A wine in Fitzroy

Regular readers (both of you) will know that when I'm in town my weekends tend to be pretty frantically packed.  Each day will be scheduled so as not to waste a minute.  As a result, it was a strange feeling to be stationary for much of the day.  I wasn't inactive, because I had quite a bit of SES work to attend to (principally catching up on how to train people in the low angle access system) and this kept me busy until about 1400.  Sadly I couldn't FaceTime with the girls because of Hurricane Barry.

Anyway, by the time the afternoon was here I was pretty tired of four walls and despite the day being bitterly cold I went out for a walk. I planned to go out on the Merri Creek trail but there was rain coming and going.  I didn't feel like getting rained on for fun and so I wandered through Fitzroy in the general direction of Alexandra Avenue.  This took me past the house I lived in in about 2012 in my first stint of sharehouse life.

My old digs

Places are strange.  As I stood outside it I could have been carried back in time.  But, so much has changed since then, both for my world and for me.  I wonder if I would like the person I was then?  If I was game to read the early entries of this blog (some of then go back to The Before Time) I'd probably know.

Pinnacle Hotel, Fitzroy North

By the time I'd walked to about Scotchmer Street I felt like stopping for a break and found myself outside the Pinnacle Hotel, a narrow wedge-shaped pub that was appealingly empty.  That is, it contained only three couples and a group of young women who I took to be sisters or friends with a young child.  I ordered the house red and sat at a table for one jotting in a notebook and trying to think of something insightful to say without much success.  I really should try poetry again; sadly despite many attempts I think I've only ever written one poem that was half-decent.

Table for one, please

I walked a bit further but the rain came back and after sheltering outside the library for a while I said "bugger this" and turned north again.  I passed the Already Read bookshop which looked warm, but then I remembered that I have three shelves of unread books.  Besides which, I can't remember the last time I actually finished a book.  Depressing or what?  I'd love to read but I don't have the time and, if I'm honest, I don't get enough out of them to make it feel like a worthwhile exercise.

Already Read Bookshop, Fitzroy North

It was still menacing rain when I got back to the sharehouse.  All the same, it was good to get out for the walk.