DALI RAVE ENTICES ALL

Bloody brilliant.

After a week of battling a lurking lurgie, following a rather large Grand Final weekend, (by the way, Geelong were triumphant and it was deliciously hard won - a proper wet, dirty rough and tumble), I have been struggling to prepare for my trip. I had a gazillion emails to send and so much to sort that I think I just shut down.

By the time Friday rolled around, I was looking forward to getting the hell out of the house and helping Amanda at her new store on Gertrude St in Fitzroy. She is the most brilliant designer (http://www.leonardstreet.com.au) and old school friend. She is seriously preggers and has taken on too much - opening two new stores at once - so I've been helping her out when possible.

Living South, I don't get North as much as I'd like and I have to say, there are some serious crazies up there but mostly the people are divine. And the shops (and food) are unbelievable. It's danger zone for me. Big time. I bought the most ridiculously divine 80s jump suit on Friday, luckily Amanda gave me her blessing (kind of) and I can't wait to rock around LA and NYC in it. Think it might be a little too chilly in London town.

At the end of the day, Mum arrived and whipped me off to the most amazing contemporary jewellery store called Ingot where they were having a do. We drank bubbles and shopped and it was a feast for the eyes. She bought me the funkiest black leather necklace to go with my new Leona Edminston frock (cherries and spots galore) for my cuz Charlie's wedding on Halloween (back in Blighty) to the gorgeous Katie. Divine.

I booked us into a restaurant that I'd heard so much about. The Panama Dining Room is top floor above a dance school on Smith St in Collingwood (hear the crowd roar!). We had a gorgeous dinner of deliciousness. The view was great, the food delish and the company perfect. We had some great chats. The sort of chats it's hard to have when you're living half a world away and each meeting has too much expectation.

Without going on about the life style and how lovely people are back in Oz, there's no doubt that the best thing is spending time with my family here.

That said, I can't wait to get on that aeorplane in a few short days. I love to be in motion.

Back to Saturday. In one word, it was a monster. I worked at the gallery (Mossgreen) where I've loved helping out in the last few months. They run a fascinating operation there and with Sotheby's now selling out here (to a far from reputable man) they're in a great possie. I've just spent the day packing boxes of a fascinating collector's estate in Kew with the owners Paul and Amanda who are good people. They work incredibly hard and deal in a wide variety of artifacts.

So after finishing at the gallery, I went over to my lovely friend Stellar's place. Strangely she lives on the same street I grew up on and where my junior school is, even in the same block of flats where Hamish and I lived when we first left school. It's always a strange mix of emotions when I walk up the street under the plane trees, it feels rather like time is standing still.

I spent a few fun hours at Stell's where she and her little sis Clea were having a back to back session of 'Bold & The Beautiful'. It was yet another flash back as most of the old characters are still on the show and 20 years later (we used to wag school to watch it back in the day) it's kinda scary to watch but bloody funny.

I made my way to The Supper Club where I've been exploring Melbourne's night life scene since my return. And meeting new people who actually like to go out (as opposed to most of my friends back here due to the serious child factor) where I worked the door. It was a full moon and daylight savings hit after midnight. And something was in the air.

I had heard that the Dali exhibition at the National gallery was trialing a new idea - staying open for 24 hours on it's last day. People poured through the door at Supper Club and kept on coming. It was nuts. There were rumours of the queue at Dali going back over the bridge to Flinders St (quite a way) and being four people deep. Parklife festival was pouring happy punters out straight to Dali, so when people at work started talking about going, I was in. Like Flynn.

I was finally knocked off after 5am and the drinks were on. It was a fabulous final night, everyone stuck around and I drank an incredible cocktail called The Botanical (thanks Nick). Eventually, a small gang of us wandered down to the gallery. The dawn had arrived and we ambled through the quiet city with bottles clinking in our bags and arms linked. We arrived at the gallery around 7am to find no queue but loads of people.

What followed was the most blissful night/morning. I had already been to the exhibition twice and Tara, our hostess with the mostest, whose right ankle is tattooed in fabulous Dali, had been three times. For the boys (Josh and Louis) it was mostly their first time, though Alex had been before. Inside there was the normal slow moving line of people going from one painting to the next, but we ran around in between jumping to what took our fancy - pure bliss. We watched my favourite part of the exhibition, 'Destino' (the cartoon Dali made with Disney but was never released) twice in a row and I could have watched it three more times at least but we wandered on to be mesmerised by a wide variety of Dali's intense visions. It was such a heady mix. The crowd was of all ages and pretty soon, those of us who had been up all night were drawn to each other. Those who were clearly just up were yawning differently to us, and everyone was having a bit of a giggle at each other.

We ended the trip by climbing up a tree opposite the gallery and watching the world go by. Then we made it on to Vic Markets, where we enjoyed making our way through the most delectable wares and munched on some. Finally, back at Josh's place we sat on his roof and as he and Tara finally wilted, I ventured out into the stark day and ran a bunch of errands with my sunnies firmly placed on my nose.

Melting into bed at midday was the most blissful feeling in the world. Now I've got a pile of things to sort before I get on that plane in a few short days, so forgive me....

More from the road.
Lxxx