Shopping

Stella sometimes complains that we never take her shopping. She likes shopping. She quite likes window shopping but she very much prefers actual shopping.

Mostly, she likes shopping for clothes. She disagrees with me vehemently when I suggest that she should adopt a one-in-one-out policy towards her clothes. You can't, she says, have too many clothes. She is even resistant to me taking her winter clothes and putting them at my place, or at Lindsey's place, on the grounds that you never know when it might turn cold again. (She's not wrong about that!) As a result, her wardrobe is stuffed full of clothes. There is no room for any more. The carers sometimes just pile the clothes up in a heap rather than trying to hang them up because there is no room and no clothes hangers. (I was allowed take her bulky winter jackets to my wardrobe at Hill House. But that has been it. So far!)

We did not take her out shopping on Saturday. Lindsey and I went to the market, where the stall holders were shivering and slightly blue. The Bureau of Meteorology had forecast a sunny day with a top temperature in the mid 20s. At 10:00 by the lake it was overcast and a touch on the chilly side. We went from the market into town and visited the kitchen shop, the "scoop" shop (where you buy things by the scoop so can buy as much or as little as you like). We went to the supermarket and to Wilson's.

And then we went home, all shopped out.

The sun had come out by now and it had turned into a lovely late spring, very early summer afternoon.

Stella was pleased to see me when I called in to visit on Saturday afternoon. I had taken with me a small tub of broad beans (amongst her favourite vegetables), which I had bought at the market. I also had with me a box of fresh raspberries and a box of fresh cherries, also from the market. And I had a pork pie, which they had in Woolies.  She likes pork pies and doesn't have them very often. 

I also offered an invitation to go shopping on Sunday!

Not clothes shopping, but a trip to the plant nursery at Avalon.

She was definitely up for that.

So on Sunday morning, Lindsey, Stella and I drove out to Avalon, where Stella bought many more trays of vegetable and herb seedlings than you might think she would need, given that she doesn't have a garden, nor even a balcony. We stopped by the cafe where she bought a cupcake, a muffin and a scone, plus a milkshake and two hot chocolates. We went back via Coles, where she bought custard and bananas to go with her raspberries and cherries. She bought a pumpkin salad to go with her pork pie. She might also have bought some Baileys chocolate truffles. And some cat food. Not that she has a cat, but I'm sure we can find some cats to benefit from the trays of Dine.

So no clothes. Even so, she enjoyed a couple of hours of retail therapy, in amongst the plants and the groceries. She likes that kind of shopping as well.

There are flowers on Jim's lime tree

and some teeny, tiny peaches on my dwarf peach tree.
I am not expecting them to ripen this year.
It's only a baby tree.