Mordialloc, Fitzroy, Collingwood and Kensi

So yet another busy week has passed, with much hectic balancing of day jobs and I&S work! But we'll skip straight to the fun bits - starting Friday, the first properly warm day, post Winter! Yay!
The sun had put everyone in a good mood, and we were no exception.
As Bi and Marcel took off down the coast to Anglesea for a gorgeous long weekend away (Happy B'day Marcel!!) Lara and I took off in the other direction, to Mordialloc! Lara had been busy on the phone all week, hunting down various people, suppliers and shops we would need and had prepared us well with maps and addresses, etc, (I swear she used to be a Scout) for a Friday of cruising in style, in Lara's parents Saab!
Our first stop was a canvas supplier, and we ended up staying there for ages, hearing all sorts of 'brush with fame' stories from the lovely old man who owns the shop. My fav was how he made all the canvas stuff for the ships and tents in Steven Speilberg's Band of Brothers! I liked that series...
So anyway, we ended up getting metres and metres of 12oz, artist quality, cotton duck!
'But Teegs,' I hear you say, 'That must have been awfully expensive!'
'Aha,' says I, 'Not nearly as much as you think!'
I wish I had had the insight to call a canvas supplier back when I was at art school, because our lovely man charges only around $17 per m for the 12oz, not the $40+ that you find in artist supply stores... oh, the humanity! Learn from my mistake, people.
Ok, so having ticked that off the list, we merrily headed back in to the city to go to chiggidy-check out Dale's studio in Fitzroy. Unfortunately, Dale wasn't there at the time, but his 2IC shows us around, no wukkas, except we had to leave after only a short time, because the colour they were currently using was a deep brown and smelled, how can I put this delicately... well for the gardeners among us, exactly like fertilizer.
So we head from the studio, to the shop, which is where we find Dale, who turned out to be an amazing font of industry knowledge and really happy we're starting up - which was fab! So after some serious textile discussions, we head down to Monsieur Phillipe the metal worker, a couple of blocks away.
Unbeknowst to us, M. Phillipe was in a one way street and we had done a u turn, as we had gone past his workshop looking for somewhere to park... Short of it is, we got yelled at by an angry man in a van who screamed 'One-way, Girly!!' as he roared past us - so hilarity ensued for the rest of the day as we kept on with the 'Girly' reference, in the best manly voices we could muster.
So after sorting our metal requirements with M. Phillipe, we headed off to find some special glue which had led Lara on a merry (phone) chase, halfway across the country and back, until she found it on, of all places, Macaulay Road, Kensington!! Barely a minute's drive from our studio!
Bril!
So with the gorgeous sun shining in the blue, blue sky, we head up to drop everything off at the studio, feeling very happy and full of that-contented-feeling-you-get-when-you-tick-things-off-your-to-do-list.
Once upstairs, we hear power tool noises coming from next door, which is unusual coz thats 'the photographers' and they have been overseas for weeks and weeks!
So we pop over to do the neighbourly thing and say hello, welcome home, etc and end up scoring ourselves some of the best chocolate cake e.v.a. - turns out they are food photographers and had done a shoot with/for Real Living Magazine (the one Lara was in a couple months back) and the mag's food editor had come to their studio and made chocolate cake for it!! The photographer said, and I quote, "I was just gonna throw it out anyway", so Lara and I were determined to save at least some of it from this dastardly fate...
The beautiful afternoon wore on, and became a gorgeous evening and we decided we deserved a drink of something refreshing and summery! I might leave it there, as I'm sure you can imagine what followed... vermouth(just coz it was there), much laughter, chicken, our boys, beer, Hellboy and, of all things, Pacman & company (in decal form) now adorns my new kitchen... thank goodness winter is over!