We awoke at seven to an overcast sky and rain. However, we were still afforded the view beyond Toorak Road and across the many old buildings that pervade the area that stretches to as far as the Prahran Town Hall.
Departing at half past nine in the pouring rain, Roger drove us in their car out along the South Eastern Motorway past the Kooyong Tennis Courts, through Tooronga and fashionable Burwood from where the Burwood Highway and Bayswater Road conveyed us to Mooroolbark and the light brick home into which the pair hope to move next month. When the weather permits work will resume to connect the house to the sewer.
Roger remained in the car while Susan, armed with a black umbrella, showed us around the backyard which contains an above-ground rectangular swimming pool equipped with decking. Fruit trees line the back fence.
Our return journey was via the Maroondah Highway, past the sizeable white Croydon Hotel at which I stayed for a night in November of 1974. In doing so we passed through Ringwood and some lovely suburbs such as Nunawading, Box Hill and Kew whose avenues are a feature of their landscape.
It was eleven o’clock when we entered their unit and set about exchanging our presents. The radio station, 3KZ, was playing music which took my fancy. This included “Our House” by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, from the year of 1970 and “Rikki, Don’t Lose That Number” by Steely Dan from three years ago.
We left for a walk at about a quarter to three in an attempt to wear off some of what we’d consumed. The temperature was only about twenty-two degrees Celsius in spite of twenty-eight having been forecast. Thankfully, the rain had ceased although this meant that it had become more humid. We were, however, still subject to intermittent drizzle at the Botanical Gardens where we viewed swans, ducks with their ducklings, seagulls and pigeons. Susan and Roger assured us that there are eels there too, but we didn’t see any.
Continuing along the lake we passed Government House, at which Prince Charles recently stayed, prior to our arrival at the entrance to the Myer Music Bowl in which those in attendance had sung carols by candlelight last night. Upon our entry to St Kilda Road we viewed the floral clock which is situated across the street from the relatively new National Gallery. Some fairly deep pools in front of the gallery acquired our attention. The Victoria Art Centre, which is but a hole in the ground with many cranes in attendance, is to become the gallery’s next-door neighbour.
We crossed the Princes Bridge and passed Flinders Street Station. Along Swanston Street we came upon a tall artificial Christmas tree which stands in the City Square and is adorned with ‘presents’. A left-hand turn at Bourke Street took us to where a crowd had gathered to observe animated scenes from “The Snow Princess” through the window of a department store. Models of animals such as rabbits, squirrels and polar bears, as well as people, were used during the performance.
Returning to Swanston Street, we walked along its eastern side past Dino’s Restaurant. Upon our arrival at St Paul’s Cathedral, we crossed to a narrow island in the street to wait for a tram that bore the number eight, sound in the knowledge that it would transport us to the intersection of Toorak and Punt roads. I purchased the tickets at a cost of twenty-five cents each.
Having alighted in Punt Road we peered through a window of the Flightdeck Restaurant whose interior has been made to resemble that of an airliner, complete with overhead lockers and numbered seats. Boudior and Baths, which is situated on the opposite side of Toorak Road, sells — at least, according to Susan — toilet seats for fifty dollars and toilet paper priced at two dollars a roll.
It was five o’clock before we set foot in the unit and once we’d each had a cup of tea Tiki and I set about washing and drying all of the dishes which had been left unattended since our Christmas lunch. Tiki can’t leave ‘Yorrick’, the toy monkey which hangs from the fridge, alone.
As we were all becoming somewhat bored from just sitting about in the claustrophobic unit and listening to ‘Mellow 3KZ’, it was proposed that we embark on another walk this time in a southerly direction along Chapel Street and almost to the Prahran Town Hall. We window-shopped all of the way there, which meant that our return was completed in a fraction of the time.
It had been at the window of a ladies’ store that Tiki spontaneously exclaimed, “Look, Ian! A jockstrap!”. As she pointed to a pink eyeshade, which incongruously possessed a visor of clear plastic.
“That’s for protecting eyeballs!” came my reply. To which Roger added, “Yes, that’s for upper balls. Not lower ones!”
When compared to South Yarra, Prahran is a cross between Sydney’s Mascot and Redfern complete with the similar high-rise developments of the latter suburb.
Charlie Chaplin died today, in Switzerland, at the age of eighty-eight.