Today’s Lunch

Good Mental Health Day

First, I must share my adventures of yesterday. That being Tuesday. I went on a trip down memory lane! I went “South-aside!” That will mean much more when I get around to writing my post on basic 101 of Melbourne and many, many months before my posts catch up on the backlog I’ve already written. However, in short, I went to a part of Melbourne where I thrived back in my 20’s in Prahran and South Yarra! (Pronounced Prah-Ran! And South-Yarrah) Good times for sure! Chapel street once a thriving cultural shopping hub is now rather lacking and my friend Susanne and I went on a mission to A) Relive my memories. B) find me a new streetwear bag and without meaning to. C) unravel the mystery of why Chapel Street has died? (Many shops are vacant)

Let me say, tick, tick and tick! Mission accomplished.

A. So many shops no longer exist! Sad face. One shop does still exist and when I walked in I was greeted by a very familiar face, bearded now and rather grey, he said he had only recently been thinking of me. It was Jeremy from Shag! (Not kidding!) the Windsor end of Chapel street became cool around the time Grant and Jeremy opened their pilot ship store back in the mid-90’s and I lived very close so often just after closing I would return and go upstairs where they lived at the time and Grant previously a hairdresser would do my plaits in the style I often wore in clubs and on one occasion a serious bee-hive! Also, around this time I decided only gay hairdressers should do my hair! Going to return to this methodology later this year. Attempted with Jeremy to give him the cliff-notes (short version) of what’s happened to Helen’s arm? Sorry, there is no short version.

B. Got my new bag in the last shop we went into and only $20. Done! (False alarm, the shoulder strap is not nearly long enough! Crap!)

C. We decided with the gentrification of the area and the obvious older population dying off, or selling up and moving on, a new generation has moved in. Apartments have gone up everywhere! I found the 90’s living in that area, the clubs, the street culture, the music scenes and perhaps the lack of the blond Kardashians, also the era where you would go out to dinner at one location and go to a club elsewhere, even a recovery somewhere else. Not even in the same area. Imagine being trapped in the one venue with the same people all night! This is the reality now with lock-out laws. Choose your own adventure gone to hell. In short, the yuppies moved in. Then complained when in the morning they would find someone had vomited in their doorstep and defecated! They would bitch/whinge and moan about it and the things that made the neighbourhood cool would disappear when rent would price the cool people out of the market! Hello, I’ve got my hand up! Lesson Number 1! If an area is really cool don’t live there! Go socialise there, party there. Then fuck off back to the suburbs whence you came.! Problem solved!

Anyway, eventually settled on a location for lunch and had great gnocchi with something-something beef and mushroom ragout, with shaved Parmesan. I know, I forgot, so no picture, instead here’s a beautiful picture of my fur-baby Mika!

D. (There is now a D) I did 8,000+ steps! Just to remind you a normal person should do 10,000 steps a day. So, having a disability and mostly I don’t get anywhere near that. Smashed it! And back in the 90’s I would have done more than that every Tuesday as it was the day I did my rounds on Chapel Street and Grenville Street, back in the day.

Tell me if you liked this extra little bit about what I like to call, Original Helen? Life from a lifetime ago. Before what life is like now.

So, while this has not even my normal offering on a Wednesday, it was a bit more into the life and times of Hellonwheels and definitely good for my mental health!

So, Today’s offering, a nice Moroccan chicken salad with turmeric and a little sweet treat called the Montague and Capulet plus my medicine!

Cheers,
H