Birthday

 

Thank you to all of you who sent good wishes yesterday. Woke early, washed and dressed, then walked out in cold dark morn to catch the train into Fitzroy, via Westgarth. Admired a graffito like a Chinese figure (pictured) on old milkbar wall, for reference in my calligraphy illumination project. My exercise scientist at physio gym enquired what it was like to be 45. Replied: I’m adapting, slowly. Aphro & Wolfe café for brekky toastie and large skinny latte not takeaway. Loveheart froth. David Collins shows up from gym. Conversation on John Cage ensues over coffees: 25’15” on 4’33”. All music is human defined sound. Went to Glenferrie Readings with $100 gift voucher. The shop has all been redesigned. Couldn’t find one book I had to have forever. All noir fiction and over-egged cookbooks. Thought: that’s Hawthorn, I guess. Voucher expires in 2026, so there’s plenty of time to get to Carlton store for big art books. Midday Mass at St John’s, Camberwell. A homily on facing loss and the horror of Gaza, based on the farewell to the grieving disciples. Then two-and-a-half hour lunch with Mother at Camberwell Library Café called Ignite. Why Ignite when it’s only open in the middle of the day? Spinach and ricotta rolls WITH tomato sauce. She gives me a card from which the yearly traditional $50 note slips out. Also a drawing she found while ‘sorting through’ family papers, a pencil drawing by Great Aunt Hilda of Hilda’s cat, circa 1940s (pictured). How many of these drawings are in her possession?, I ask myself later. She passes on Mick’s present, his new album ‘Five Ways to say Goodbye’. Notes with interest the final track: ‘Like a Hurricane’ by Neil Young, a favourite of mine. (Later he texts in reply to thanks message, of his version of the Young: “very minimal approach”.) Draw illuminations of passing graffiti down Bridge Road, the tram overrun with chatty Melbourne Girls’ College students. Dinner at home. Bridie and Carol turn on pizza and prosecco, then tiramisu with flaming candles. Isn’t that a tautology? No, candles can gutter. They sing the song twice, first discordantly laughing, second time harmoniously, serious. Presents marvellous thank you from their recent stay in Wangaratta: jars of Milawa mustard Rosemary and Milawa mustard Honey, Brown Brothers Durif Limited Release, a huge children’s poetry book, some names I’ve never heard of, looks fun. Bedtime reading, slightly squiffy: Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning to Mrs David Ogilvie. She is exorbitantly witty every second sentence in a way never seen in any of her poetry, and her knowledge of current politics is amazing. Writing from Paris when Napoleon III effects a coup, she goes against popular sentiment and sides with the takeover. Then, as Denis Norden once said riffing on Samuel Pepys: “And saw Tibet.”