The legal team has had a few lunches in a laksa place about a block away from the office. Earlier last week someone suggested another visit for Friday. I suggested a ramen place instead. I had stumbled onto Fukuryu Ramen in Chinatown several weeks ago and liked it. The team had a go and really liked it too so my taste isn’t too far off the mark then. Good to know.

A couple of them had the large bowl and were absolutely stuffed so the arvo was a bit slow. Just after 4 the boss suggested drinks and so at about 4.30 we adjourned to “The Fringe” at the northern end of Madam Brussel Lane and finished the working week there.

I later came back to the office, to wait for Tress who was making her way back to the city. We were heading to the MCG for the big game to kick off footy finals. Hawks v Geelong is always a highlight but a place in the preliminary final with all the advantages it offers, was high stakes footy. I had gotten the tickets pretty early and had been looking forward to the game all week.

Hawks won, the walk to Richmond Station and platforms 9&10 were shoulder to shoulder and when we got home just after 11pm it felt like a ripper weekend had well and truly started.

Next morning Tress and I tried out a new joint on South Parade in Blackburn. Urban Zinc is a keeper and we would likely return whenever we felt like a treat on a Saturday morning. After brekky we went back home and I worked the garden, Tress vacuumed and did other errands and Scruff had the groomer visit. The day was so gorgeous I didn’t want to come into the house.

Our lemon tree stopped fruiting about a year ago and I had slowly pruned the tree back. We’ve now decided to get rid of it so on Saturday I started on the larger branches. The old tree had thick branches and trunks and the pruning saw felt inadequate but we don’t have many trees so investing in a chainsaw felt a bit over the top. It was a really nice day anyway – sunny, about 20deg – so I worked away slowly. It was well past 1pm when Tress reminded me we had to start getting ready to be at Gerry and Jesslyn’s place for the birthday party of their younger daughter.

After Sheryl’s party we came home and walked Scruff before catching up with the Hippos again, together with the Chews. They wanted dinner so we caught up at Pancake Parlour – a joint all of us haven’t been to for the longest time. We came home and saw North Melbourne overturn a big deficit to defeat Essendon. Sydney had won earlier, leaving Fremantle to battle it out with North next week. The Tigers got mauled by the Powers last night and so Geelong would meet Port Adelaide. Or maybe I got the cross over wrong…

So no footy for us this weekend – we’d be heading to Warrnambool.

Sunday at church we had Stephen and Ruth Devenish give a quick introduction to the work they would do in Thailand next year. Ruth worked in the same building as me when I was at Steer but we didn’t talk very much but I knew she had wanted to do work in Thailand, where she grew up. Tress and I talked about helping them in our tiny way so we’ll see how that pans out.

After church we headed to Madam Kwong and after lunch we did some grocery shopping but this time in the Burwood One location. I had wanted to look for a new dry cleaner as our regular dry cleaner had been sold to a Chinese owner who was rather unpleasant to deal with. I might still return to them – maybe give them a second chance…

We then walked the little fellow again – the day was as good as the day before and it was far too gorgeous to just stay at home. When we finally got home and stayed home, I did my usual weekend cooking but Tress couldn’t resist going outside again to potter around the front garden.

We ended the weekend with a DVD Tress borrowed from the new public library in Docklands. “True Grit” with Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon turned out to be thoroughly enjoyable. The main character was a 14 year old girl, played so very effectively by someone whose name I need to find out. It was a wonderful movie. The end credits explained why – the Coen brothers made it, with Steven Spielberg as the Executive Producer.