The House(s) of Fran_mart

Note that these photos were taken through our tinted windows, which gives a blue cast.  Maintenance work is happening on the West face of our building.  Today we found some workers passing by the Winter Garden.  One of them paused, apparently observing a colleague lower down. He had a lot of kit around his belt. I went down to the garden area on level 1 to look up.  ('Our' guy had descended a few floors by then.) A close up of the 2 guys on the left. A little later I went out, and saw the blokes up on the roof with the gantries they swing off. They were back on 8 April.  In the first 2 images they are wrapping a canvas (or similar) sheath around their rope to protect it where it runs across a balcony. Looking down: if I was working in this position I also would not want the rope to fray.

 Our morning walk varied the route in that we went to Mowbray St first.  As we neared Wesley College we saw some balloons drifting Northish.  We wondered if they were gong to land in Fawkner Park or carry on to the Domain.  As we got to the Park it was clear that (a) they were carrying on; and (b) they were annoying a small dog that was barking furiously and chasing the balloons.  The owner was calling loudly, including the (inappropriate) words "Good Boy!".   Here is a snap of the situation as we left it. In this snip from Google Earth 1 is where the owner started from.  2 is where we first saw the dog and about where the owner was when we left.  3 - about 200m from 1 - is the last place we saw the dog, still maintaining its rage. In the afternoon I got a nice shot of the Air Ambulance outbound from the Alfred. At 1917 hrs - the evenings are really beginning to close in - I got these evocative images of the setting sun.  (The backlit fu...

 A few dropped in on 19 March! A larger group took off on the 22nd.   They seemed a bit undecided as to where they were going.  I assume this means the winds near the ground were being affected by the buildings along St Kilda Rd and as they rose they got the actual Southerly and headed for the City.  We saw some of them when we went for a walk about 0 minutes later.

One of the decisions we made when we purchased in 505 St Kilda Rd was that we would not be present in the period of the Australian Grand Prix. We didn't need the noise.  However I decided to watch it on TV - mainly to see if I could spot 505 in the background: the building is about 600m from the nearest part of the track.  During the day the constant was the cancellation of supporting races due to rain: wimps - if its wet go slower!  Ducks were running a Piquet line. But it seemed the rain was stopping before the main event so I Normed myself and turned on the TV which was set on NITV.  They were showing football ... This turns out to be the Big Rivers  League from the NT!  The Camels are one of the teams from Katherine.  I have been unable to find the final score but, from the score with a minute to go, the Camels would be my pick! When I switched to Ch10 a helicopter had a good view of the CBD. This stand is on the golf course - I think on the first...

 I read in The Age about plans for the St Kilda Festival on 15-16 February.  It seemed to be a massive event with talk about 350,000 people attending, many acts and the whole suburb being closed off.  I didn't recognise many of the acts: Troy Cassar-Daly stood out on the first day (devoted to indigenous performers) while Peter Garrett fronting a new band called the Alter Egos was about the only one I recognised on the Sunday.  I decided, with Frances encouragement, to have a rubberneck at Peter Garrett (PG) on the Sunday. It seemed that tram was the way of getting there, with information available early on suggesting a need to walk from about St Kilda Station (say 1.6 km to the main stage).  On the day it appeared that in fact the trams were stopping at St Kilda Junction meaning a further 400m on the hoof.  Despite the promise of "extra trams" when I got out to the stop it seemed that the next 16A wasn't due for 23 minutes so I might as well walk the whole ...

 On 12 February as we went into Fawkner Park at Arthur St a balloon retrieval truck went in beside us. So we spotted the landing zone and wandered over.  The first sight was this balloon being dragged so that it wouldn't block a path. The top is then pulled down to the ground. We then saw another balloon incoming ..... .. and decided to shelter under a tree. It really was that close! Talking of close... Packing up.