Melbourne Part 1

So this week was busy all week! It started with Monday morning. First stop at 8.00am was for blood tests pertaining to her doctor appointment last Friday. First in line meant we made the hospital no problem. I had to take Dobby back to the hospital to get her finger examined to see if it was healing properly. I thought it was just a quick look see. WRONG! I parked around the corner and made our 9.00am appointment with a couple of minutes to spare (like 15 or so).

The nurse took us into a room just before nine and took off the strapping on Dobby's fingers. We waited. And waited. Eventually at 9.30 I heard her name being called, and let the doc know we were in here, not out in the waiting room! She looked at the finger and sent us up for x-rays. Oh dear. Up we go to the next level, then wait for them to get developed, then back down to Pediatrics. Sigh. Another wait. By this time the room is chock-a-block with noisy women and equally noisy children. Finally we went in and the doc said her fracture hadn't moved, which was fantastic, and that that type of fracture (the first bone after the hand of her left index finger, right beside the knuckle) was notoriously unstable.

Then we had to wait for a splint to be made! What? It had only been strapped for ten days! But, we sat and waited another hour for her splint. It's purple with a bright green strap... I'll include a photo later, as I just realised I don't have it downloaded yet.

Anyway, I got to work at 12.30....

Tuesday was a trip to the Repat hospital for an abdominal scan. That was no problem really. Mind you, she forgot she was supposed to fast and ate a handful of nuts! But, fortunately they didn't seem to show up....

Made it to work at 10.30am that day...

Wednesday we actually didn't have anything on...

Thursday I had to duck out after work to find a light weight warm jacket. I looked everywhere, and finally found a fleecy think jacket at Target, that was priced at $39 but scanned at less than $32. Gotta be happy with that. A quick grocery shop, then home with dinner and a last minute pack.

Dobby had an appointment at the doc for the results of her earlier blood tests and scan, and as I had already taken so much time off work, Fluffy graciously agreed to take her. Turns out she is pretty clogged up inside, and her blood sugar is quite high. She has been told she must improve her diet (as we had actually tried to do this week anyway) and take these suppositories to help remove some of the "clogging". I told her she was full of crap....

Friday we were up very early as Fluffy dropped us off at the airport on his way to work (we got there about 5.45am)...

Dobby and I at the airport having fruitsalad for breakfast...

Our plane left just after seven, and we were in Melbourne, checking into the motel by 9.30am. Turns out, when I booked, I booked a studio room, with a note added that I needed two single beds. But what she didn't tell me was there the studio room only has a double (queen) bed. There were no other beds or rooms available so we were stuck with it. The room, otherwise, was lovely! Dobby graciously offered to sleep on the floor but I told her it was okay with me if she didn't want to.


Our room. It's small but lovely. Comfy too.


This is the view from our 11th floor window. Take note of that pointy round building... it will feature in my next blog...

We were lucky enough to be able to check in right there, and once settled, trudged up the road about 50m to the Victoria Markets. I didn't take any photos of the markets because, well, I forgot. We didn't buy much but it took a few hours to go through everything. We couldn't buy much because we didn't have much room (carry on luggage only) and for the most part, it was a lot of stalls of the same thing - shoes, clothes, hoodie jackets and such. There were a few knick knack stalls, and I bought Fluffy a teeshirt that says "I'm busy. You're an Idiot. Have a nice day". I liked it. I also bought him a wooden bead bracelet and necklace. He had bought himself one in New Zealand but the elastic broke so I replaced it.

Dobby bought herself a purple hoodie and not much else. Just a long hairpiece extension thing.


Suits her, don't you think?



This is me clowning around trying it on.

As it was so terribly, bitterly cold, we decided after a bite to eat to head back to the motel. Once inside we turned on the heater and just kicked back. Dobby played with her hair piece (I even tried it on..) and I watched TV. We found Discovery Channel, and it had a couple of crime type shows on to watch.

Eventually about 4.30 or so, we was restless so I asked if she wanted to go explore a little. We rugged up and headed out. I suggested we head in the general direction we would need to take to go to the Titanic display. It was quite a walk but rather interesting.


This is a Theatre Restaurant we passed. The adds for this place look rather interesting.

We walked for ages, turning down Exhibition street. Our mission, apparently, was to find a Smiggle stationary store. No worries, we had nothing better to do.


It was lightly misty raining, and this is a rainbow we spotted between buildings.

We turned down a street randomly, and realised we were headed to China Town. It's an amazing place, Melbourne city, full of little lane ways and alleys. In Collin's Street, in China Town, you are accosted everywhere by people wanting to entice you into their establishment to eat. It's quite competitive. One thing we did notice was that everything was in Asian, and the majority of the people we saw were Asian. And not just in China Town.


This is one of a pair in the centre of the alley that is China Town. I like the structure behind him too, don't you?


This is just looking down Collins Street, at China Town.

We just kept walking around, turning random corners, eventually finding ourselves at the southern most part of the city square. Without finding a Smiggle Store. After a bit Dobby was getting tired (and I could feel a stiff headache coming on) so we turned back. The weather was failing us too, with frequent misty rainfalls. Just enough to make your hair frizzy.

We weren't worried, because I told her when we got back to the motel we would have a look in the phone book for a Smiggle store close to us. She was happy with that.





During our wanderings, we found several of these horse carriages. It was lovely to hear the clap clap of their hooves on the road. Dobby was too chicken to take a ride. I would have loved one though!

About 6.30 we made it back to the warmth of the room, and decided for dinner we would order room service. There is an organisation that delivers to motels in the area, it seems. We had a 9" pizza each (tropicana for her and supreme for me) plus wedges with sour cream and chilli sauce. And a bottle of diet coke. I could only manage one piece of pizza and half the wedges, which, I have to say, were the nicest wedges we had tasted, very close behind, or even possibly equal to, the ones we had at Darling Harbour last year. We both agreed we would have to compare to decide...

Anyway, we watched some more Discovery channel, eventually settling in to watch a ghost hunting show. Sadly we both fell asleep and didn't see much...

Anyway, as it's late now, I'll add part two soon. Not sure if I will get to it tomorrow, as I am going to be very busy from 6.15am until probably about 9.30pm!