And March brings my local race to me – the Australian Grand Prix outside my place. I do love the buzz of the build-up though it gets annoying when they close my park as it is the way that I wander home. But it’s worth it really as there is a good energy around the place and the sound of the cars is exciting. Sitting on my couch, I see one corner of the track and that is quite cool.

Musically, there were some interesting shows including Jane Birkin – a favourite of Carolyn’s who I didn’t know much of – she turned out to a bit of a fruit-loop who sang songs in French – it was ok, but not really my sort of gig – maybe I should have listened to a bit of her stuff before going along.

I also got to see one of my all-time favourites with the return of Eddi Reader visiting from Scotland. I can barely express how much I enjoy going to a show of hers – she is just a wonderful performer with a stunning voice and a great take on music performed with great feeling. She performed with a small band along with the string section of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra – it was magical.

Another great gig was seeing The Pogues (with Shane McGowan) perform a greatest hits tour – they were fantastic – ok, I didn’t understand much of what Shane said, but musically, they performed just as I had hoped. The gig was at my least favourite venue (Festival Hall), but we had good seats so that was ok.

Other things that happened was I went to a book launch of one of my local favourites being Father Bob McGuire. The book was written by Ron Burrows and the launch involved the entertaining Shaun Micallef and John Saffran. It was an interesting event and nice that it was in a local bookshop.

I also went to another event under the guise of the Women of Letters event run by Marieke Hardy and Michaela McGuire. Each month a collection of invited guests write a letter to a specified theme and read that letter out. As the name implies, it is an event where the performers are female, but once a year they have a Men of Letters event and the one I went to in March was a new variation called Partner of Letters – it is a great concept and is very presented. I have been to a number of the events and I will make the effort to go to more – it is always interesting.

Another event was to go to the opening game of the Australian Rules Football season – that was Carlton v Richmond – it wasn’t a great game but the company (Matt and John) was good. My team are Hawthorn and watching them is always a delight, but I don’t go to many live games – I usually go to Hawthorn v Carlton with Sharon and Bec (as they both support Carlton), but not this season as I’ll be overseas when the game is scheduled. Oh well – my boys always win this one anyway.

Another annual event is the Melbourne Comedy Festival and I went to one show this year and that was to see the English comedian Simon Amstell. I first saw Simon when he hosted four seasons of the music comedy quiz, Never Mind The Buzzcocks. I don’t know how much of the material was his, but he was hilarious and his timing is superb. His standup is of a different nature, but he was very funny – another worthwhile show for me to attend.

And the final thing to mention was that Carolyn and I popped over to Sydney to have lunch with my cousin Lawrence and his wife Sue – we had a great meal sitting with the Harbour Bridge and Opera House in front of us. It was a gorgeous day weather-wise too. I hadn’t seen Lawrence or Sue in about 15 years, so that was a good thing to do – I don’t get many visitors over here.

And that was it.