat, or possibly figured out to keep non-Melbournians off the streets!!

On the Monday, I had a leisurely morning of packing and then wandering around a shopping mall looking for a few gifts to bring home. Greg then drove me to the airport where I caught a flight to Launceston in Tasmania. The flight was full and I would have thought that, having had my ticket purchased on May 1, that I would have had a either a window or an aisle seat, but no!Apparently, in Australia, you can't reserve a seat until 24 hours before the flight. Still, a minor annoyance in the overall scheme of things! Frank and Olive Bull were waiting for me at the airport when I arrived. Olive had told me that she hadn't changed a bit in the last 20 years, and, of course, she was right! The same as me!!

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