Bendigo Grace

Bendigo is only two hours drive north of Melbourne, but together we've only ever visited this small town once before, many years ago (that's apart from my short work related visit there back in 2002).

Seeing we were in Victoria anyway at the weekend we couldn't miss an opportunity to see the Grace Kelly Style Icon exhibition at the Bendigo Art Gallery. First staged at the V&A Museum in London, and then on to New York; it seems amazing that it has ended up here in Bendigo of all places.

The gallery has been inundated with visitors - tickets all have to be prebooked and there is timed entry. We were booked in at 10.00am (opening time) on Monday morning and there was quite a crowd waiting to get in from 9.30am onwards.

Needless to say we both enjoyed the exhibition. Rob and I have seen enough of Grace Kelly's old Hitchcock films to get a buzz out of seeing her costumes and the background stories on them and I really enjoyed seeing her princess paraphernalia, her French couturier wardrobe (a Hermes bag and Chanel suits for walking the children to school no less) and the family stories told very discreetly but revealingly through montages of old film clips and still photos. Seeing this material prompted me to help Rob stay alert during the late stages of our 7 hour drive back to Canberra by reading him Wikipedia summaries of all the scandals befalling the ill fated Grimaldi family over the past 40 years.

I will enjoy my next Rear Window viewing (for the 5th or 6th time by now) that much more now I understand the significance of Grace Kelly's wardrobe in that film so much better.

Back in Canberra it was great to catch up with the girls today. Abbie looked a perfect peach in pink - and now 9 weeks old.

Ella was in fine form. She's been watching Dancing Down Under carefully and can now do a very creditable Irish jig - Riverdance style - kilt and pony tail flying, head and torso very erect!

She keeps it up for hours on end while ever the Chieftains are playing and there is an appreciative audience.