Bits of work in progress - yes, I have beer while I'm crafting. It helps keep me sane, it does. There are other vices best indulged in hot weather too. Lemon sorbet topped with fig gelato in a cone. From Crema, over on Lygon Street, where every other shop is a gelato shop that is bursting at its seams with hot, sticky people desperate for a bit of something sweet or cold. Or very possibly, both.

Another really delicate flavour is Pear, from Tutto Benne just south of the Yarra.

More vices discovered in the last week: a lovely little cupcake shop down Degraves Street that bakes a really sublime red velvet cupcake. Tuesdays are mini-cupcake day. We nibble through each cupcake not because we are dainty, but to make each last longer. Four cupcakes later, with every remaining ounce of willpower, we [try to] stop drooling at the uneaten cupcakes, in rows behind the glass counter, and leave in a dignified manner. Alas, I had neglected to bring my camera. More reason to go back, I tell the flatmate.



It was chance, I say, that brought King Worm into existence. In a bid to draw one silly item for each successful crack at the crossword puzzle, King Worm came into being after a spell of wracking my brains for a five-letter word for 'elicit, bring forth': evoke, five-letter word for 'tomb, vault': crypt, and 'sanctuary': asylum. King Worm, it appears, has had a forked tongue long before his coronation.

One day, if feeling so inclined, I'm going to get King Worm tattooed someplace.

I have only been back from Tassie for a coupla days and some, and already it slips me - what I wanted to blog about while I was there. The weather back in Melbs is glorious meanwhile, azure cloudless skies, golden sunshine and a light breeze. What's a girl to do but to pick up a blanket, a bottle of juice and a book, and head out for the grassy slopes in the park? It is difficult, I assure you, to want to sit in front of a laptop while it is sunny and lovely outdoors.



These days, we traipse, happily, three blocks down to Mr Tulk's for the heavenliest coffee. "When I'm rich," the flatmate declares, "I'll hire Mr Tulk's barrista to make me my soy lattes in my penthouse." This girl, she has big dreams.

Then we head home for cheese and crackers, because we're just too lazy to tote them back out to the park - the picnic is in our living room. With marinated fetta, water biscuits, honeycomb, quince paste, some dried apricots, pastrami and salami, we have a wonderful spread before our eyes. "I want," I consider my words carefully, "a scoop of mango gelato, and one of roche from Il Dolce Freddo's later," like a girl whose tummy is never sated.



One of our favourite (newfound) indulgences is Crabapple Cupcakes. They've recently published a collection of recipes with really tantalising images to boot, but I'm eschewing the aromatic smell of baking permeating my apartment for instant gratification from their shopfront. Lined up, they are a winning combination of pretty and yum. We exercise some restraint so that we don't buy everything we see, but it is a difficult exercise, this one.