Friday
On Friday last week a couple of colleagues from an overseas office kept a few of us here a bit busy. There was supposed to be a tender in a Scandinavian market early this week and a combination of flying a bit blind and reading Norwegian translations of documents worked up a bit of stress and when I finally let the office, I wasn’t thinking about what to do that night which was a bit annoying as Friday night is special. No, it’s sacred. So, I tend to think about what to do to honour its place in my weekly schedule, a couple of days before it arrives.
When I got home, I packed away the wines that got delivered by The Australian Wine mob, and asked Tress what she’d like to do. We ended up in that very lovely Thai joint which is on the way to our small group meeting place, the Maury’s home. It’s not much more than a hole in a wall establishment but the food there’s really good and the people there are really friendly.
Back home after dinner, we thought about watching something on Netflix. After the Hawks’ diabolical mauling by Port Adelaide on Thursday night I wasn’t in the mood to watch more footy but the Cats were hosting the Crows and these are real flag contenders so I caved in. Watching Cats’ Selwood/Dangerfield combo is painful only in the sense they’re the Cats’ engine room instead of the Hawks’. The uncompromising ball hunting, the clear decision making, the skills, the explosive but smooth and silky delivery of power that Dangerfield habitually turns on – they’re all just sensational to watch. The Cats certainly put paid to the Crows’ flag ambitions.
The perennially watchable Shawshank Redemption was on another channel and I toggled between the two. It wasn’t a bad way to spend a Friday night after dealing with Scandinavian boxes.
Saturday
It was supposed to be cold on Saturday morning so Tress and I had planned to be at home, cleaning and vacuuming. We did this for over a couple of hours and then decided to take a drive to a market we haven’t been to for many years. We drove out east to the Dandenong Market, had our lunch there, and bought our groceries for the week’s meal. Stuff is a lot cheaper there but the demographics have changed noticeably. The large scale middle eastern food and wares on offer is a testament to the sort of local demand now prevailing in this part of town. We spent over a couple of hours there and then went back to walk Scruff. He was happy as Larry as always, and strutted around in the oval, where he has earned a wonderful reputation as a very friendly and easy-going pooch. I guess the fact that he’s blind also earns him tonnes of affection.
We did turn to Netflix later that night, and watched a movie (“The Good Lie“)about a group of Sudanese youth escaping the civil war, made a long trek on foot to a refugee camp in Kenya, before eventually ending up in Kansas City in the US. It was a funny, touching and eye-opening movie. It made very good points without shouting in your face and so the left plenty of room to absorb the message more meaningfully.
Sunday
It was Pentecost Sunday and the service at St Alf’s started with “prayeroplanes” flying across the auditorium. These were prayers each wrote on papers that were then made into aeroplanes and these paper planes were launched so that someone else catches them and prays for the stuff you wrote. It was a fun way of getting the church to pray for each others’ concerns as well as a good way to end the “Thy Kingdom Come” prayer initiative started by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the Church of England head honcho. I never knew a title such as “Chief Prayer Officer” existed but when I signed up and got emails from a Michelle Eyre with that title, I was impressed, as the daily 5-minute prayers were thoughtful, insightful and very balanced and nuanced as only the British can do ever so well.
I had woken up early that morning to watch Real Madrid beat the grand old lady to retain the Champions League. Soon after, news of the London Borough Market terrorist attacks started streaming in. So right through the service my mind was on the yet another episode of terror on the streets.
After lunch in our usual place, we tried to look for a blender to replace our usual, daily smoothie maker which is probably into its final laps. We didn’t pick anything up but got a fairly good shortlist, which we’d try to find online.
Back home, Scruff got another long walk treat and then I did the week’s lunches/meals as well as a load of chilly-sauce and pickled green chillies. We had picked up a couple of bags of chillies on the cheap from the market on Saturday and after Tress did our smoothies on our dying blender and we got cleaned up, our fridge looked well stocked – ready for the week.
Ginny MacPherson had said something at the end of the service at St Alf’s which I agreed with wholeheartedly. She read from Romans 10 and made an impassioned plea. I need to get ready to respond so I hope this week I’d be shown tender mercies to be a channel of some much needed salve on the wounds that are constantly opening up everywhere. As the Lord said, may His Kingdom come…
Ante 