A Long Weekend in Summer

It was very hot on Saturday afternoon. The morning was reasonable so I dropped to the supermarket for a few supplies. Then I pulled the blinds down, closed the windows and sat out the afternoon with the air conditioning on until the temperature dropped a bit in the evening.

Sunday was much, much better. Lovely weather, lovely temperature. I didn't go to the Alphington market because I had bought the makings of a fruit salad and a big green salad on Saturday so didn't really need very much at the market.

There was a message on the Garden WhatsApp group to say that one of "Urban forest" beds had been burnt overnight. Hard to say what had caused it. It had gone up in flames at around 10:15 pm so not likely to be a natural combustion. It might have been arson, although that was one of the smaller beds. Might have been a lit cigarette, I suppose. The CCTV cameras outside the entrance of the building don't reach that bed, although the stadium might have cameras pointing that way. Fortunately, no real damage had been done. Unless you happened to be the garden bed

I made my way to the Queen Victoria market side of town and met Freyja and Simon in the Bobbie Peels pub for a Sunday roast

Roast pork for me

Vegan and vegetarian nut roast for Freyja and Simon

Happy lunchers

Then we wandered down to the QV market. I don't go there very often. It is very big and I find it a bit intimidating. How to choose which stall to buy things from? How to choose what to buy? How to find things? However, Freyja had noticed my desire to buy some black garlic and had had a search to see if any of the stalls stocked it. She found one that did, so we located that stall and I bought some. (Although I have also ordered some flavoured butters online).

We were near to the newest of the Melbourne City Libraries, Narrm Ngarrgu (Which means Melbourne Knowledge in the local indigenous language) so we went in for a look around. It's lovely. Spacious and open and friendly with a glorious rooftop garden (which was closed to the public on Sunday, but which we could see through the windows and doors). It doesn't have the view that my local library (Library at the Dock) has, of water and boats and the Bolte Bridge, but it does have rather nice treetop views and you can see down along the market.

I nearly ran across Freyja and Simon again after we had parted company. They called into the Tokyo Hometown supermarket on their way home. I oh-so-nearly hopped off my tram and called in there too, but decided that I didn't really need anything and would call in another day.

Yesterday was a national public holiday and Wendy called around later in the morning. We wandered around to The District and had lunch in the Urban Alley Brewery, which I hadn't known about until somebody mentioned it on one of the Docklands' social pages. There are a lot of eating places around the Wheel in Docklands. It's not a food court, as such, more a collection of cafes and restaurants. I've eaten in the ramen shop several times but not really explored the other options. The pub is rather nice and my teriyaki salmon was lovely - both to look at and to eat. 

Wendy's chicken caesar salad was
ENORMOUS

It was beautiful weather for a potter around and people were out and about enjoying themselves. Today is forecast to be ridiculously hot. It's not too bad at the moment but the temperature is expected to rise to the mid 40s as the afternoon goes on. I went to a physio appointment at 9:30 and it was lovely weather for a stroll along the water. I do not think I will be going out this afternoon though. It's meant to drop back to more sensible summer temperatures for the rest of the week - but I do not expect that this will be last of the 40+d temperatures.  We have February yet to go!!!