Not a bad weekend. Lazed on Saturday morning. Then went to look at a house at midday – one that has an auction time which actually clashes with the house I really like. Josh and Cathy came along and looked too, but the conclusion I had come to was that the location isn’t really what I want. I always said if I couldn’t quite get what I wanted, I wouldn’t spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on something I wasn’t totally happy with, I’d keep renting. So I’m not about to compromise and buy that place. Which leaves me concentrating on the other one, neatly solving the auction clash problem.
Saturday afternoon I went for a bike ride, then in the evening went into Richmond for Beth and Doug’s housewarming party. The view from their balcony was utterly spectacular. A little like the one from my sister’s place when she lived in the same street, but hers was merely two dimensional, through a window, not fully three-dimensional with surround sound like this was. Probably the most memorable moment was seeing Jen andOtherDoug arrive, Jen in her Tigers scarf, and her and another Tigers fan instantly launching into a rousing rendition of the club theme song. Well, that and Dave’s possum story (alas I didn’t get a chance to tell my own).
Sunday morning I kept myself busy during the kids’ swimming lesson by attempting to do a little swimming myself. It’s been ages since I did any substantial swimming. Like, anything more than a dog paddle. I’ve never been a brilliant swimmer – my style is closer to floundering grandmother than Ian Thorpe. But I attempted to do the length of the pool and back. Oh dear. Not impressive. Not that I actually sank and needed to be rescued or anything, but that much concentrated exertion in such a burst rather took it out of me. Or at least it would have if I hadn’t stopped halfway along each time to get the water out of my nose and mouth.
No matter. My fitness regime doesn’t doesn’t include swimming at the moment – I’m concentrating on the bike riding instead. Maybe at some stage in the future I’ll try taking up swimming properly.
In the afternoon I was at the supermarket. I wouldn’t normally mention this but for something irritating that happened. Here’s the scenario, see if you recognise it: person A is being served at the checkout. The last few items of theirs are on the conveyor belt, but there’s plenty of room for more stuff, and there’s plenty of those little divider thingies around.
Person B is waiting, only buying a few items, and holding them in their hands, refusing for some reason to put them down on the conveyor belt until the checkout chick is ready to serve them. Why? I don’t know. But person C (that’s me), who has arrived with a trolley full of stuff, can’t start unloading onto the conveyor belt because person B is obviously paranoid that someone will nick their bananas. JUST PUT THEM DOWN, YOU GIMBOID! NOBODY WANTS YOUR BANANAS. SEE, I HAVE MY OWN BANANAS!
Since I’m ranting, my other pet hates at the supermarket include:
- people who leave their trolleys in the middle of the aisle and wander off to look at stuff
- people who add their basket onto the pile by the checkout, but don’t fold the handles properly so you can’t add your basket to the pile without fixing it first
- the express lane checkout chicks leaving you waiting while serving some nicotine addict with another fix
By the way, the checkout chicks (and blokes) at Safeway are still happy enough to use my cloth bags. But for some reason while they started out putting them on their bag holder thing, now they try and hold them by the handles, leaving one hand to scan and pack the items, which is a bit of a struggle. Is this progress, I ask myself?
