a funny old saturday

It's been a funny old day... firstly the weather, which has been cold, grey and damp for most of the day took a turn to the windy, stormy and torrential this afternoon and it's still a bit blustery out there...

But today was officially The Day That Got Away From Us...

We did the Supermarket Safari thing this morning as always, I stocked up one lots of stuff to make soup with, and we went a bit nuts on cheese and whatnot...

Then we came back here and unpacked and essentially sat around looking at each other going "what shall we do, what shall we do"... we had nothing... no ideas, no plans, nothing. And the weather just made matters worse, because anywhere that was kind of outside was out since we didn't want to have to dodge the rain a lot.

There didn't seem to be a point in going to any of the shopping centres... we were at Marion last week and mostly we just wander around and don't really go into many of the shops... plus neither of us really needed anything. All in all it was looking a little bit disastrous, nowhere to go, nothing to do...

In the end we decided to go back down to Marion "just for something to do"...

On the way we stopped off at what I think was called "The Scottish Shop" because Ma regularly says that she'd like to look in there when we drive past. And at least now she never has to say that again... unless I particularly want to buy a kilt or she wants some Scottish jewellery...

Of course, it being wet weather and the Saturday before Father's Day it seemed like everybody had decided to go down to Marion... and the fact that we'd left it slightly later than we usually would do... essentially we could not find a car park... yes, there were people leaving, but there were also a LOT of people circling the car park like deranged suburban sharks but every time we saw one there was already a car waiting to pounce on it.

And of course whenever it rains in Adelaide it seems like all the drivers lose their tiny minds so there was much stupid driving and honking.

We tried upstairs, we tried downstairs, but after a while we realised that it just wasn't going to happen. The only problem then was that we had absolutely no backup plan...

So we went with our usual default backup plan whenever we're within theoretical spitting distance of the coast... we went down to the beach. Coz, well... clouds and waves and whatnot... awesome.

We traipsed on down to Henley Beach and stopped off at the square, but it's kinda crap... hardly anything seemed open, there's nowhere decent looking to get fish and chips or anything... so we headed back to the car.

But as we headed back I was looking out at the water and spotted a dolphin... woohoo! This little fin and curving back would just pop up out of the waves every now and again, so we wandered past the car and down the shore a bit, just trying to spot it again.

And it didn't look like anybody else actually noticed it... either that or they're just used to it and all blasé and crap... but really, if you're blasé about seeing a wild dolphin is there really much point to your continued existance?

Anyway, once it got a bit too nippy we headed back to the car and headed off in search of a fish and chippery...

Now I may have mentioned this before, but back in England in the olden days, my Granddad (and Nanna) ran a fish and chippery... and that's where Ma grew up (in the house above said store)... so you could say that batter runs in my veins to some degree.

That being said...

We stopped off at the fish and chip shop in Grange... once upon a time that store was twice the size it is now, in fact it feels like every time I go in there the store is a little bit smaller than the previous time (I'm sure it's not, but it did used to be twice the size). And the windows are all covered with tinting film, which I'm sure makes sense in Summer when the evening sun is pounding through the windows, but it does make, but it also makes the place seem like it should be closed and a bit sketchy.

The place itself looks like it's in the throws of going out of business... the fridge had hardly any drinks in it, the menu board is really horribly done and full of spelling mistakes... it's all a bit yuck.

Having said all of that, the fish itself wasn't too bad... but I think that's the last time we ever, ever go there...

But it is nice to sit by the ocean eating fish and chips... which we did...

And then we headed back in the general direction of my place, although we did stop off at Bunnings so Ma could take a look at some drought tolerant plants (and no, the irony of looking at drought tolerant plants in very wet weather did not escape me) and then some general wandering around looking at hardware and whatnot.

That was the point, as I mentioned at the beginning of the post, where the heavens opened and the weather went nuts!

Wind and rain and the whole banana...

Thankfully I'm all toasty warm and dry and indoors...

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