Stone Songlines

On Friday I travelled into Melbourne to look for a new digital camera.  I had intended to go to the Mind, Body, Spirit festival which was being held in the city over what is here a long weekned.  However, I'd had the feeling I wouldn't be going for some reason.  Then, last week, the start button fell off my old camera and, although I could poke it awake with a paper-clip, it's not the most convenient way of working with a camera which was actually quite outdated.  The next day we received an end-of-financial year sale for Myer, a big, nation-wide store in Australia, with headquarters in an enormous centre in Melbourne.  I saw the ad for a 15% discount on digital cameras and had a feeling of synchronicity that it was a great opportunity to buy a new camera.  I had  to spend  $150-worth of gift cards I'd got from our bank's Rewards programme, plus $100 I'd saved for the now defunct MBS show visit, and I knew I could afford to add a bit on top of that although not too much.  So on the journey into the city I prayed for just the right camera whichneeded to have a 10X optical zoom, a macro function, and 10 megapixels, and which was within my budget.

I found the camera department at the first entrance I went into (Myer is spread over two buildings and you can get hopelessly lost if you'r e not careful), and collared an assistant to help me with all the ins and outs of all the cameras on display. Those with their own rechargeable cameras were beyond my budget so I eliminated them straight away.   I do think, though, that curiosity is a handy characteristic of mine. I examined a couple of camerals -  one was $20 more than another one but this one was an outdated model.  I asked about a third camera which looked the same as the outdated model but was also more expensive.  The assistant said the camera I was enquiring about was the latest model and was also discounted in the sale.  After checking them all out, this camera met all my requirements but it would have stretched my budget a bit.  It turned out to be the last one in the store and was the display model.  So the assistant threw in a free, 3-year warranty worth $43, plus a free battery charger and batteries worth $50, plus 20% off a camera case and memory card.  I got the whole bundle for only $380, which was pretty much all I'd budgeted to spend ona new camera and accessories, so I was pretty rapt at this bargain, as you can imagine.  To me it's simply another example of working with Spirit to access what I need at this time.

If you're wondering why I wanted a fairly upmarket camera, it's because I also got a fairly strong push from the world of spirit to include photos in my book, and my old camera simply didn't have the quality I'd need.

So here I am, a very happy camper, back in Traralgon.  I was very tired by the outing but, as I'd found the camera within the first half hour, I had lunch sitting out on the pavement of Swanston Street, the main drag in Melbourne, feeling very cosmopolitan, and then caught an earlier train home (they only run every hour to Traralgon as it's the rural V-line train service). I do have to say that this will be a rare outing to the city for me, as it's quite an exhausting day for me.  I don't like the concrete jungle, or the rushed hordes of people, or the unhappy looks on people's faces.  I'm more than happy to veg out in Traralgon and enjoy country living.  How times have changed since I roared around Londoin in my youth before moving to Perth in Western Australia in 1972.

I do plan another outing before September, however, and one which I'm quite excited about.  This time I will be heading away from Melbourne's centre to the Victorian Art Gallery just south of the city to see an exhibition of art by Salvador Dali.  I saw some paintings of his when I lived in London, either at the National Gallery or the Tate Art Gallery and I'm enchanted by his whacko, off the planet creations, and by the way he uses paint as if he's just pouring the liquid onto the canvas.  So at some time in the future you can look forward to a rave by me about the Dali exhibition, you have been warned, lolol.