The Easter Weekend Holiday You Have When You're Not Having An Easter Weekend Holiday

Well, Xander and I aren't religious people, as you may have gathered by now. Still, it's an Australian tradition that everyone goes away at Easter, not to mention that I wanted to take advantage of four precious days off work, and do something slightly festive. So, get yourself a coffee - I'll wait - then pull up a chair and read all about it...

On Friday everything was shut, so I just rested and hung out at home with Xander. I feel guilty because I've been so busy and not spending much time with him lately, so it was nice to enjoy some one-on-one face time (even if after awhile, it became more like "get-your-cat-breath-OUT-of-my-face!" time!)

A photo just because.


Then on Saturday, I was up at a ridiculously early hour, to set off on my adequatley-sized day out. Just getting anywhere was annoying - I had to get a taxi to the train station, endure a 3 hour trip to Sydney, and then get another train out to the western suburbs. Western Sydney has been much in the news lately due to the apparent outbreak of a gang war, and I was terrified that at any moment I was going to acquire "innocent by-stander" status. Still, it was lots of fun catching up...

Then, after another two train journeys, I met up with Blubloo and Sam in Newtown. First we had lunch, which wasn't as good as it could have been - Blubloo seems to have a bad record with ordering chicken dishes when I'm around! *coughs*

Then on to the main part of the day - SHOPPING. Now, I've noticed one of two things can happen when I go shopping - either I start spending and can't stop, or I get a bit overwhelmed by all the choice and don't buy much. After the poor selections in the shops I'm used to, I'm afraid that in Newtown on Saturday I suffered rather from the latter. I did end up with a Living Dead doll, bat-print footlets, a hat (enough already with the hats!) a cigarette case and a few other bits, but my expected clothing splurge didn't eventuate.

At Gallery Serpentine I picked up this skirt, though in green tartan not red, for the bargain price of $40 - it turned out to be my only clothing purchase of the day. Since I rarely go out, it makes more sense to buy things for the house than clothes anyway, and I bought a print of Botticelli's "La Primavera" for the lounge room. Xander thought the tube which it came in was a much better toy, than the present I actually bought him!


But by this time it was getting on for about 5pm and I was exhausted, so I decided to begin the long journey home. Well, it was an ordeal. First of all, the train to Newcastle was packed with people who'd been at the Royal Easter show, including a whole family (parents included!) who spent the entire journey bopping each other on the head with inflatable toys they'd bought - I took several direct hits myself, and received no apology for any of them.

Worse, however, was to come when I got a taxi home from the train station. Picture this: you're tired at the end of a very long day, and your taxi driver hits you with this (imagine me giving a short "mmm-hmm" during every pause):
"Have you been at the Show? We're not going this year...my husband is having problems with his legs...he won't go to the doctor, men never do...though my husband is scared of doctors, he was in and out of hospital as a child...he actually had very bad mumps in the groin...he lost a testicle...luckily it didn't make him sterile, we've had three children..."
At this point I had to say "Well! That's a lot of information" as I feared she was going to start telling me how the children were conceived, in which case I would have jumped out the door of the moving taxi, into the traffic. Luckily she seemed to take the hint, and I was just about home anyway.

On Sunday I was exhausted and achey, but figured I should do something a bit festive. So I bought a BBQ chicken and some salads, and Xander and I had a little feast: me with the salad and white meat, him with most of the rest of the chicken! Then I finally got started on a project I'd been planning for ages: painting a picture I wanted to do on canvas. It took much longer than I thought - by last night, I'd only done some of the outlines.

Well, I could go on but quite frankly, I couldn't be bothered writing it (and I'm sure no one would bother reading it). It's the second of three four-work-day weeks in a row, so I'll post something a little more stimulating tomorrow...