We started out the day in the usual fashion, I wore my new Bonds knit hoodie which was an excellent idea because the weather was in a word, woeful (well, woeful to everyone else, grey rainy weather is my favourite kind of weather, and we never got directly rained on) and even though I didn't wear anything under it I was nice and warm all day long.
I was waiting for Ma downstairs when she arrived so we headed straight off to the supermarket. That was all fairly standard, except for the fact that I didn't buy every vegetable that wasn't nailed down like I have for the last couple of weeks. Thankfully I have three different left over items in the freezer which will take care of my lunches for the first part of the week.
I did however get the makings for Rocky Road, which I've been meaning to make and take to work but keep forgetting to buy the ingredients for. So I'll set some time aside tomorrow and then take (most of) it along on Monday.
Then we did a quick spin around Target so I could grab a new belt for work and Ma could look at jumpers. We both found what we were looking for thankfully, so once we were done we headed back here.
After the ritual unpacking we then had the entire day to fill... we were planning on heading off to That Dapper Market, but that wasn't until 3pm at the earliest, and the we were off to the Bakehouse Theatre at 8pm.
But other than that we didn't have anything planned.
We did manage to fill up the time though.
Ma decided that she was going to drive home, take her shopping with her, and she asked me to go with her so we could call in at the Pooraka Waste Transfer Station (aka Hard Rubbish Dump) to drop in the old oil heater that used to be mine, since she isn't able to lift it into the car herself.
The drive up to Ma's was fine... not overly eventful but not that long either. We only stayed long enough for Ma to unpack her groceries and to load the heater in the back of the car and then we were off again.
The stop at the dump was very brief... in fact I think we waited for another car to reverse and a giant bulldozer type thing to get out of the way than it took me to unload and dump the heater.
We then headed down the road to the Gepps Cross Homemaker Centre.
I think I've only been there once before, not that long after it opened... we usually end up at the Mile End one... but there are a bunch more interesting stores out at Gepps Cross.
We started off in Toys R Us... mostly just for the looking, partly to see what their range of Lego was like, partly to have a look around for a present for Tink's new baby once it makes it's entrance into the world.
I did end up finding an adorable version of Toothless from the How To Train Your Dragon sequel. He's pocket-sized and just begging to be taken on adventures.
I also had my first proper opportunity to dig around in the Lego Simpsons minifigs. Well, I've had opportunities before but never very much enthusiasm, but one of the first packs I felt up turned out to be Itchy, and he and Scratchy were really the only figures I was particularly fussed about, plus they make a nice pairing. Thankfully from what I read yesterday, they're returning to the regular minifig series from here on out, which I'm very pleased about, although I need to come up with a other storage solution, since nobody sells the big Lego cases any more.
Then we kind of did a bit of a circuit. I decided that I want to buy a Sodastream recently after I started drinking soda water... I always found it boring before, but I don't know what changed, but I've been enjoying it lately. It's also got a similar mouth feel to lemonade, but without the sugar.
Anyway, I saw a particular model on their website and spent a large amount of today trying to track on down unsuccessfully. Looks like I'll have to order one online.
We poked around JB Hifi, Harris Scarfes, Good Guys and some other random shops. When we were in Harris Scarfes I saw some big stockpots, bigger than the one I currently have and ideal for soup, but there was also another kitchenware store on the other side of the complex so I wanted to check that out before I committed to anything (and it turned out to be a good thing).
When we headed over to the other store, they had an enamel pot, which was nice, but I wasn't completely sure about because it was more expensive. What they did have though was a nice cheap pizza stone... because I miss my old one. And double bonus because it was the last one in the store.
I decided to go back to Harris Scarfes and get the pot from there, and I was standing in line with it when I noticed the woman being served at the counter in front of me had both a big stockpot and a smaller casserole pot like the one I already have... and the total on the machine was less than I was paying for one pot. So I jumped out of line and went to find those pots. The ones I'd been looking for were half price, but the one I found had been $80 and was marked down to $20. Bargain!
The weather had been drizzling on and off as we wandered from shop to shop but managed to mostly hold off. We moved the car over to the far side of the complex to let us have a wander around Spotlight so I could look at curtains for the kitchen again... but even though I have the measurements written down, I didn't completely trust them, so I'll need to measure up again before I go looking next time.
