Nighttime... Daytime!

I love walking through cities when it's dark. They take on a whole new aspect, a new personality, and often you are the only one there to enjoy it. Edinburgh I always found to be particularly beautiful on clear nights. Melbourne is no different.

The buildings shine through the dark like beacons, sending streams of white or green into the sky, a welcome to any who might be watching. The spire of the National Gallery of Victoria glows. A silver spear crested with an azure blaze. And nearby the trees are lit with a haunting blue. Bare winter branches silhouetted through the park, a view into the fey. We walk home from the pub one night and look up to see something wonderful and bizarre taking place in the skies above us.

The metal and glass tower block beside us is topped by a deep blue lights. The lamps themselves are out of our view yet the sky is filled with glowing streaks that dart around the building. They look like spaceships coming and going from a great dock, suspended in the void. I realise they are gulls. Hundreds upon hundreds of gulls far above, flying to and from the rooftop. Their white underbellies and wings shine bright blue in the power of the light beneath them. Around the periphery the tower seems to be encrusted with searing gems. Burning sapphires that dislodge and arc out into the pitch like shooting stars. The gulls are too far away to see clearly but I can't think what else it could be. A vision through to the future? Or to a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away.

A car stops beside us and the occupants all excitedly stretch out the windows to try and capture the scene in a photograph. Their attempts seem as fruitless as my own. We move on and see in the distance the same sight repeated. This time it is fine white dots arcing and wheeling around a thin glistening spire that rises into the skies above a soaring building. The spire is lit from below with a beam of white. As high as it reaches, far beyond the tip of the spire, we can see movement. They look like moths. Thousands of moths jealously guarding their precious light source. What appeals about these two buildings in particular I have no idea. There are many others nearby but all are bare save for these. Perhaps it is two opposing tribes in a vehement war and these are their strongholds. Or perhaps not.

I am also introduced to Melbourne night life (this only took about fifteen hours to happen). The gay scene as it turns out is pretty active. This makes a change from Edinburgh with one gay club that is 'straight' on a Wednesday. Here we have performers! There are people doing acrobatics in rings in the air. Troupes of dancers who are definitely not women. And better, troupes of dancers who definitely are men. On later nights we explore the bars and pubs (more bars than pubs here) and I find there is a wide variety. Most with broad vistas across the city from rooftops or from by the river. On Friday night we are having a pint by the water when they set off fireworks from the far shore, a weekly occurrence apparently. The sun sets behind the bridge, lighting the entire sky with a creamy orange. Then a few hours later the sky is lit again with bursts of colours, ending in a resplendent display of gold that seems to fill the night.

Amy and I no longer close our blinds when we go to sleep. We would rather watch the city. We lie in bed and stare out the window at the sky-scrapers stretching above us, among them the Eureka Tower, highest viewing platform in the southern hemisphere. In the morning Amy goes to work and I do the same thing again with the sunrise. After she comes back we go for a swim in the pool and wonder what we did to deserve all this. So much for backpacking.

We rent a room from a very nice Italian guy while he is back home for a couple of months. The flat is immaculate and ideally located with two great flatmates. We manage to bargain him down so we are paying no more than if we were in a hostel. We view the flat the day I arrive (Amy is far too organised for her own good) and get a pretty extensive talk on the house rules, essentially they boil down to 'be tidy'. Then he proceeds to embark upon explanations of various hypothetical situations and how he would act in each case. This ends with the crumble story.

He explains to us that if we make any crumbles we should tidy them away. Or indeed if we find any crumbles we should tidy them away. He goes on to say that it doesn't matter who makes the crumbles, we should put them away if we find them. He would put away our crumbles if we'd left them out so likewise we should put away our flatmates' crumbles if they accidentally leave them. Now the whole way through I am completely convinced think that he is indeed talking about crumbles, as in the pudding. I assume he is using a crumble as an example of any foodstuff that we may have made and left out. I consider it exceedingly odd but go along with it anyway. Thankfully I managed to avoid any eye-contact with him (or Amy) and therefore withhold my laughter. We leave and Amy explains the situation. It turns out he was talking about crumbs. We decide to make him a crumble for his return. And put it away.

