The Good Life
April 24 2024 · Ryan Walpole
April has been a crazy month. I don't think I've had a month like this in years, if I'm honest - which isn't really that crazy, seeing as some things I view as recent are almost two years ago at this point. I'm looking at you Warrnambool. At the start of the month I travelled with Birb, Onyon and Dan to Melbourne. We picked Mewffin up at the airport, the first time she'd ever so much as left Queensland - which was exciting as hell for her. We headed into the city and made our way to the docklands, just on the edge of the CBD - where we stayed at a beautiful apartment overlooking the harbour and Marvel stadium.
We were in Melbourne for a few days, arriving the Thursday and leaving Monday morning. Thursday night, we made our way to My Goodness in the city for burgers, wings, drinks and games with Lyle. It was the first time I'd had a drink in close to two months, since my new medication prevents me from drinking for the most part. The alcohol hit me pretty hard, which was a nice change of pace - yknow, getting drunk without having to spend a lot of money. The following day, we joined Lyle again and went to the Melbourne Museum to see the Titanic exhibition. it was fantastic. Honestly, one of the coolest things ever. We were looking at artifacts that sunk 112 years ago, stayed on the sea floor for 80+ years, just to be in glass boxes in front of us. That's still crazy to me.
After the museum we grabbed a bite to eat and headed back to the apartment for a few hours before we headed out to the Melbourne Recital Centre for dinner and the Stardew Valley Orchestral Concert. We had a tasty meal at the venue and then headed in. We were in the third row from the stage and by god, it was one of the most magical experiences of my life. Truly an amazing performance.
I spent the entire concert either on the verge of tears or actively crying. We all got a photo in front of a Stardew Valley concert banner, and got souvenir orchestra cards with the sheet music to the dance of the moonlight jellies. Friday was going to be a hard day to beat. But beat, we tried. On Saturday we headed out to do a bit of shopping. Dan and I bought a bunch of books, Birb got some too. We did an escape room with Lyle and Rhys, which was awesome. I've never been to such a high quality, high tech escape room. The entire premise was that it was a green fairy speakeasy. We had to solve puzzles to enter the speakeasy, then to get the recipe for the absinthe. There was a fucking claw game involved. A CLAW GAME. We headed to The Crafty Squire afterward to get dinner, where I had a delicious wild mushroom ragu pasta, where we met up with Glowe, FriedOrange and Buggolos as well. We finished the night by visiting a few bars around the CBD. I'd have liked to have gone to a few more, but Dan, Mew and Onyon were getting quite tired.
The following day, our last day in the city, was spent having lunch with Lyle at Vapiano - then bowling in the evening at Melbourne Central, before dinner at Kitchen Workshop at Crown Casino. It was a bit of a stressful afternoon, seeing as I was basically planning and executing everything - but it all worked out in the end. Dinner was fucking amazing, I ate my weight in prawns, lobster and salmon.
It was sad, Monday morning. Having to say goodbye to Mew and dropping her off at the airport was tough, but she had a great holiday. Her first big trip, her first real holiday was a success and she felt like she'd done enough stuff - seen enough. Her only complaint is that she wished it was longer, but isn't that true of every holiday, for everyone?
Since then, I've had my plate full with Pathfinder - Lyle's been doing a great job at DMing for us - along with Helldivers, Roleplay, a brief family emergency, and spending time with Dan and Friends. Tomorrow night, Onyon and Birb are making spaghetti bolognese for me whilst their parents are out of town. I'm going to make a garlic pizza bread side, with hot honey to go with it, and then on Friday I'm going to cook them a chashu pork ramen dish. We're gonna watch the Avatar The Last Airbender Netflix adaptation (which I've seen twice now already). Drunkscape on Saturday night, too, which will be fun. Looking forward to drinking with Lyle and getting myself another level in Runescape.
If I wasn't on this new medication, I'd schedule a Drunkscape every month. Alas, probably best it's every second or third month.
Oh, we're starting a new Stardew Save next weekend! Made a nice big modpack for it, excited to get Mew and Onyon involved too. That's all for now, my fingers hurt.