Last weekend, we walked from St Kilda to Black Rock. It was an absolutely glorious sunny day, and a real pleasure to be out with the crowds walking by the blue, blue sea.

We bought ice-creams, sat on a seaside bench to eat our egg sandwiches, and ended up at Black Rock House. This is a "heritage-listed treasure", dating from 1856. It's a real Boy's Own construction, its courtyard and stables protected by a huge gate and turreted wall, its folklore including stories of a ghost and a tunnel to the beach, and one of its venerable old Moreton Bay figs supposedly associated with a hanging. Black Rock, it seems, was named after Black Rock House, not the other way round. The house, in turn, was named after Blackrock in County Cork. There are some photos starting here.

Then, this weekend, we strolled once more to St Vincent's Gardens. The first task was to track down the name of the tree that is the surest herald of spring in Melbourne, as far as I'm concerned. It turns out it's a pittosporum undulatum. Its beautiful perfume wafts quite a distance, and you often smell it before you see it. There are a number right in the city, including on our very urban street, and coupled with the song of the blackbird, their scent says: "Get up, get out, get on, because it's SPRING!"