We went to the Bridge Mall Market on Saturday morning with Lindsey. It was smaller than usual - the spice lady wasn't there, which wasn't an issue for me because I still have lots of spice mixes. I found some more when I used my steamers and woks! The pork people weren't there either, which was a bit disappointing. No bacon and egg sandwich for breakfast. And I had hoped to buy some of their bacon. Oh well. Next time. Fortunately the egg, the mushroom and the vegetable stalls were there!
Lindsey headed off to Mount Martha and Jim and I hit Bunnings, then the supermarket. I was quite excited to discover that you can buy wonton wrappers in Woollies. Not even frozen ones. Fresh ones. I had thought I might need to find a Chinese supermarket. I assume there is one in Ballarat. I had bought some frozen ones in the Japanese supermarket in Smith Street in Fitzroy, but I have left them in the freezer in the flat. They are not much use there!
On Sunday our friend Pat made her first visit to Tani no uchi. She is on a restricted diet for various reasons and, in any case, can't eat large quantities of food at a time. Japanese food is fairly low in calories and you don't have to eat much of it. The Japanese generally don't. I had decided to go down that route. Lindsey also joined us and we had butternut pumpkin and ginger gyoza, prawn and lemongrass gyoza, karage chicken "nuggets" and, of course, rice and salad. It was good to see Pat. I think she liked our new place :-)
This week, so far, has followed almost a routine pattern. We headed up to Hill House on Monday after lunch. I went to Melbourne, as usual, on Tuesday morning and stayed over. I came back after work yesterday.
The only excitement was when I lost Jim on Tuesday evening. He had been around just after lunch when I spoke to him by phone. When I got to the flat at my usual time in the evening his phone was telling me that it was unavailable. I assumed he was talking to someone else. But it continued to say it was unavailable. I tried the house phone. He didn't answer that. If he is at the other end of the house he doesn't get to the kitchen phone before the answer machine kicks in. But usually if you try a few times he goes and waits by the phone, or rings me. Nup. I tried FaceTime and Viber and Facebook. Nup. By the time it got to 6pm I was beginning to get a bit worried. I contacted Lindsey. We decided to wait for a bit and then send in reinforcements to check if he was OK. You don't want him lying on the floor or in the garden unable to get up, or unconscious. If nothing else it would mean Rupert and Hugo wouldn't get their dinner :-D
Fortunately, before we called out reinforcements, he answered the house phone. He had indeed been at the other end of the house, had heard the phone ringing but had assumed that it was the Cold Callers being particularly active that evening - until the phone started ringing incessantly, when he decided someone possibly did want to speak to him. But what was wrong with his mobile phone? Turned out he had accidentally set it to flight mode so, of course, it wasn't receiving anything. His laptop was turned off. He was out of digital range!! His phone is off flight mode now. But I think I need to set up a code for the house phone so he knows it's me and not the Cold Callers.
I treated myself to a souvlaki for tea from the take away shop downstairs, after all that excitement. It was very nice but I must remember next time to get them to hold the onions. People who make take away souvlaki are always a touch over enthusiastic with the raw onions.
We are definitely heading towards winter. The deciduous trees are still doing autumn and looking beautiful. But the temperatures are forecast to plummet in Ballarat over the next few days. And I think we are forecast wind and rain. I've dug out the winter clothes. And turned the heating on.
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