Choo Choo

We did have a lovely and quiet weekend. Nothing urgent or arduous to do. Nowhere we particularly had to be. Gentle domesticity to some extent.  Washing and ironing, because we were beginning to run out of clean and presentable clothes. Tidying. Sweeping. No gardening, because it drizzled merrily for most of the time. Cooking, eating and catching up with Masterchef (although I will have to watch last night's episode again - I dozed off while watching it).

We went to the Brown Hill market. We went when it first opened and it was so crazily packed that we left again.  We figured that it would quieten down as the first flush of interest dwindled and meant to go back, but hadn't got around to it. Saturday's market was nicely busy but not too packed.  Jim and I came home with baskets of vegetables. We went to the farm shop at Elaine and got some meat. A lamb shoulder, which I have to say was a bit disappointing. It tasted lovely but was fiddly to eat. It was full of little bones.  I should have served them as little ribs!

On Sunday we went out on a steam train trip. It was the Ballarat Heritage Weekend and there were all sorts of things going on at Sovereign Hill, in the museums, around town.  And the steam trains had come to play. They left from the station and went out towards Lal Lal before heading back. Took around 45, 50 minutes.  It was an excellent way of spending a chilly, damp, late autumn Sunday afternoon.

This engine is 130 years old and was made in Ballarat.
It pulled us back from Lal Lal

This engine is 90 or 100 years old.  The bloke did tell us but I forgot.
It pulled us towards Lal Lal

The carriages were built in the 1920s

My ticket

It was a good run out to Lal lal. The train line goes to Geelong and was, once upon a time, a passenger route. Now the passengers go by bus, and the line carries freight.  And steam trains, sometimes.  We drive alongside the railway line often, but had never ridden on it.

Choofing along

It's been raining here harder than at home

This is steam from the train, not fog!

Mount Warrenheip

Very new technology, viewed from the very old

And passengers

I am there too, but I am behind the camera!

The disadvantage of dozing off during Masterchef (apart from not seeing what happened) is that is 3am and I am awake. I shall finish my cup of tea and then go back to bed so I am ready to face the new week at a more appropriate Getting Up time.  It is, or it is supposed to be, the last of my many weeks of extra hours. I wonder what it holds in store