Much of a mulchness - playing in the garden is the funnest thing of all.

Five years ago I said I would never make another New Year's resolution, commitment, promise or undertaking. This year, I said "Bollocks to that!" and made a whole lot of resolutions / commitments / promises / undertakings - one of which was "to play in my garden more". By 'playing', I mean weeding, pruning, watering (not just a once-a-week splash with a watering can, but an actual hose with a proper nozzle and everything, and now made easier with the lifting of restrictions in Melbourne), planting seasonal colour, chucking in some fertilizer and laying down mulch. Honestly, I was a very cursory gardener - half-hearted at best, neglectful at worst.

I am aided by the presence of a great Plants Plus nursery just a two minute drive away. I don't know about other Plants Plus nurseries, but the one on Rathmines Road, Hawthorn, near Auburn Road, is staffed by the friendliest and most knowledgable nursery folk I've ever met. And they carry stuff TO YOUR CAR! Noice. The short shorts on the hot young eye-candy horticulturalists also help.

I have a pretty decent Bunnings nearby and when you can find someone to help, they're usually pretty good. In fact, they're pretty awesome - but only if you can find someone.

So, in the last few weeks, I have had a go at playing in my garden.

Pre-new year, I'd given my garden the proverbial 'Brazillian' with my fancy pruning shears, cutting everything right back to bare branches (geraniums, roses, daisies and masses of unidentified ground-cover), and giving my pavers a good scrub. This meant I could look at it clearly and start planning my next phase of attack.

Last week I was ably aided by my older sister and keen gardener, Musty Venetian, who was visiting from interstate. She helped me weed, showed me how to dig in Dynamic Lifter and helped me choose and lay down some mulch. Musty also taught me not to be afraid of colour, so we chucked in some bold and bright petunias and impatiens in shady spots. Mint-basil was also planted, though I am still dubious about this one - is it mint? Or is it basil? If it is both, then it is neither, surely? And if a tree falls in the forest, would Gina Rinehart hear it? Or care? Apologies for my philosophical digression...

Many thanks and a big shout-out to Musty for her back-breaking efforts. Couldn't have done it without you, sis'.

Needless to say, the garden is looking better and healthier, but like a person just coming out of an illness with a clean bill of health, it will take some time before it is truly beautiful and rosy again. I can't wait.

There will be piccies, so stay tuned.

Recommendation for everybody - Songs for Nobodies

Please please please please please (no, this is not a James Brown homage) Melburnians, do yourselves a favour and go and see Songs for Nobodies at the Fairfax Studio, Arts Centre before it closes this weekend.

Written by playwright / Australian theatre-luvvy stalwart Joanna Murray-Smith and performed by Bernadette Robinson (Who? I know, I know, it's obscene I hadn't heard of her before), this tribute to Judy Garland, Patsy Cline, Edith Piaf, Billie Holiday and Maria Callas is told (and sung - Oh my God, how it is sung) through the stories of five ordinary women whose lives briefly intersect with those of the twentieth century's most famous and talented divas. Ms Robinson performs all the parts. And when I say 'perform', I mean perform - she does NOT merely impersonate (think Little Voice), she inhabits.

I'm a Patsy Cline fan, so any rendition of "Crazy" is going to make me a wee bit weepy, but this one had me reaching for my handkerchief after only ten seconds. By the time Ms Robinson got to Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit", my sleeves were sodden beyond repair. I was a mess by the end of it. And if you have half a soul, you will be too.

Minor quibble - why the Arts Centre saw fit to warn patrons of the non-nicotine cigarette-smoking on stage (all three seconds of Ms Robinson's shallow, girly puffs) only proves we are turning into a nation of sooks and need to harden up.

Go and see it NOW.

(Now) Star Voyager - ACMI AKA Nerdfest 2012.

Anyone who has read my profile or who has caught a glimpse of my bookcase knows I have fairly dilettantish interests. In amongst the books on American mid-century furniture design or 1970s Europorn, there will the odd book on Soviet space exploration or doomed Antarctic expeditions led by clueless Englishmen with names like Hall and Oates. So it shouldn't surprise anyone who knows me and my better half, Muddy Karpitz, that last Sunday we checked out Star Voyager: Exploring Space on Screen at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.

As the tagline to the exhibition says, it's a "journey through the fact and fiction of space exploration from Fritz Lang to the moon landing, to Star Trek and Total Recall."

In short – this is a real nerd-fest of Asimovian proportions.

Highlights include an extraordinary piece of silent film from Denmark, Himmelskibet (A Trip to Mars) (1918), beautifully restored by the Danish Film Institute; archival footage from the Soviet Union in which we catch the briefest glimpse of Sergei Korolev, the elusive and enigmatic "Chief Designer" of their space program, whose identity the Soviet government kept secret until years after his death, and a copy of correspondence between rocket engineer Werner Von Braun (AKA NASA's favourite Nazi) and a young fan-boy from America's mid-west who would later emigrate to Australia and settle in Horsham!

As expected, iconic SF films like Stanley Kubrik's '2001: A Space Odyssey' (1968) and Andrei Tarkovsky's 'Solaris' (1972) get a look in, but for a really haunting cinematic experience, the experimental film "Star City" by British filmmakers Jane and Louise Wilson, a four-screen installation piece depicting the now empty and ghostly Russian cosmonaut training facility, is worth the price of admission alone.

The exhibition finishes this weekend, so use your Australia Day holiday to check it out. Kids holiday workshops like Kids in the Studio - Space Explorers: The Ultimate Space Adventure - finish on Friday 27 January 2012.