We don’t have storms in Melbourne. Actually, we do, but hardly ever anything like Ladybug Red had. Maybe in February every three or four years there’ll be some torrential rain. And last weekend Marion and I watched some impressive lightning developing from a picturesque vantage point in Kew, but lightning is really rare. In summer it’s usually dry, and in winter it just rains without storms. If I go somewhere else I get caught in a storm. I’ve witnessed what would be once-in-five-year storms during brief visits to Sydney (twice), Brisbane, Paris and Darwin (10 times, each day at 4pm on the dot). Getting caught in the rain in Paris could have been romantic had I not been both single and by myself. My glasses got so wet as the evening got dark that I couldn’t read street signs, and as Paris is most decidedly not at grid, I got lost.

Melbourne was planned by a surveyor called Robert Hoddle (1794-1881). He used the standard colonial pattern and designed a north-south (more or less) grid. Growing up in Melbourne, and innately having a good sense of direction, I almost always can point out north when I’m in Melbourne. Unfortunately I get a false sense of security, and in a unplanned place like Paris, or a curved place like Eaglemont I can get completely lost. Which wouldn’t be so bad if I normally weren’t so confident. There’s further to fall. The centre of the town of Hamilton is a grid, but twisted 45°. This meant that I would repeatedly find a familiar landmark in a street that was perpendicular to the corresponding street in my mental map, which was very disturbing.

But enough of this nerd-talk! Well, perhaps a little more... Yesterday at lunch I was grilled on my knowledge of Melbourne’s public transport system. I was asked plenty of easy questions and several quite tricky ones, and got 100% of them correct (within a small margin of error). Little did they know (except Marion) that I only knew which bus went past Syndal station (733) because I had caught that very bus with Marion only four days before. But if you give an answer confidently and knowledgeably, you will seem very intelligent even if the answer is a complete guess. It’s worked for me many times, except when I’ve been wrong. Of course this is all setting me up for a monumental public transport balls-up, like accidently leading twenty people to Mount Eliza instead of Elizabeth Street. It will happen. One day.

Here’s an interesting entry I’ve been reading by .

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