North of the border.

Saturday was spent in a previously unexplored suburb of Melbourne, the oddly named Northcote. Mainly because I live on the south side of the CBD  the other side seems like a slightly different country to me, I really should venture there more often. Plus the zoo is on that side, which has been on my "to do" list for like a year............
Anyway, I was lured to Northcote with promises of secondhand shopping, and while I wouldn't class them as opshops there was some excellent vintage stores that I will be visiting again soon! All I ended up getting was a hoody for The Boyfriend and a large piece of forest green knit material for myself. I have a couple of sewing projects in mind at the moment, and I fully intend to take pictures, am having some pattern issues though!

Northcote is a interesting suburb, with a mixture of slightly rundown homes and grand public buildings. It was first settled in 1839, which would explain all the older style villas, and throughout the 1950's the area had an influx of Greek and Italian migrants. The 1980's saw the more artistic folk from Fitzroy moving into the area due to cheaper house prices, which would explain the eclectic mix of shops on the high street...

It was a beautiful afternoon, perfect for wandering with friends. At one particularly strange vintage store, which was crammed to the rafters with amazing crap, the saleswoman refused to let more than a handful of people enter the shop, and followed us anxiously like a mother hen. None of us ended up buying anything from her place, due to a combination of her paranoid rudeness and the rather high prices!

This shop was much better, heaps of stuff, I would like to go back and sift through it again sometime soon. There was an interesting rack of vintage dresses...

The town hall and council buildings, really well preserved, and had excellent clean toilets....the toilets were so space age that I found it all little confusing.But don't worry, I figured them out!

Before all the shopping the important matter of sustenance had to be dealt with. We all met up at a small cafe that was recommend in this years cheap eats, but I have forgotten its name! I had the Austrian breakfast, which was a delicious pasta like thing with two types of cheese, bacon, onion and herbs......mmmm..........

Plus two yummy ice chocolates, I hate when you order an ice chocolate or hot chocolate and it tastes just like plain old milk. When I order chocolate I WANT IT TO TASTE LIKE CHOCOLATE! (rant over...) Thankfully these were perfect :-).
The day was rounded out with a yummy Sri Lankan dinner (with very strange ordering policies) and then mulled wine to combat the chilly autumn night.
Today I went to the Camberwell markets, but didn't have much success :-(
And this coming weekend I'm off to the Arapiles.....

Hope you all had a good weekend :-)