Lighting fires and digging holes
Feburary 28 2023 · Ryan Walpole
Well, February went quickly. I've been a tad slack at writing blogs this month because it's been busy so I guess I'll start with the most interesting things to happen this month.
For Valentine's day, Dan and I went to Melbourne to spend a few nights away. We got an hour into the drive to Melbourne before realising we'd left a bunch of stuff at home that we were supposed to deliver to Dan's ex-housemate... facepalm. We finally arrived at around 5:15pm, checking in and quickly getting changed for dinner with Lyle. We went to the General Assembly and indulged in many gin and tonics, fried cauliflower and calamari, cured ocean trout with tapioca pearl crackers and honey-siracha chicken burgers. Catching up with Lyle and introducing him to my partner of almost 2 years now was surreal. Dan thought he was lovely and couldn't be more enthused to have gotten to spend hours getting to know him. I entirely forgot that Dan went to school with Lyle's younger sisters so that was a fun unexpected turn of events for Lyle.
The following day I got to show Dan around Melbourne. We had Vietnamese for lunch by the water. Dan was most impressively ordering in Vietnamese. He's so cute. A serving of spicy beef noodle soup, pork bahn mi, pork bao and prawn dumplings later we were off to explore. I started by taking him to all the favourite places like Minotaur Entertainment, the Magic Dungeon and Melbourne Central. It was so cute watching him discover a big city for the first time. He was shocked by the sheer size of the shopping malls. He was most confused to see a Hungry Jacks, Sushi and Bubble Tea outlet next to each other.
After our exploring of the CBD, many walks, many shops and a few pairs of Calvin Klein underwear later, we decided to go and relax before our dinner reservation. We took the tram back to Brunswick where we were staying but we weren't paying attention and accidentally missed our stop, going a stop or two past. No big deal, was an excuse to walk through Brunswick and see what there was to offer - and it was kinda awesome that we did, cause all of a sudden we found ourself up on a rooftop bar. I got the gin and tonic, of course, though Dan said when he had a sip it was pure gin and I was drinking it like water. We finally got back to the AirBnB, laid down under the a/c and relaxed for a bit.
We left for dinner afterwards, and with a few tram delays we got there just a few minutes late. Ludlow's was incredible. The most amazing, perfectly cooked steak with kipfler potatoes for me and the rabbit tagiatelle for Dan. We also had calamari - shocker - and some lamb skewers for appetizers. To drink, we got a jug of "Summer Fizz" which was gin, lemonade, strawberries and mint. All in all it was a delicious day filled with a lot of experiencing Melbourne.
The following day we went out for breakfast and a coffee and ran into a classmate of mine from 2009 and 2010. It was really unexpected but nice, she looked no different. We had a short chat - seeing as she was working - and the food was amazing. I had croissant toast with chili folded eggs and vietnamese style crispy pork belly. Dan had a simpler eggs on toast with broccolini. After breakfast we checked out and off to visit Riley we went. Thankfully Stober made an appearance and we got to give him many pats and ruffles. We miss Steve a lot, so seeing him was great - though he was looking a tad skinnier than we'd like. We dropped off his stuff and stayed for a while and made our way home just in time for a meeting I had in town about being added to the title for the property where I'm building.
Other than my trip to Melbourne, on the weekend I became an amateur firefighter. The official cause of the fire was dad's old Zetor tractor driving to my house site, to dig holes for my shed foundations. It does seem a tad weird to me, given Grandpa always drives those Zetor tractors around and they've never once lit a fire - but evidently that was easier to put on the paperwork. There were two grass fires, about 300m away from each other. Had the entirety of the neighbourhood around with buckets of water, shovels, rakes - just trying to help. Guy brought the spray unit filled with water, and we had the fires under control before long.
Didn't get to dig any holes since we were so occupied by fire... but that's just how it is I guess. Well that's my February recap. Hopefully in March I blog more.
