Blog post #68 Memory Lane

​Marking a little anniversary today….
For ten years ago we went to hear Jonas Kaufman at the Hamer Hall. 
We waited in the freezing cold at stage door to say hello.
Only ever done that once before for Dame Judi Dench!

You get my drift…..
It was a starry night in every sense. 

https://youtu.be/G8kGulIP4lc?si=l5iFhuqiF4Zni4De

We had parked down in Dodds. 
As we walked towards the car I suddenly had a blindingly clear epiphany …..
That I needed to move from the idyll of my lovely Northcote home, studio and garden to Southbank!

I had watched the building of what was affectionately known as Southbank Village, when my VSO rehearsals and performances took me there in the mid 90s. Scouring the streets for parking I wondered what was going on behind the scaffolding in the surrounding streets.

We both had to get used to the idea so we didn’t get serious until 2015. By now it was clear what I had espied on those nights scurrying to the VSO’s HQ in the CUB building (now gone!) and the State Theatre Stage Door.
So it was on one of those community hubs that we set our sights. 

A few gloomy moments ensued, not least the apartment we saw which was low-rise, but on that particularly bright, sunny morning, the Eureka Tower next door cast a long and unforgiving shadow; eclipsed only by the miserable couple clearly making the move to separate. 
Boxes everywhere and the glummest faces. An inconsolable toddler completed the picture. 

But, it so happened that the estate agent who showed us that place was an old mate! We had clambered around Into The Woods another lifetime ago. And he said, “all is not lost, because I think the very place for you is poised to come up……”
A few days later we climbed (and climbed and then climbed again) the stairs and were rewarded with a light airy, cathedral-ceilinged home, two balconies, Monet-esque swimming pool - a place with the lot! 
In….. drum roll 🥁 🥁 🥁……Dodds St! 
The moral of the story is to follow those castles in the air. You never know, one may be waiting especially for you, already!
Love to all, Kxx

Thanks to Andy McCalman who manoeuvred the sale, Cris De Losa whose company made the place into a palace and my beloved Phil James for putting up with me and my madcap schemes!

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