Goodness, what a day! Exhausting, but fun… 🙂 We left around ten o’clock this morning, to pick up my favourite eldest daughter for our Great Shopping Expedition to Chadstone – reputedly the largest shopping mall in the southern hemisphere. I was going to take, and use, my wheelchair today – Chadstone being as huge as it is (and currently undergoing renovations in order to make it even bigger – if that’s even remotely possible!) but I changed my mind, and for once, we left the wheelchair at home, and I walked around Chadstone. My reasoning was thus: firstly, if I used the wheelchair at Chadstone, I’d have to run off to do my treadmilling as soon as I got home, when I’d be tired and crotchety and didn’t really feel like walking one and a half kilometers, and secondly, there’d probably be a lot of stores that the two of us would want to have a look at, but that I wouldn’t be able to get into with the wheelchair, and you can’t just park an unlockable electric wheelchair outside a shop and leave it, because it probably wouldn’t be there when you came out! I figured that if I really couldn’t keep going any longer, then I’d probably be able to get one of the shopping centre’s ride-on-scooters to get me around until it was time to come home. So the wheelchair stayed in the garage at home, and I went shopping without it! 🙂 As it turns out, with the exception of Myer and David Jones, I wouldn’t have been able to get the wheelchair into any of the shops we went into! And just as an aside to any shop owners or managers reading this blog: I know the object is to sell as much “guff” as possible, especially around Christmas, but honestly – you could sell twice, or even three times, as much “guff” as you currently do, if you allowed all your potential customers – including the disabled in their wheelchairs – adequate access to your establishment! I’m not kidding! Just as one example – the two Apothecaries at Doncaster Shoppingtown have so much “junk” (and yes, it really is “junk”!) choking off both their entrances that even dog fleas have difficulty squeezing in, let alone customers! I dunno… (Winter shakes her head in sad amazement at their shortsightedness!)
Anyway, we had a good old explore around that particular little part of Chadstone – or at least, I did! I haven’t been there for almost a century (it feels like that long, anyway!) though my favourite eldest daughter knows it well enough to guide me to the shops I needed to go to… There’s a lovely new Ferguson Plarre shop there! So after I’d managed to find, and buy, the first part of Julian’s Christmas Present, we sat down in there and celebrated with a cup of coffee! While we were there I also bought a small Christmas Pudding to “test” – we don’t have a Christmas Cake, or Pudding, yet, and we sort-of like to get a small Christmas Pudding to test, before buying a Family sized one for Christmas Day – so we’ll try that out later this week to see if we’ll get one of the larger Ferguson Plarre Puddings for Christmas Day, or whether we’ll get another Pudding from Phillippa’s, which from memory is what we had last year…
Then we staggered off to Myer, and then David Jones, in a vain search for a decent Panforte (Siena Cake!) – and the ever elusive Motta Panettone! While both stores had fairly decent looking Panettone, in the end David Jones won out as having the best Italian version, and if we can’t source our very favourite Motta ones, we’ll probably end up buying a few from David Jones… Both stores also had the same Australian brand Panforte, which I think we’ll give a big miss… they were about as un-authentic as it’s possible to get, and what’s more, they contained chocolate, and glacé cherries! In other words, they were about as Panforte-like as a fried egg! I think I’m going to have to keep looking… Does anyone reading this know of a really good European Delicatessen where I might find these elusive items?
Food: Well, as I told you last night, we had pork fillet cooked with onions for dinner last night, with boiled potatoes (over which I smeared a teaspoon of plain Greek yoghurt – unfortunately we forgot to chop up a Spring Onion, so I just had the yoghurt) green beans, and half a tomato. It was delicious! (I love fried onions!) Today Lee and I had lunch at Chadstone, at a nice little restaurant called Bouchée – Lee had brought her Optifast bar, but I had the lightest thing I could find on the menu – a ham, cheese and tomato sandwich on sourdough bread 
Not all that light, really, but it was the best I could find, seeing as I can’t eat any form of seafood! I also had a flourless pear cake and a glass of iced coffee, with no cream or ice cream, and made with skinny-milk… *sigh* It’s very hard trying to watch what you eat when you’re out – thank goodness I’m going to be home tomorrow!
Weigh-in this morning. Well, after walking the length and breadth of The Glen yesterday, I was very gratified this morning to see that I’d lost two of the five points I’d gone up the day before – I went from 65.2kg to 65.0kg! Hopefully, because of all the walking I did around Chadstone today, and despite the luncheon that I ate there, I might manage to squeeze down another couple of points! A lot of walking seems to help – which was yet another reason that I decided to walk, instead of taking the wheelchair! There’ll be more walking on Thursday, when I go to the hairdresser, so keep all your fingers and toes crossed for me, and I’ll try to keep away from sandwiches… (I can’t promise about the little cakes, though! 😉 )
My Bathroom. Well, it’s been promised for next Sunday! As far as promises like that can be kept – I mean, if the caesarstone bench top isn’t finished in time, or the mirror isn’t ready, then neither will my bathroom be finished or ready! It’s as simple as that! Clarke has said that they’ll be working all next weekend – all the tiling and grouting has now been done (and looks fantastic!) the sliding door (with a lock on it!) has finally been installed, the toilet, shower and rails, and possibly even the glass shower screen and door, will be going in tomorrow. The painting needs to be done, the ceiling and concealed lighting under the vanity unit have to be installed, as do the power points and the switches, plus the bench-top, the mirror, and the drawer handles – but other than those few, minor items, it’s finished! 😉 We’ll see how it goes over the next five or so days… and there’ll be lots of photos when it’s all done! 🙂 “Watch This Space”! 😉
So that was my day – unfortunately I can’t tell you what I got Julian – you’ll have to wait until Christmas Day to find that out, but I can tell you that Flipper also got her very favourite Daddy a present that she’s sure he’ll like, and I picked up a couple of little prezzies for two friends of mine – one of which had better be wrapped up tonight because I’m not sure if we’re seeing him tomorrow or not, as he’s probably in the throes of moving house! He’s supposed to be coming down from the other side of the Black Stump, so we might give him a call a bit later and see what’s happening! And now once again, that’s about it from me for tonight! Please feel free to drop in again tomorrow night to see if my weight benefited from my trek through Chadstone Shopping Centre today – two floors, up and down and all around – surely must do some good! And what’s happening with the bathroom – have I got a toilet in there yet? Are the basins in? Running water? 🙂 Find out about all our latest news and adventures this time tomorrow night (or maybe later, if Steve isn’t in the middle of moving!) but until then, you haven’t got long to go now, so please bee extra good 😉 don’t forget then when faced with any kind of problem, we can either make it our excuse, or make it part of a greater story – and always remember to drive carefully, to look after yourselves, and to keep cool – or warm – depending on the weather… but above all, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 