Yesterday after a somewhat harrowing journey with the added interest of a flight that took off over two hours late, I finally arrived back in Melbourne.
After greetings, a few of us walked to a grand little pub called Lincoln for a beautiful small plate dinner and a glass of Australian Chardonney. The walk was wonderful. Much of it went around an old cemetery. ‘The dead center of town’ as my father would call it. We walked along the outside of a wrought iron fence strung with rusting barbed wire and I took photographs of the dying light through the bars. 
There were many graves there for local nuns and I wonder whether they are buried using the names they chose when they took their final vows or the names they were born with. The head mistress at my convent school in New Zealand was called Sister Raymond. I wonder what saints name you would choose if you were able to rename yourself.
It is a stunning old grave yard, with some wonderful old buildings and head stones and stories, I hope to wander through on our next walk.
The food at Lincoln was great and my bed at the end of the evening was VERY welcome. This visit has been so busy so far that my eyes are going black. I am used to busy just not used to people busy.
Most of us love cemeteries, I am always happy to find this angel, I think she has been in every graveyard I have ever visited! Angels are everywhere. We know that there are male angels yet every statue of an angel I have seen is female. Hmm.
Today I have lunch with a few of The Fellowship in a restaurant called Thrive here in Melbourne. I know nothing at all about the restaurant your fellow readers chose and am looking forward to it. If you are in Melbourne and free at lunchtime come over and introduce yourself we will be there for a few hours starting at noon, there are no bookings so all welcome.
This morning I am sitting in bed (dragging out the last of my rest time) writing to you, waiting for my cousin to arrive. She is flying in this morning for the day, I have not seen her for about 25 years – she has been reading the blog since its beginning and is a founding member of the Fellowship reading every morning before commencing class in an Australian outback school so she is coming for the lunch. After our catch up and copious cups of wake up coffee, we will go and meet more of The Fellowship at Thrive and have a loud gossipy lunch. Maybe I will see you there?
I will tell you all about it tomorrow.
Love celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
41 responses to “Australia: Melbourne. Again.”
What a gorgeous cemetery! I find them so peaceful. I guess that’s a good thing. They should be dead quiet, right?
Enjoy your travels!!
Dead Quiet is a good choice for a graveyard. Enjoy your day too! c
Love the barbed wire on the railing photo. Old cemeteries are amazing places. Enjoy the luncheon and your cousin. I can’t believe how fast your trip is going!
Yes that barbed wire strung around pointy wrought iron fence – an interesting decision long ago – c
I love Melbourne. Enjoy your travels.
The highlight of my trip to Paris last year was visiting the grave of RinTinTin. He is buried in a very old cemetery in a far cemetery of Paris, so far, the taxi driver had
not heard of it. I love your cemetery too. And I am proud to have buried all of my creatures in a pet cemetery where I hope to be buried too.
Enjoy your long-awaited visit with The Fellowship folks!
I forgot to say how I especially love seeing the Celtic crosses in the Melbourne cemetery.
I so want to be a fly on the wall for that lunch! never mind, I will try and have patience until your report tomorrow! Enjoy. Enjoy!
I love the cemetery photos…and would love, too, to listen in on that lunch!
I love a wander around old cemeteries, rather than spooky they yse have a restfulness. That I might choose Wolfeius, a hermit as my saints name might give a hint that we also have been people busy. It’s been lovely to spend some time just ourselves here in St Kilda. Looking forward to the Fellowship catch up today. I too have no idea about our venue Thrive other than its central location and paleo offerings.
Morning! See you soon!
😊
When I read your reply to RuitFarmNorth, it just dawned on me what the barbed wire strung around a pointy wrought iron fence was for….Grave robbers, of course! And yes, as sad as cemeteries are for the most part, we are drawn to them, in a, can’t look away type curiosity. It’s a beautiful one though. And I think that most angels are women because we are just more…well angelic than men! 🙂
My grandad always used to call the cemetery The Dead Centre of Town too! Oh how I wish I could be at that lunch with you in beautiful Melbourne tomorrow. Have a wonderful time. our headmistress was called Sister Eileen but everyone knew her birth name was Judy so we all called her Jude (most disrespectfully) behind her back. And our favourite little nun who used to creep around on silent mocassins and catch us misbehaving was Sister Ann (we never knew her birth name) and we called her Stan 🙂
Please say hi to all the Fellowsip you meet tomorrow. I shall be with you in spirit, though I haven’t a clue what the time will be in France while you’re living it up in Oz.
Enjoy your day.
love,
ViV
I hope you are having a lovely luncheon! Cheers!
An added note for anyone who might be able to join: Thrive is at The Emporium, 287 Lonsdale Street, in Melbourne’s CBD. Morning, Miss C! See you in a few hours. My father calls graveyards The Quiet Neighbours. If I’m going to choose a saint’s name, it’s got to be after a nun who taught me when I was very little. She introduced herself to the class of 5 year olds as what sounded to my ears like Sister A Tractor. She meant Attracta (an Irish saint), of course, but was forever after known as Sister Tractor….
That’s priceless.
Nothing like an old well populated cemetery to give you a good look at lives and life.
i particularly enjoy wandering the old pioneer /early Texas historical ones. Small rural ones that would be forgotten in the woods if current generations didn’t routinely cut brush, pull weeds, and straighten tombstones are entirely different. “Muse Cemetery” is the name of one where some family is buried – mostly dirt, but named well, I think.
Oh, enjoy your gathering. Sounds so lovely. Hello to all there!
Gertrude – after Saint Gertrude of Nivelles. She is patron Saint of Cats, Travellers and Gardeners 🙂
Have a lovely long lunch
XO