Since I was still on the hunt for a Sodastream we headed off to Arndale next. They had some, but not the model I'm after which is annoying. We didn't end up buying anything from Arndale so it was more a killing time excursion than anything else. Sure, if there had been anything to buy I would have, but there wasn't, so I didn't.
From there it was getting closer to 3pm, so we headed into the city to the old Trims building for That Dapper Market. It wasn't quite as good as the first time we went... most of that was down to the location, Trims is a rabbit warren of small spaces that clearly isn't designed to take a shit-tonne of hipsters all stopping inconveniently in the way of everyone else. The old Clipsal factory was a much better venue.
We did a first circuit, Ma bought a brown velvet hat (nicer than it sounds) and I finally got a chance to buy something from Fleeci, which I've been wanting to do for ages. In fact, the top fox piece in this shot is now sitting on one of my bookcases.
And we grabbed a couple of the most amazing chocolate cookies from a place I never got the name of. They were exceptional cookies though.
Even with the cookies, we still needed some food since we hadn't had anything since much earlier in the day, and we tossed up going to Veggie Velo, but there was another place that had soup with chicken meatballs, so we decided to try that instead. It was... okay. It was hot, it was filling, it came with a nice bread roll... but I make tastier soup than that.
After the soup we did another circuit just to see if there was anything we missed (there wasn't, but we bought another couple of cookies for later), and then called it quits before I was forced to bludgeon people to death with arts and crafts items for walking ridiculously slowly, standing right in the middle of very busy walkways have a conversation and just stopping without paying attention to who may have been behind them.
I mean I've been to worse markets, but this in no way lived up to the promise of the first one we went to.
Once we'd made it back outside we headed back here to my place, I unpacked all my purchases and we kind of sat around for a while until we decided to head down to O'Connell Street to get some dinner.
Sure, we really shouldn't have been that hungry since we'd only eaten a couple of hours before, but we were.
We decided to try Gin Long Canteen, which is the place Ma would have gotten us dinner the night I moved in here had it not been for the fact that they were shut.
I will say that next time we go, I think I'll just rampage through their sides menu, since I was much more impressed with the sides than the mains.
We chose to have some prawn toast as an entrée, and that was without doubt the best prawn toast I've ever had. Granted I think I've only ever had it from food courts before, but this was gorgeous. And then because we'd had to wait a little while for it the guy who may or may not have been head chef (I'm really not sure) also gave us some prawn dumplings free of charge, which was incredibly sweet of him (once we worked out that's what was going on). The dumplings were very full of prawn but they were swimming/sitting in this very laksa-like broth, all coconut milk and spices, that I could have drunk by the bowlful.
For mains we got the spicy caramel chicken (which was neither spicy nor caramel, although it was chicken) and the slow braised Thai beef (which was wonderfully tender and falling apart, but didn't have as much kick to it as I would have liked). I was also marginally traumatised by the interestingly named Nom Nom Barramundi dish since it was bite size portions of fish, deep fried and then served in the dried, curled carcass of a fish.
Did I mention that we were sitting at the "kitchen counter" and could see everything being prepared... and a lot of people seemed to have having the fish.
To be completely honest, the Kwik Stix that used to be there was much better. Better range, more interesting looking and tasting food. And yet this place was packed out relatively early on a Saturday afternoon.
From there it was back into the city to The Bakehouse for the Unseen Theatre Company's production of Thief of Time... but that review will have to wait until the morning, it's too damn late and I'm too damn tired to do it tonight.
So it was a fourteen and a half hour day... next weekend will be an extended Saturday since it's Ma's birthday celebrations and we have Cabaret Festival tickets...
Oh, and as a general note to myself, I was right about the family on the ground floor moving out, but they were replaced by a family that's from exactly the same part of the world and has exactly the same number of family members (I think, I'm not sure if I've actually seen the husband yet), so that explains why I got confused. And I either saw the new guy who's moving into the ground floor unit under me (well under the person who's under me if we're being technical) or else saw the guy who's moving out just before he moves out.
All I know is currently there only seems to be a bike, a clothes airer and a framed poster left in the apartment (which we saw as we walked past at one point today).
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