So what am I doing with my day times? Apart from applying for jobs. I explore, I wander, I take part in a clinical trial. We have a couple of friends that have done them in the past. They are testing how a new malaria drug interacts with a pre-existing malaria drug, I only have to take the pre-existing one then let them monitor how quickly my body processes it, couldn't be easier. I have a highly productive day in the hospital. I spend the entire time writing and get paid for the whole thing (a lifetime goal achieved and I don't want to hear anyone say different). Plus I get to wear this awesome thing in my arm.

Me and a friend look around the State Library of Victoria. It is a beautifully grand building with a huge terraced reading dome that can hold a million books. We get chatting to a woman who is setting up a tour and let her use us to practise on. She takes us around their various exhibitions, the first being on Ned Kelly and Sir Redmond Barry. Redmond Barry is famous for being the man who sentenced Kelly to death although this was by no means his only notable act. He did a great deal for the city of Melbourne in his life, including setting up the library we are in (and donating his own vast collection of books to it), the University of Melbourne and the Sunbury Industrial School. I get the impression that the Library is trying to paint Sir Barry in as good a light as possible. It is as if they are trying to make up for his part in Ned Kelly's death who is viewed here in a similar way to Robin Hood back home. She even tells us, very reticently might I add, that there are some less positive aspects to Redmund's story but she is not allowed to tell them to the public. We get out of her that he had known affairs but she will say no more.

She tells us an interesting story regarding the man's death. When he sentenced Kelly Sir Barry said the customary 'May God have mercy on your soul'. Ned responded to this with 'I will go a little further than that, and say I will see you there when I go'. Twelve days later Barry died of congestion in the lungs.

We are taken to a wonderful collection about the development of books. Our guide shows us both the largest and smallest books in the library. I get particularly diverted by the display on Tolkien.

We leave the library and explore some of the more famous graffiti alleys in Melbourne. Recently one of them was painted entirely blue by one of the artists. There was a public outcry to this as he had painted over many existing works. He pointed out at by the next day the alley would be filled again, and he was right. Personally I enjoy the bright blue. It shines out from between the new graffiti, helping it stand out, and paves the ground under my feet.

Now I am alone in the botanic gardens. It is the afternoon and they are gorgeous. The sun is shining and Goldfrapp sings me songs of summer. 'July-ly-ly'. I guess here it would be a song of winter. I discovered the Oak Collection and almost die. It is too exciting. There are so many Oak trees here that I had never seen before, Daimyo Oak, Swamp White Oak, Algerian Oak and amongst them some I hadn't even heard. I can't wait for late spring and see them in all their leaved glory. The song builds to a psychedelic crescendo reminiscent of some of Beatles later work and I take a seat in the sun.

A dragonfly sails past me. Black swans, Australian ravens and moorhens are all I can identify from here as far as bird life is concerned. I need the help of my brother (or a bird book, ideally both) to continue much further, all the animals are different here! The moorhen's haunting call echoes across the water. The gardens are beautiful, lush and full of life. The Eureka tower can be seen far in the distance stretching above the trees towards the sun. I am take all this time I have to work as much as I can. For those of you who don't know I am in the process of writing a book, and sitting here surrounded by nature seems the perfect place to do it. Although this blog is getting in the way.

'Spring' is officially here now. I put that in quotation marks because anyone with any sense would call this summer. It is twenty-six degrees and the trousers are well and truly packed away. I am even wearing a tank top. Sun's out guns out.

'Sonnentanz' or 'Sun don't shine' is the song of the moment, it is by an Austrian electro duo called Klangkarussell. To me it sums up that feeling of basking under a hazy summer sun and the long warm night that follows. Plus who doesn't love a bit of house... Amy and I listen to it this every day, we even dance through the entire thing over Skype to a friend back home.

Your love is mine, but the sun don't shine,

the sun don't shine, without you,

without you.

Well that's definitely not true. But it's a nice sentiment. I wonder whether I will make it through the summer alive if it is this temperature already. Thankfully I arrived here already prepared with a tan (from Scotland, who knew) or else I probably could have burned today. I will miss Autumn I suppose, for its beauty. But instead I will get spring again and that has always been my favourite. And I've never been one to complain over too much sun. Not enough sun, now there's a problem. Enjoy the winter.