Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Two Extremes

(Warning to Shannon in Belgium - if the photos of rosellas made you homesick, then you'd better not look at these photos.)

I spent the first half of the day roaming around a local shopping centre, just filling in time while waiting for a repair to the car to be completed. How I hate shopping centres, especially if I don't want anything or need anything. I hate looking at things just for the sake of looking at them, which is probably why I never know what to buy when I do need something.

I did 'sit test' a couple of outdoor settings and decided that neither of them was acceptable as the chairs didn't slide far enough under the table and would take up too much room on the deck. Have to be careful there as the deck only measures 74 sq metres....lol.

I then walked through the freezing cold wind to the shopping centre, posted some sample fabrics to Tanya who is going to make a quilt for our bed now that the room has been painted (keep an eye out for the package, dear), looked at the fronts of all the shops and wasn't enticed into any of them except to buy a book of crosswords from the newsagent and then spent an hour in a coffee shop, with crosswords and coffee. Fortified with caffeine, I wandered up and down several aisles of videos and finally bought 4 - not for us to watch but just to have on hand for grandchildren visits, and finally left the noise and piped music of the shopping centre and walked back through the wind to collect the car. At least, once away from the shops I could listen to my own choice of music on the iPod. The very nice mechanic had fixed the car and now it no longer makes loud grating noises, which were not the result of my driving, thank you Marcel!

I should have been more appreciative of my relaxed morning because once we finished lunch I had to iron all of the curtains from the house in the photos, which we had brought home yesterday to be washed, and then take them back to be re-hung. As well as the curtains the car was packed with gardening tools and the lawnmower, and we worked like navvies all afternoon, mowing, weeding and pruning. I didn't actually re-hang the curtains as I want to do a bit of window-cleaning first. By the end of tomorrow we hope it will look much the same as it does in these photos (taken a year ago) so that it will be ready to rent out again.

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6 comments:

In transit said...

what a nice green lawn :)

meggie said...

What a lovely post Alice! I wish I could have joined you for your coffee, & you could have asked for suggestions for some words! Or we could have just laughed together. I did laugh when I saw the word navvie- my mother used it often, & I think it came from her Aussie father!

Alice said...

Shannon - I don't think the lawn is as green as that now! The trees and shrubs in the front yard have grown somewhat, especially the vagrant eucalypts, some of which will have to come out. Better build up your muscles for your homecoming....lol.

Kerri said...

Well you wouldn't want the outdoor setting to take up valuable space that could accomodate more seedlings and plants, right Alice? :)
Wish I could've joined you for the crosswords and coffee.
Seems to me you two always work like navvies.
I hope the lawn greens up soon.
Glad your car is fixed.
I've been doing lots of tidying up in the gardens and yard this week, as well as planting. We froze corn this morning.

Val said...

I think it's the noise and music that's the worst of shopping centres, and I too try to avoid them. You did well to sit down with your crossword (good for the brain cells) and coffee (good for the spirit) rather than aimlessly moping around some shops.

Whew, I feel tired after reading this post, Alice.

Frankie Perussault said...

Your photos look soooo familiar! it makes me homesick for Canberra... was it at Manuka that you were having a coffee? I used to love having a cappuccino there... in them days last century!