Ivanhoe in bloom.

Aradhna stands beside one of the many blooming front gardens to be found in our neighborhood. The Brisbane experiment has run its course. I was lucky to experience the best of Australia's most populous sub-tropical city, but glad to be back in Melbourne. Aradhna and I recently signed a lease for an apartment in our old stomping grounds of Balaclava. Fortuna's wheel keeps spinning ...

Post full o' Posies

Melbourne is ripe with spring. A stroll through Ivanhoe & Eaglemont yesterday was ablaze with proof.

Victorian Valentine's Day.

Aradhna and I saw a new Bollywood film called Billu Barber on Valentine's Day in the CBD. Here's a few photos of the excursion.
Walking to the nearby Eaglemont train station we encountered a line of people at a sausage sizzle being held for victims of the bushfires. Neither of us eat beef so we made a donation.
If it weren't for late-model cars lining its tiny main street, Eaglemont would look no different than its 19th-century incarnation.
While most greenscapes have been scorched during Melbourne's driest ever start to a year, the CBD's Fitzroy Gardens are preserved by specially sanctioned waterings.
Indigenous plants thrive in even the most dire of Aussie conditions.
Picnickers were a familiar sight throughout the Gardens ...
... as were posing wedding parties.
Northeastern horizon from Aradhna's 43rd-floor office window is obscured by bushfire smoke, a condition that will persist until a miracle of precipitation descends on us.
St Patrick's Cathedral towers over Old Parliament House.
Oscar in his usual spot -- and state of excitement -- when we returned to Ivanhoe.

Bye bye Balaclava.

Aradhna and I have been packing, moving and settling into our new place in Ivanhoe for over a week. Oscar (shown inspecting boxed items in our Balaclava place, above) is just now growing comfortable with his new surrounds. Theo spends most of his time beneath a blanket in the bedroom, imagining that nothing's changed and he'll find himself in the old place when he peeks out. Tough to leave the bohemia of Balaclava for a more sedate and, quite frankly, lily-white section of Melbourne but we snagged a lovely apartment that's a short, leafy walk from the Ivanhoe & Eaglemont train stations. It's also less rent. Most importantly, Ivanhoe is in Melbourne's northeast (Balaclava was south) which means we've got many new neighborhoods to explore and, for me, dozens & dozens of new cafes to discover.

Snapped a few photos along Carlisle Street before shoving off ...Carlisle from beneath the train overpass.
The much-ballyhooed Wall Two 80.
Typical traffic madness.
Big Matt at Gattica, far & away the best barista in Balaclava and fellow gearhead/hip-hop fan. His familiar cap-topped cranium is moving to Geelong, however, leaving Carlisle St. bereft of Orange County cool.
I'll have to make do without fresh challah bread w/sultanas from Glick's every Friday. Then again, Balaclava isn't that far from Ivanhoe ...