In the night garden

Yesterday was a good day. I really, really want to stress that. It wasn't just that I actually managed to make myself get up early and thus accomplished several important tasks an hour before I'd normally even be up on a day when I had no classes. It wasn't just that I met Jason as I was about to head back and so extended my trip into town with pleasant company and a trip to the Uni bookshop, which is a very lovely space. It wasn't even just that I found out that the front desk had decided to waive the late fee on my first fortnight's rent.

No, whilst all these events were charming and agreeable in their own right, the thing that made yesterday really extraordinary was the nighttime constitutional Jason, Elle and I decided to take. Allow me to set the scene: The O-week event for that evening was a rubik's cube party (essentially a technicolour school disco), but everyone wanted to arrive fashionably later than everyone else. So, the party having officially started at 7.30, by 8.30 there were four people sluggishly grooving to unseemly club anthems. Tiring of this, Jason and I elected to duck out and saunter around the park which encircles our fair domicile; as we were setting off, Elle chanced by and enquired with furrowed brow to where we were headed and we invited her along. She gratefully acquiesced and the three of us began our journey to a raucous melody of wit and playful jibes. Whilst ambling along the path that runs through Yarra bend road, we gradually began to run out of street lights and the conversation turned to the fantastically dark things that could happen out there, in the night. Of course, some of these were positively pedestrian, like being stabbed or taken hostage, the little things that could take place in Bonny Scotland, but, this being Australia, there were also the delightful possibilities of crocodiles and drop bears, funnel web spiders and paralysing ticks, and the entire promenade had a delightful flavour of danger. Then, a wondrous thing happened- we got lost (not so uncommon) and I was the one to navigate our way back, no kidding. In Australia, everything truly is upside down, as I genuinely seem to have a sense of direction here- no less than four times recently, I have steered whatever group I'm in down the correct path. My theory is that, like migratory birds, I have a piece of metal in my head, but instead of directing me North, as the birds' does, mine is attracted to the South Pole. Now that I am nearer the underside of the globe, this piece of metal is pulling its weight rather than just spinning uselessly about. Huzzah. On top of this, we saw a flying fox, which was beautifully large and opaque in the moonlight; a living shadow soaring amongst the trees. And then, we returned to the party, and though there weren't any more people, those who were there were now suitable inebriated to make the thing enjoyable and I really had fun jiving in our tiny little circle. I even got in a request (Cee Lo Green- I won't name the song, as my parents are reading), and some of the Bedlam classics were played, and it really felt like being back in Edinburgh, except less crowded. 

Lovely.