A Saturday in December

The weather forecasters were doomcasting  extreme weather conditions across Eastern Australia for Saturday. Temperatures in excess of 40° in Sydney and parts of New South Wales. A cyclone in Queensland. Fire, Flood, Damaging Winds across much of the Eastern Seaboard.

In Ballarat it was raining, slightly breezy and a top temperature of perhaps 17° - if we were lucky.

Lindsey and I donned our jumpers and jackets and made our way out to Buninyong to the Post Office and to check out the little gift shop that sits next to the tiny museum run by the Historical Society. Then we braved the rain out at the Zoo Drive market. The people of Ballarat are obviously hardy folk. The market was quite busy despite the weather.

We did our usual shopping, got soaked and then went to Wilson's for fruit and veg, the Reject Shop because we were in the area, and to the Saltbush Kitchen so Lindsey could get some spice and dukkah mixes.

Then we went home. I changed into dry clothes and had a warming cup of tea.

We visited Stella mid-afternoon and then ... Bravely? Foolhardily? Loyally? Whatever - we went out to the Buninyong Christmas Night Market. The Carols in the Park had been cancelled because of the rain but the market went ahead. It was a pity about the weather. Had it been a pleasant afternoon/evening or even a dry one, and certainly if the carols had gone ahead - the market would have been packed. As it was, there were people there and the church and village halls were busy, but there were nowhere near the numbers that you would have expected and the outside stalls were fairly quiet. All the better for those of us who were there. We had the chance to have a proper look at things. Lindsey and I had decided that, had we been at a Christmas Market in Europe, we wouldn't worry about cold and wet weather, so we weren't going to worry about it in Buninyong and we had a good time despite the rain.

I brought a box of fish and chips home with me for dinner, took off my second lot of wet clothes, put my pyjamas and a snuggly dressing gown on, lit the Christmas lights and candles and settled in for a cosy evening in my warm and dry house.