Acrobats, chocolate and much, much more

One of the great things about Melbourne is how it comes alive in the spring time. There’s festivals galore, and so many of the events are free! On Friday night I rounded up some friends and headed into the Alexandra Gardens for a performance by Grupo Puja which kicked off the Melbourne Festival.

I won’t go into lots of detail but there was a band, lots of smoke machines and coloured lights, a massive crane, and acrobats wearing white performing crazy feats while dangling off a ball-like cage that was hanging off the end of the crane. You know, just the usual Friday night stuff.


Saturday morning I got to explore Northcote – I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve been there as I live right over the other side of Melbourne, so it was like a little daytrip. I was there to visit a chocolate shop called Coco Loco as I’m writing about it for Peppermint… yes, hard work, but someone has to lounge around in gorgeous Art Deco themed bars sipping fair trade, organic chocolate mixed with milk made from cashew nuts!!
Following that deliciousness I headed down to Docklands to go to the Finders Keepers market, which made its debut in Melbourne this weekend. It was full of lovely crafty stuff like these badges made from recycled lino by Betty Jo…
…and this stall of kids’ clothes which were made from tea towels…
… but which I really only included because Twiglet is my sister’s cat’s name and it gives me an excuse to put up a picture of her and her bff Lola. GRATUITOUS CAT PICTURE!
Necklaces made from recycled materials by Simply Phoebe.
I loved these illustrations by Nikki Catalano and ended up buying some cards from her because I can never find cute cards without stupid captions inside them when I need to give people presents!
(And to make the hyperlink I have just had to look at her website… gah, so cute, so tempting!)
Rounding off a pretty inspiring day was a trip to One Point Seven Four which is a new eyewear boutique in Greville Street which I am doing a review on too… they’ve got some pretty amazing pieces like these ones from Jeremy Scott in a collaboration with Linda Farrow…
These ones are by Alexander Wang with Linda Farrow… you could do someone serious damage with those pointy tips (if I were wearing them, it would probably be myself I’d do the damage to as coordination is not my strong point!).
I’m looking for new sunnies at the moment but as I’ve just visited my accountant and the news from my tax return was not exactly positive, I’ll have to restrain myself for a while – until I find something fabulous at the Salvos, probably…
Category : Coco Loco, Finders Keepers, getting out and about, gratuitous cat usage, Grupo Puja, Melbourne Festival