By the beautiful sea

Street artist Rone, from Melbourne's Everfresh Studio, took his distinctive images to the streets and beaches of Jamaica in December, and brought back a whole lot of gorgeous snaps (see the rest here). A landscape of jaded pinks, faded greens, bright blues and dune yellows.  Beautiful!

’Twas in that place o’ Scotland’s Isle

Edinburgh, in my mind and recollection, is a city of theatrical contrasts: Old Town and New Town, vastness and intimacy, drama and comfort. I traveled there in a particularly cold winter, only intensifying this sense.

On the one hand, Edinburgh is a place of great spatial spectacle. Not a very large city, it is set upon a series of

In a corner of the sky

Rooftop Bar on the top of Curtin House in Swanston Street has long been on my list of go-to spots for a summer's night of drinks and merry jinks, but it was only this last Sunday that I made it to one of their Rooftop Cinema screenings. Have I been missing out! With a couple of friends and a comfy duffel coat in tow, I caught a moonlit showing of Lost in Translation, a movie just as atmospheric of Tokyo as Rooftop is of Melbourne.

If hope grew on a bush

A sweet rhyme has been flirting with my memory and ringing about my head this week, singing to be shared. They're some words that have always graced the walls of my childhood home at the bottom of a Barbara Hanrahan print and a bit of research has revealed that the author is Christina Rosetti, the nineteenth-century romantic and children's poet.

If hope grew on a bush,

And joy grew on a tree,

What a nosegay for the plucking

There would be!

If hope and joy grow on any bushes, it must be these stems by Melbourne-based artist Kirra Jamison.

Queen Street, Croydon

Queen Street seems to be just springing onto everybody’s lips in Adelaide, making a claim on some local buzz as a spot for breakfast if you’re tired of Hutt Street or Hyde Park, and a location for dreamy Saturday lurking. It's also a bit of an arts hub, home to some of the 2011 SALA venues and hosting a mid-winter street party for the opening of the festival.

Someone else's Melbourne

Here are some bits and pieces that caught my eye whilst walking around and about the Glenferrie Road area. It’s all so wonderfully, redolently Melbourne: the light catching on crumbling Victorian plaster alongside bright and new and shiny architecture, the cables drooping above the tram lines, faded but sunshiny skies, spires and graffiti from the train station.