Bicycle Race

Some bad news for you all. It is with profound regret that I must inform you that Anna has been diagnosed with iPhone and Wi-FI addiction. Over the past few weeks, a worrying pattern of behaviour has emerged where the afore mentioned young lady will find any excuse to hang around free Wi-FI zones, go quiet for hours on end to get her "fix" and begin giggling to herself as she reads inane "stalkbook" updates and sends messages.

I will hold my hands up, as I also have the same affliction. However, I am no longer in denial and use the IPhone to read my beloved Daily Mail, check emails and monitor Bloomberg rather than any of that boring social media "banter".

However, it looks as though I may have infected her with this awful disease and I would urge all of you to support Anna in these troubling times in order that someday, we can reintegrate her back into society before she becomes just another soulless online drone. You can help by donating at the following website:

www.helpannaellis.com

I promise that not one penny will be spent paying for exquisite meals or funding our nights out. Instead, it will be spent on an operation to remove Anna's biological wifi antennae from her forehead to stop it pulsating and draining the solar panel on top of her head which provides her with energy. As some of you may know, in the absence of any real food like meat, Anna is a creature who relies on photo-synthesis.

Anyway, on Sunday and Monday we ventured out of central Melbourne to check out a couple of the suburbs using the excellent tram system. What a missed opportunity that the incompetence of Liverpool's City Councillors failed to build a similar system ten years ago when they had government funding. An absolute disgrace.

First off, we went to Port Melbourne which was rather nice. Mini beach, cool apartments overlooking the sea and Bay Road which contained lots of independent coffee shops, bars, restaurants and retailers. We then decided to take the tram across the city to Torak Road and Chapel Street, which was another Vanessa recommendation. Full credit to her, we really enjoyed it. More funky bars and restaurants and some shops with a really good "vibe" going on - much better and bigger than St Kilda. We sat down to have a couple of glasses of vino at one rather handsome looking establishment, fully shaded thank god. Until ... the sun came out. I didn't apply any sun lotion so I found myself tying to eat a bowl of nachos in all manner of contorted bodily positions. Reminiscent of the OBT last summer when Nicola told Anna I made her feel "uncomfortable" (yes Nicola I remember, I'm like an elephant in that way and a few other ways as well ....)

Anyway, I'm sorry but not all of us go golden brown when absorbing Sol's rays. Some of us have to protect our delicate skin from solar radiation.

Yesterday, after going on a wild good chase to the middle of nowhere, thanks to some incorrect advice in a tourist brochure (an imprecise use of language is one of my pet hates), we headed back to the city and hired a couple of bikes to ride down the Yarra River cycling trial. Cycling is quite big over here and we got into the spirit although I looked a complete d*ck with the helmet on. After doing about 12km I was a bit "saddle sore" and came down with a nasty affliction. The medical term from the latin, I believe is "sorus ballus". I will leave it to you to figure out which of the four balls in my body were impacted. Suffice to say, that like Tommy Hilton, what I really needed was to hire a wheelbarrow for a couple of hours.

Having eaten like sparrows, a couple of cool beers at the "Toff in the town" was then the order of the day to help reduce the swelling, before showering and heading back out to Hardware Lane where there is a selection of good restaurants. Our meal had a BJ rating of 4 overall.

I have also managed to come down with an infection of the upper respiratory tract (a cold to you) which is annoying me. Anna just keeps mentioning someone called Malcolm. To use text-speak, WTF?

Unfortunately, we leave Melbourne today. We have settled in to the city so easily. It is very European and reminds us of Liverpool in many ways. It doesn't feel like we are away from home when we are here. We will be sorry to leave but we have "done it" as tourists and it is the right time to move on to pastures new. Maybe one day, we'll be back.

To Sydney then, my good fellows to "feel capital". To further paraphrase Wyatt Earp, "we're coming, we're all coming and hell's coming with us .....". Oh and Jonny Mad Cat - I forget you were there .... you may go .....