Land of Oz

It might be a mistake to write an entry while I’m so exhausted, but otherwise it could take days before it’s posted, so I’m willing to risk it. Today was a bit of a rollercoaster.

We woke up early to go to the Hamilton Music, Food and Wine Festival. As we weren’t sure if there would be any ATM machines alongside the festival area, we decided to walk to campus and withdraw some cash there. As luck would have it, the ATM machine was closed, so we did quite an unnecessary detour - complete with ravenous mozzies who were after our blood. As usual. Well, undaunted we waited for the bus, and once on it, we planned carefully where to get off, because it was our first time to Beaumont Street, where the festival was held. Needless to say, we missed our stop, and ended up walking quite a bit to reach the festival area. I think it was pretty much at that point that the sun decided to come out and start scorching our hides.

The festival area was only semi-full when we arrived, as it was still quite early. We stopped by a second hand bookstore (always a mistake when I’m around), and bought a lovely faerie-book for me, called Lady Cottington’s Fairy Album by Brian Froud. After that we withdrew some money from one of the numerous ATM machines alongside the street, and walked around the stalls to have a look at what they had to offer. Mostly it was like any ol’ fair, with food stalls selling preserves, chilli products, roasted peanuts and what have you. There were also some wine stalls, selling local wine products from the Hunter Valley wineries (and we ended up buying a crateful of tasty wines, which should be delivered tomorrow ). There were games and face painting for the kids, and all kinds of performances for children and adults alike. We bought an ice cream for me and a smoothie for Leke, and came out of the shop just in time to catch the show by the monsters from the Kavon Theme Restaurant, where I’ve wanted to dine ever since we came here It looked like a lot of fun, so I’m pretty sure we’re going to check it out sooner or later. What can I say, I’m a sucker for monsters.

At that point it was so hot already that we decided to move on. We stopped briefly at an Indian take away place to eat some curry, and then took a bus to Waratah Village, a shopping centre. You see, Clipse invited us to participate in a small dinner party tomorrow, which she is throwing for a couple of her friends, and she asked us to make something too. We had planned to make soy chicken with mom’s excellent recipe, but as we got to the supermarket, it became obvious they just didn’t have one of the vital ingredients: marjoram. We were bummed to say the least, and so we took the bus home with our tails between our legs, as the proverb goes. Luckily once we got home, Clipse was just about to go shopping with her friend Daniel, and they promised to take a look if the other shopping centre would offer better resources, and it turned out that it did! So, soy chicken tomorrow, and I can only hope people will like it.

But now I’m too tired to do anything but drag my sorry butt to bed and hope tomorrow won’t be quite as hot as today was..