Perth

I am having a lovely time here with good friend Eileen. Went to the Art Gallery today with her and a friend who is a docent at the gallery . We enjoyed our own guided tour of the West Australian contemporary art exhibition, much better than trying to understand it ourselves. She pointed out different approaches to use of light in a couple of diffeent installations, one the use of old neon sign elements and the other a big reclining female sculptural portrait of a female nude using strings of blinking Christmas lights. There were some contemporary aboriginal landscape paintings in new non-traditional colours which used larger dots in the form of smudged finger prints.

Enjoyed a cup of coffee and a long skinny chicken roll in the gallery cafe afterwards. Had been to the State Library first where they were having a book sale so bought one to read on the (sex!) lives of the artists as I like both biography and art and have just finished a thick biography of Bishop Liston I took over with me. There is bound to be as much of a contrast as there could possibly be.

Yesterday we went to a stately home, Tranby House, near the river and walked around the grounds, finishing off with morning tea at the cafe in one of the old ancillary buildings overlooking the Swan river. It was idyllic.

In the evening went round to goddaughter, Marianne and Dean's for dinner. Dean had been fishing and we had panfried groper and abalone (paua to us) for the meal, followed by Dutch apple cake which I contributed from this iconic Perth bakery Miss Maud's. Wednesday night Eileen cooked a meal for the family - both daughters came with husbands and babies and it was a very happy social occasion. The main event will be on Sunday with the christening at noon, then lunch at Rachel's place afterwards.

Have been having a walk each day - so far, one along the coast (we would say beach, though most of it was along the footpath above the beach), one along the river and one in a nice park around the lake (twice).

Then there is retail therapy, which is having the desired effect.I have some new black shoes to replace some old ones that I keep falling out of at home, a nice new pair of slippers that I can step into easily without having to bend down to put them on, and have my eye on another pair of shoes I saw in the sales at Myer. There is a bit of a retail downturn in Australia too with people buying only in sales to save money. There are good savings from 20% at Target to 30-50% at Myer and David Jones.

Stocked up on the food items I savour while over here like Venetian cookies, fig and mixed grain crackers, Buderim ginger, pecans and no doubt there will be more to come when I sally forth again. There is a visit to Ikea on the agenda on Monday and a celebratory meal out at an Italian restaurant on Monday evening to sweeten the approach of the end of the sojourn on Tuesday.