Bank holiday blues

1. The current bank holiday weather (in England anyway) kinda reminds me of Christmas in Melbourne. What can I say, anywhere you can buy kilos of steak and huge tiger prawns for about a third the price of Tescos has got to be a good place to live. OK, maybe that's just Australia in general. Funnily enough, there's cricket going on here at the moment too. Although this time England look to be on top (yay!). However, it'll probably keep raining so we'll end up with a draw (boo!).

2. Digging through the photo archive, proof that we actually got a bit 'cultural' with a visit to the Melbourne Museum (and no, we weren't looking at pots of yoghurt in display cases - though you never know, that might be quite an interesting exhibit - yoghurt pots through the ages. Oooh, anyone remember munch bunch yoghurts? And was it just me that thought toffee yoghurt was disgusting?). It seems like they've done up the museums in Australia and New Zealand a bit more recently than say the Science Museum. There was enough in there to keep us occupied for a couple of hours. The best bit was the exhibit based on the Neighbours TV set. And the fact that they were showing the test match in the museum! Well, they did have an exhibit about the Ashes on display there. Yeah you're right. Thinking about what actually interested us the most, we probably would have got more culture standing in the supermarket looking at yoghurt pots - only the ones with the friendly bacteria in them mind.

3. And when we'd finished watching cricket in the museum, you can go shopping and then watch cricket on the big screen in Federation Square - yeah, it does sound like a good place for a Star Trek convention... Looking at the Melbourne map, it looks like we missed seeing a lot of the city. Hmm - spent too much time watching the cricket obviously. Well, I don't think any of us enjoyed Melbourne as much as Sydney (thus stoking the great Melbournite (?) - Sydnonian (??!!??) rivalry. But that is probably because we got hammered in the cricket and it rained buckets in the middle of what was supposedly summer. Maybe I'll give it another chance my next visit down under. If I can time it to coincide with the Australian Open, that might be a bonus...

3 reasons why I worry about myself

1. I think my memory's going.

2. I can write blogs about visiting mini-Abingdon - why in the first place anyone would want to visit a miniature version of Abingdon (and indeed pay money for the privilege), let alone blog about it. Must be pretty insane.

3. I thought that I'd covered mini-Abingdon in a previous blog. As it turns out, reviewing my blog archive, I hadn't!!! Gazman covers it in brief, but no pictures. What's going wrong with me. Did I mention my memory's going?

Mandurah Revisited

Some of you may remember the odd peculiarity that was Mini-Abingdon in Mandurah. Well, I've come to the source of the inspiration, Abingdon town itself to see how the real thing shapes up to the model (or should that be the other way round)? Comedy cliche dictates that I label the photos the wrong way round. Or have I??!!?? Oh, it's so confusing...

1.

Photo: Monastery, Abingdon

Photo: Monastery, mini-Abingdon, Mandurah

2.

Photo: Council Hall, Abingdon

Photo: Council hall, mini-Abingdon, Mandurah

3.

Photo: Shops, Abingdon

Photo: Shops, mini-Abingdon, Mandurah

Man, it was a challenge trying to manoeuver my camera to try and get those 'pedestrian-shots' of mini-Abingdon :-)

The last one is probably the most outrageous. Why would you want to build a Costa coffee store in real life, when you could have a birthday card shop which sells furniture??!!??

Still, at least I now finally have closure on the strange experience that was mini-Abingdon. Did I mention I won the mini-golf there?

Pictures-que frisbee pictures

3 frisbee pictures ? Again, NI themed (regular readers may have spotted a recurring theme in my blogs of late)

1. The location:

2. Giant Frisbee Action

3. The wistful glance at the knowledge that the game must end (because it's time for dinner!)