Lunch

We have been enjoying lots of lunches recently.

Last Thursday we headed off to Alfreton in Ballarat to meet our friend Pat for lunch at her place.  We haven't seen her since her birthday lunch last December. I do play Scrabble online with her so knew she was about, but that's not absolutely the same as meeting for lunch 😋 She had prepared us a lovely lunch and it was good to catch up and have a proper chat.

On Sunday, which quite coincidentally was Mothering Sunday in the UK, Jim and I drove down to Mount Martha to have lunch with Stella and Tony.  With us we took potatoes, zucchini, silverbeet/chard, carrots, Chinese cabbage (all from the garden) and some wagyu beef which we had liberated from the freezer in the flat in East Melbourne - and a small, tiny frog, whose presence we knew nothing about until it leapt from the trug carrying the vegetables into the sink full of water in which Jim was washing the potatoes!!!  It was quite determined to escape from the sink into the kitchen.  We were equally determined that it should not.  We caught it in yet another plastic pot and took it out into the garden.  Frog was not on the menu last Sunday!

Yesterday we came down from Ballarat to Melbourne and took a tram out to Carlton to meet Robert for lunch on Lygon Street.  Our first choice of eatery doesn't open on Tuesday lunchtimes.  Our second choice has closed down.  So we went to DOC Espresso for a very fine lunch. I hadn't been in there before.  I might very well go again.

Tuesday lunch

There has been, you may have noticed, a rather large cyclone in Far North Queensland.  That is about 2500 km from here and hasn't really affected us (apart from the fact that Lindsey and Ian were in Cairns; fortunately the cyclone was a little further south than that). We did have a rather startling cool change on Monday afternoon, when the temperature dropped by around 15d in about five minutes, and we were treated to BIG wind, BIG rain and BIG thunder, which didn't absolutely delight the dog.  Apart from that, though, we've had some lovely weather

St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne.  We were waiting for a tram in the sunshine

Jim and I were stood outside in Mount Helen on Saturday afternoon, admiring the vegetable garden and pondering where to put things next spring.  All of a sudden there was a kerfuffle in the paddock next to us.  The magpies were making a huge racket and suddenly fell silent.  Then a wedge tailed eagle flew up out of the grass clutching what I think was a rabbit in its claws. We do see the eagles from time to time, but not quite that close.  It was all very exciting.  Unless, of course, you were the rabbit.

It's been very noisy in East Melbourne this morning.  There have been sirens blaring since about half past four. My emergency alert tells me that there has been a fire in some flats in Fitzroy.  No danger for me, but I assume that explains the sirens. The downside of having been awake so early is that it is now just after seven and I am not getting ready to go to work because there was, after all, so much time in hand 🤣  But I really must get on.  No lunching for me today.  I must go and play with my scanner friend