Melbourne Adventures

 This post has two catalysts: On 15 July while birding at St Kilda a passer-by commented about seeing a group 5 big black and white birds diving into the sea at Port Melbourne.  This sounded like Gannets but my informant was unsure. We have just read a book "Melbourne Circle" which visits inter alia  Garden City, an interesting sounding area at Port Melbourne. I was taking the car out to get fuel so it seemed a good chance to drive to the Port to check these matters out. The Google Maps route went to Garden City first so this blog will follow that example.  I will begin with a review of the book (compiled for a U3A newsletter). “Melbourne Circle: Walking, Memory, and Loss” Nick Gadd This is another book with much scope for emotive unhappiness, as it is written in places as a letter to his late wife [1] about the walks they did around Melbourne.  However I think he dodges that bullet and I just ended up feeling a little sad for him, but thinking how well he de...

 We have joined the  Prahran Mechanics Institute Victorian History Library as they seem to have a very interesting collection of books and look to do some interesting related events.  One of these was a concert (?recital?) of music from the 19th century by the Four Seasons String Quartet.  We bowled along and they did a very interesting hour of music.  They also started with a buffet (funded by Stonnington Council) included pastry stuffed with chocolate!  It appeared this was PMI's first venture into music, and we hope it won't be the last: having sold all seats should encourage them. The second musical event was going to be an oboe/piano duet at St Paul's Cathedral.  When we got there it emerged that the oboeist was unwell so a viola/piano duo pinch hit.  The performers (Yi-Sheng Cheng, piano and Lucas Levin, viola) were very good (we have seen them before) but 2 of the 3 movements of  the Viola Concerto by York Bowen were rather dull. The t...