World Metro Map by Mark Ovenden

Thanks to big think.

I found a bat dead on the nature strip when walking home one night. It was as big as a good sized melon.

Dead bat

Our first cooked meal in the new home was pasta with mushroom, zucchini and tomato sauce. This is from our classic student repertoire. Our second cooked meal was a mushroom omelette, also from the same ‘recipe book’.

I am pleased to say that we are progressing slightly beyond student now. We had a dinner party two weeks ago (three mushroom risotto with truffle oil, rhubarb crumble with vanilla yoghurt).

This week we cooked fried rice.

Fried rice in the style of Joan's mum

I also got to take my onion goggles for a spin.

Onion goggles in the kitchen (obviously posed, as I'm chopping parsley)

Next on my kitchen gadget list, a Garlic Zoom.

While riding a Melbourne Bike today, I overtook someone! I couldn’t believe it. She looked able bodied enough and her bike seemed to be working.

Three intersections later, though, she overtook me again.

On my birthday last month, we moved into our new home. It was the best birthday present I could ask for (and I did). I was away in the UK for 10 days in the lead up to my birthday, and boy did Damjan pull out the stops to get the flat ready. He finished off the renovations, bought furnishings, connected us to the internet, cleaned and cleaned (thanks to Jana too).

I didn’t need any other birthday treat… but look what showed up!

Gingerbread presents

Remember Dippy?

Dippy the dinosaur

Well, I got used to biting off his head in order to euthanise him before devouring the rest of his gingerbread body.

Gingerbread Dippies

The Melbourne Festival is coming to an end. I have been enjoying the public art very much. If you have the chance, I highly highly highly recommend going to the space between the Arts Centre and Hamer Hall after 8pm to see the light show. It is spectacular, delightful and funny. The show is called ‘Cacophany: The Art of Conflict‘ and is free.

I saw these six metre tall black demon babies being installed at the Arts Centre. Then they started showing up all over Melbourne — they’re at Fed Square, St Paul’s Cathedral and City Square. They are part of the Angel-Demon Parade.

Demon babies at the Arts Centre

Demon baby looms over Melbournians

I want lots of milk

Do not feed the Demon Babies

I had a great time on Ride to Work day. It was really easy to get a blue Melbourne bike — in fact, it turned out to be free on Ride to Work day. As I was riding, people along Bourke Street called out to me.

‘Hello cyclist! Do you want free breakfast?’ They pointed to a neat pile of brown paper bags in front of their cafe.

‘Hello! No thank you. I’m going to my company’s free breakfast,’ I said as I slowly wheeled by (it’s uphill coming up to Parliament House).

Free breakfast is one of the rewards of Ride to Work Day.

Now I’ve signed up for a one year subscription. It’s $50 and I get to ride the bikes for free for the first 45 minutes of each trip, which is longer than the standard 30 minutes. I have a blue stick that I put in the bike stand, then I can get whatever bike I want.

I rode to work today. The trickiest bit is Swanston Street. I had thought that Swanston Street would be the easiest — it has lots of cyclists and is closed to private cars during the day. However, this morning I found myself trying to squeeze between a parked truck, a street sweeper and a tram. The other cyclists seemed to be able to do it but I was too scared. Luckily, whenever I feel unsure about something, I can just hop off and wheel my bike on the wide pavements of Melbourne.

Here I am with the official Melbourne bike helmet. There were a whole row of bikes with helments attached so I took one of them.

Preparing to ride to work

As you can see, I don’t need to wear any special riding gear, just my work clothes. My commute takes 15-20 minutes for around three kilometres. I am a very slow cyclist. Every bike overtakes me. But that’s okay. I am obviously a baby bikist, with my clunky public blue bike, upright sitting position and impractical clothing. I don’t feel embarrassed about slowing the cycle lane down.

And look what I spotted! This is the second time that I’ve seen this mysterious yellow bike. I wonder why it’s yellow?

Mystery yellow Melbourne bike

We’ve spent the last six months renovating and moving into our new home in inner Melbourne. I’ve been looking forward to returning to city life and riding a bike to work.

In fact, I’ve been planning to join the Melbourne Bike Share scheme. In London, I looked enviously at the thousands of people riding the Boris bikes. It had just opened up for casual use as I left London for Melbourne so I never got the chance to try it out.

I felt sad that Melbourne bike share has not been as successful so far. Most people think the reason for the low rental rates is because helmets are compulsory. I don’t think this could be the root cause. Most of the London users are regular commuters who can get helmets, rather than casual impulse riders.

More basic reasons are probably how safe our streets feel for cyclists and perhaps the limited coverage of the scheme (mainly Melbourne CBD), which is already well served by trams. Damjan, whose work is slightly outside the very centre of Melbourne, would have to ride my folding bike because there are no blue bike stands near his office.

I hope that the Melbourne bikes will slowly take off. Today I actually saw four Melbourne cycles in my 20 minute morning commute to work. This is a bit of a record for me. Admittedly, two of them were being ridden illegally — one without a helmet, the other on the footpath.

If I had a hand in introducing the bikes to Melbourne, I would have done two extra things to speed up the uptake of the bikes. I would have launched the scheme in late spring or summer — why on earth did they start of in the cold and wet of winter? The UK was a bit smart in introducing their indoor smoking ban in summer to minimise the shock of going outside to smoke.

I would have also given away access or paid lots of people to ride around and generate some interest and buzz. My guess is that if people see other people riding around and if using those bikes seemed normal, then more people would try it out. Instead, it became normal to see full racks of unused bikes, just like it has become normal (common wisdom) that ‘Myki sucks‘ (it’s actually a very useable system, which had well publicised teething problems).

I have registered for Ride to Work day. Next Wednesday I make my first epic 13 minute journey from home to work on a Melbourne bike. I have already scoped out the route. There is only one lane change that I’m worried about but I hope that a mass of cyclists on Wednesday will protect me.