A Geelong break

It is amazing how time disappears while you achieve nothing. In the morning of the full day I stayed there, I popped out into to the heat every so often to check the cars on display. It was a stinking hot day, back in Melbourne 37 degrees. 

I visited a cafe where I ate raisin toast with coffee. I was to meet Sister for lunch and I misread her text message and so I turned up at the venue for lunch as she turned up at my hotel foyer. It only took five minutes for her to get to the restaurant. We had been seated in a kind of an alcove with about six tables. But there wasn't direct cooling, so we asked to be moved to the main area where it was cooler. Our lunch at the wool museum building at Black Sheep restaurant|gin bar was very nice, with great service although at bit too much checking with us that everything was ok. Once is acceptable. 

We had a couple of hours to kill between lunch and seeing Jo perform. We went back to my hotel and Sister started to watch cricket but I think it was one sided, so she decided to shop for Christmas gifts at the nearby shopping centre. I thought I would have a swim in the hotel pool and I had brought my bathers and rashie but again time disappeared as I did nothing. It was time to meet Sister on a street corner and walk to where her car was parked in secret parking space. She didn't buy anything for Christmas and decided to visit charity shops to buy gifts. 

Oh god, it was even hotter as we stepped out of the car at the venue. Pray the school auditorium has air con. It didn't and we sweated our way through the terrific abbreviated show, The Newsies, which was about newspaper street sellers going on strike in NYC in the 1920s. The show was 90 minutes and I was pretty relieved to get out into the fresh air that had cooled down from 39 degrees to 30. Yes, I am biased but Jo shone in her role. Great acting, singing and I didn't know she could tap dance. 

Sister drove me back to my hotel and was going back to seeing the 7pm show with Jo in a different role, that is after she had a bite to eat with her wife Bone Doctor. I was back at the hotel for happy hour again, another glass of wine and four oysters.

After a big lunch I wasn't very hungry so I returned to Hecho en Mexico and bought a take away taco this time, rather than dine in. 

Unusually the check out time was 11.00 the next day, rather than 10.00, which meant no rushing in the morning. I had coffee at the large shopping centre and then fronted the hotel desk and told staff, 'I am ready to leave, 'can a boy bring my car to front door please'. The 'boy' turned out to be a young Moslem lass with a headscarf. Such is Australia, and I like it that way. With a stop off at Routley's Bakery on the way home, I was back home at 12.30. 

I will post car photos in another post. This is my hotel room.

On the very hot day children were walking along this water flow.

Happy hour made me happy.

From my hotel balcony.

This must have been at Hecho en Mexico. I've never seen Melbourne hot sauce before. 

Cunningham Pier. 

The bar at Black Sheep. 

Hotel water feature.

Looking away from the sea to Brougham Street and the shopping centre.

This lift did my head in with no ground floor. Floor 1 was ground floor. You should have to go up to get to the first floor. 

I'll remove this photo of Jo in a day or so, just as I removed the old dude standing next to her.