montage monday: gouger street

Since I was going to be out somewhere different from the norm anyway yesterday, I decided it was as good a time as any to take some shots for today's Monday Montage... And Gouger Street is actually a pretty visual street... what with the public art and the fact that it's part of Chinatown, and contains the Central Market, and all the other cafes and restaurants... actually that whole section of the street is pretty much an orgy of food... The weather wasn't the best ever, but I still got a few nice shots.

We're having yet another Public Holiday today... this time it's Australia's celebration of the Queen's Birthday... we don't have a public holiday on her real birthday in April because it's too close to Anzac Day and Easter usually. So instead we get a fairly pointless day off in the middle of June, just when everything is all wet and grey.

Miraculously I'm actually feeling pretty much like a person again after my brief bout of sickness at the end of last week... it was really odd though, for some reason I became really sensitive to both light and sound while I was sick... it was actually at it's worst on Saturday, while I was out shopping... so that just became one big chore... it was so bad that I ended up wearing my sunglasses inside the supermarket because it just seemed too bright. And with my hearing being super-sensitive too, crying children became ear-splittingly piercing... and I even had to turn the teevee down because I couldn't cope with the loud noises. Weird.

I also mentioned at the end of last week that my oil heater had gone kaput again... *mutter*... so I'll be taking my heater off to the nice repair man on Tuesday... joy...

Fortunately I'm not freezing to death though... Ma just rocks... after we'd been shopping on Saturday she took off, and then about three quarters of an hour later there was a knock on my door and there she was with what I'm now calling my teddy blankey... it's got that supersoft teddy bear fabric on one side, and the "old school" teddy fleece on the other, and a thin layer of "stuffing" between them, making the whole thing super, super warm... so, that, and making myself a big old jug of Ma's Hot Lemon Drink (freshly squeezed lemons, honey and hot water) I think aided in me feeling all person-like again.

An odd thing happened towards the end of my walk today... I was at the corner, waiting to cross over into the square on the homeward leg of my walk, and this little white car with P plates (ie it either belonged to a gayboy or a girl) appeared, and beeped it's horn at me. At first I thought they were making sure I wasn't going to cross in front of them, but then I realised that the passenger was madly waving at me out of the window... and my first instinct had to have been correct... definitely gay boys... anyway, I'm almost 100% sure I've never seen either the passenger or driver before in my life, so rather than wave, I just kind of watched them quizzically, thinking that they would work out their mistake soon enough if I didn't wave back.

But no... more waving and a little more beeping until they went around the square and out of my direct line of sight. Just in case I did know them, I watched the car go up to the end of the square (in case they were going to do a loop back around), but no, they pulled away from the square and I assumed they were going to continue down the road. But again, no... they stopped the car just past the square... which is when I really thought I must know them, if they were stopping and getting out and coming over towards me.

It wasn't actually me they were headed for though, it was one of the houses around the square... they jumped out of the car, dashed over, seemed to either be ringing the bell at the gate or just jumping around like idiots, I was actually too far away to tell... then suddenly they ran from the gate, jumped back in the car and, just as I got to the end of the square near them, the driver pulled a U-turn and headed back around the square, which meant that they actually went past me again. And again the driver tooted and waved at me. By this point I was just amused by them, so I pointed at the car and then made the international sign for "crazy" (one finger circling by the side of my temple)... which I think got a laugh from the pair of them, then they took off back around the square and off the way they had come.

Weird people...

And yet again tonight, I should be having J and Monkey over for dinner (even though the Powers That Be have moved Mythbusters from 7:30 to 8:30 because of all this World Cup fuss and nonsense)... I think I'm going to miss cooking for them when they're gone... I've actually tried to make sure that I make something different each week since J has been home... First it was stirfry, then chicken schnitzel, then beef curry and tonight will be Pern-inspired Herdbeast stew (which is basically a really nice beef stew... but it's something I haven't made for ages)... then I think I only have to come up with one more thing next week and then they're gone...

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