Every year Bicycle Victoria promotes a “Ride to Work Day” in October, and exhorts everyone to ride their bicycles to work, just this once! There’s free breakfast in the city, the odd speech, promotional material, police present to engrave your drivers’ license number in your bike if you like — to aid recovery in the event of theft…. The last couple of years I’ve decided to ride in to the city to have a look around, then back out again to go to work. Silly enough when I lived in Richmond and had to head out to Clayton, downright foolish now that I live in Oakleigh — 15km into the city then 20km back out again!

No photos though, sometime in the past couple of days I’ve left the camera switched on and flattened the battery, but lots to see, lots of people to talk to. The ride up St Kilda road is an eye-opener, bumper-to-bumper motorists crawling along at 5km/hr, all quite happy to drive in the bike lane, but all equally prepared to lean on the horn when a cyclist pulls out to go around an illegally parked car!

I saw both the Spiegeltent and the box that it comes in! Time for its annual pilgrimage to Melbourne, it appears tardis-like in the forecourt of the Arts centre for a month or so, then silently vanishes overnight…. There’s nothing silent about the hammering, clanging and shouting the accompanies the unpacking and setting up though! I’m looking forward to seeing a band or two in there this year.