Hotch Potch of a Weekend

Apparently the tennis last night went on forever. I wonder if it was Novak’s strategy to cement his place in Melbourne and overcome the love otherwise reserved for Rafa, Federer or anyone local. In any case, I’m glad (in a way) the matches we watched on Friday night didn’t go quite as long. We watched Berdych beat an Austrian (Melzer) in straight sets and then sat through the painful spectacle of seeing Stosur and a young bloke called Saville, being thumped by Mirza, who appeared to be a popular Indian, and Bryan – her very likeable American partner. Thankfully it ended quickly too so we were home by about 11.30pm.

We slept in a little bit on Sat then went to the Station Street Café in Nunawading. It was then the usual rounds of dry cleaners and grocery. Other than to Forest Hill Chase for our usual fruits and veg shop, we drove up Canterbury Road to the Asian grocery shop, where I wanted to check out their stock of pork ribs. They didn’t have any so I just got chicken and Tress got her salmon from there too. We were going to cook for a dinner at Jason and Mel’s that night.

Back home after all the chores and errands, Kiddo waited for her mates who were coming to the house. Tress and I did some work in the garden – we had planned to get rid of a large plant in front of our bedroom window. It was one of 3 New Zealand flax, which was crowding out the little space outside our window and we wanted to add something smaller with more colour.

Near the end of the job I realised we needed a good hoe to get rid of the stumpy bits and the roots. We didn’t have one so it had to wait. We then got ready for a 2pm appointment with some friends for coffee at their home.

Jonathan and Carrie moved to Melbourne from Malaysia early last year and we met and got to know them a little bit as they lived just a few streets near our home. They bought a new place towards the end of last year and had moved in, so we visited them on Sat arvo. They also invited a couple of other families so there we all were – migrants from Malaysia and Singapore all getting to know each other. It’s our ninth year here in Melbourne and spending the arvo with these relatively new comers (ranging from 1-3+ years) made us think about our earlier years here.

We left close to 4pm, and started cooking when we got home. Jason and Mel as usual, had a large group there. There were about 5families there and everyone sat down to a good meal and lusty conversations.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t meet again the next day in church – we went to another church as usual, and while the rawness may have rounded off a little, it was still a sore point to head to another – new – church on Sunday mornings. The pain lingers on.

I had wanted to give the browning lawn a bit of watering on Sunday morning but an injured bird on the lawn forced an unplanned visit to the RSPCA to drop that bird off. We then headed to Edge Church again and then went to Madam Kwong’s at Box Hill for lunch and stopped by Bunnings on the way home, to get the hoe I needed to finish off the job. We got rid of the plant altogether, and then whiled away the rest of the day – including giving Scruffi a couple of walks, first with Tress and I and then with Kiddo.