Now it feels like spring! Sunday morning we returned to our fave beachside place The Kiosk @ Floreat Beach (did I mention they make great pancakes? And it’s the spot for our annual Thunderbird Xmas meetup). Next we walked over the boardwalk to City Beach where Paul snapped the Surf Club building (a threatened species) & these shots of me gazing seaward – yeah it looks so planned but I didn’t even see him behind me.

Beautiful light, gorgeous spring day.

Well it may seem day-trips to the Hills are becoming habitual. Yesterday we joined the German Car Club for a cobweb-blowing exercise and the chance to revisit the pinnacle of architectural hero Iwan Iwanoff’s work – the Northam Public Library and Council buildings.

The early-70s buildings remain largely intact, although a small side balcony had an alarming lean to it, unfortunate retro-fit conduit tubes line the outside, and ugly Government Sports signage mars one entrance. But I followed the age-old optimism of photo buddy Frith “we’ll shoot around it”! The BreastScan bus proved a slightly distracting imposition – who could dream-up a more contrasting image: girly pink with brutalist grey concrete?

More local Iwanoff’s here.

Sometimes I’m not sure how I get talked into these things… a Cranksters early Sunday cruise up Greenmount Hill to a small roadside shop selling pies?

Well it did provide a photo opportunity, and the chance to blow the cobwebs out of the Tbird. I vetoed taking the roof off the car – it was teeth-chatteringly cold yesterday in the Hills. And the sausage rolls proved to be pretty good handwarmers.

Right across the road is the Buffalo Club. How do you get into a ‘lodge’ anyway? Not that they have a dapper doorman on duty or anything. Or anyone sporting a fez.
And the Scooter geezers were out for a run too.
We dropped into the fab il Cibo for a coffee and friand. A lovely afternoon.

The Annual Cranksters Pipeline Picnic run to Mundaring is this Sunday, and it’s also the last day of the Guy Grey-Smith Exhibition at the Mundaring Arts Centre – right across the highway on the corner of Nichol St.

So, when the talk about V8s and bearing sizes begins to bore, pop over to the Exhibition for a rare chance to see a body of Guy Grey-Smith’s work, a wonderful artist and long-term resident of the Hills before his death 30 years ago. I’ve always wanted a Grey-Smith painting, and a Howard Taylor sculpture for the front garden, but both remain ‘pipe dreams’.

Yep, we know how to do fly-in, fly-out. Last weekend, we descended on Melbourne, partly for the Victorian Hot Rod Show (which Paul has covered – very well covered – here), but any visit to Melbourne is also a chance for design inspiration, shopping destinations and savings elimination. And a chance Power Rangers sighting.

We stayed at the funky new Blackman Hotel. I’d recommend it if you prefer to shun big-hotel-blandness. Tucked off leafy St Kilda Rd, it’s a stone’s throw (or a couple of tram stops) from the city, but very accessible to St Kilda, Chapel St, High St, etc. Great views from our 16th floor balcony.

A slash-and-burn trip thru Gertrude/Smith/Brunswick Sts precinct yielded a cool addition to my mid-century ceramics collection from Twenty21, and visits to Angelucci, Cerca, 3rd Drawer Down, Little Creatures for lunch, and other points in between.

St Kilda for breakfast Sunday morning, then home. Pass the Berocca, please.