Last night I tried my hand at dyeing merino top in the microwave using Landscaped dyes. The colours came out great, but my treatment of the wool after dyeing caused some felting. This stuff is so fine you just have to look at it sideways and it felts. In future I will allow the wool to cool naturally and I will not even squeeze water through it. Here are some pics of the results:

I was up very early this morning for our inaugural bike group bike ride. It was about 18km from start to finish, so I feel it was a very reasonable effort since it is over 2 years since I last rode. I need to get some fitness back for our sea kayaking trip to Fiji in June. I'm working to lose about 4kg too, as my weight has crept back up a bit over the last few months, so far so good :-)

I'm back from Melbourne. We had a wonderful weekend, the highlight for me being the Opera and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. The opera was packed out. We saw Opera Australia's production of The Magic Flute by Mozart. I thought I wouldn't know much of the music, but actually I knew heaps of it, probably from the film Amadeus. I kept on singing Papageno and the Queen of the Night aria on the tram afterwards. The next day we caught the Bill Henson Exhibition at the Ian Potter Centre at Federation Square. WOW, some of it was pretty confronting, but WOW!!! We also caught the Top Arts show of work from students who completed yr 12 Art and Studio Art in 2004. On the southbank promenade there was an art/craft market. Riscy and I call these things 'crappe craft'. Most if the stuff if pure junk. Whenever I show my stuff to people they invariably tell me I could go to craft markets and sell it. NO NO NO!!! If I was looking for a way to kill my creativity stone dead, that would be a sure way of doing it. Yesterday I was woken up by bagpipes at 5am. Yes it was ANZAC Day. We ended up catching a few hours of the big Melbourne parade. We were nicely positioned on the corner of Flinders Street and Swanston Street right in the thick of things. It was difficult to get good action shots, and this really was the best we could do:

I usually can't watch the parade on telly as it makes me cry, yesterday was no exception. It's just something about those old blokes ... and even worse, the ones where the family member marches with the photo and medals of their dead relative. It just sets me off. My Pop is 91 and still kicking. He went to Papua New Guinea and the Middle East in WW2. He never marches in the parade or talks about the war, I don't think he likes the RSL. I wish he could live forever. This was the best photo I took, this is the leader of a pipe band:

After the parade we headed to the Melbourne Cricket Ground for the big Footy match. The Bombers beat The Magpies, it was a poor display of ball skills and a very scrappy game. However, this was expected given the poor perfomance of both teams so far this season.

In fibre news (congratulations if you got this far!), I've got heaps knitted on the orangy scarf. I'm going to have enough wool for a matching beanie!!

We're just about to leave for our much anticipated weekend in Melbourne. The pets were at their respecive boarding facilities yesterday so we had a definite empty nest feeling last night. Tonight we are going to see Opera Australia's production of The Magic Flute at the State Theatre. We've never been to the opera before, and I'm especially looking forward to seeing the costumes. If I could come back as anything in my next life it would be an opera singer, either that or a dog. On Monday (ANZAC Day) we're going to the footy (Australian Rules), Collingwood (my team) v's Essondon (Riscy's team). I've never been to the footy before either :-) Today we are going to shop til we drop. So cheerio all. I'll talk to you on Monday night or Tuesday.