It was the Labour Day long weekend in Victoria, which meant it was the Moomba Festival in Melbourne and the start of the Begonia Festival in Ballarat.
Lindsey and I went to the Zoo Drive market on Saturday morning, which had been augmented by extra stalls, food trucks and food stalls for the Begonia Festival. Lots more things to look at and to buy! There were also events, activities and food trucks in the Botanical Gardens. It was a lovely morning and the people had come out to play. The Festival did run last year but we were still under covid restrictions so it was slightly muted. Almost no restrictions this year and the lake and botanical gardens were buzzing.
It was good to see.
We didn't go to any other of the events on offer. Instead we enjoyed the peace and quiet of Mount Helen, which was almost deserted. I assume people had gone away for the long weekend, or were out enjoying the Begonia Festival. Wherever they were, they weren't here!
Continuing the "Using up the mysterious things hidden in our freezers" adventure that Lindsey and I have embarked on, I once again went fossicking in the laundry freezer at Hill House and the garage freezer at Tani, and made two dishes, one for Rupert and Hugo for the week, and one for Lindsey, Ian, Jim and me for our Friday evening meal.
They both look extremely tasty. We could have eaten either of them. But we had the seafood pasta bake and Rupert and Hugo had the lamb pasta.
We were up at Hill House on Monday night, while Lindsey and Ian were in Melbourne. After I sorted the beds out so Jim and I actually had a bed to sleep in (No, Hugo, you can't lie diagonally across our bed and push Jim out!), every one was sleeping peacefully. Until I became aware that Hugo had appeared silently next to me and was looking at me intently. This was a bit disconcerting. He wandered off. And then returned, looking at the bedside table. Then he looked at me again. Then I realised that one of the presenters on the radio, which I had on, was called Hugo. "Hello", he was saying. "Welcome to the program. This is Hugo Thingummy." And then, of course, people were saying things like "Hello, Hugo, thank you for having me". My radio was speaking Hugo's name, and quite frequently at that. You can understand why our Hugo was a bit perplexed!
And I have reached this milestone on my Drops app. Drops is a vocabulary app which I have been using to bolster my Japanese learning. Occasionally I also use it to dip into French. Five minutes a day.
I am aiming now for 1095 days, which is (more or less) three years. If only my Japanese vocabulary reflected 5000 minutes worth of practice :-D
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