THINKING ALLOWED

I am thinking we really should get out more but perhaps on a cooler day than it was yesterday.  A dear Facebook friend of mine had flown over from New South Wales last week to attend her son's wedding down near Albany on our south coast.   She contacted me before leaving NSW saying she would love to meet with Phil and myself while she is in WA.  I suggested a restaurant in King's Park as it is quite central to the city and Anita booked us in for lunch at 1pm.   Normally I don't venture out when the temperature is much above 30C (86F) but Anita and I have become quite close over the years and I so really wanted to meet her.   This is the restaurant where we met.  It's quite impressive having been renovated a number of years ago and so are it's prices but for special occasions one forgets about that and just enjoys the event.

It was wonderful to meet Anita and also another Facebook friend of hers.   We sat and chatted for a while before ordering our meal and I must say I was somewhat disappointed with the beer battered schnapper and chips I had....no salad unless you paid dollars for it and I wasn't at all impressed at $32 a serve.    A little cafe Phil and I often go to in a nearby shopping centre has $15 specials of all their fish dishes on Fridays.   You get served a large piece of grilled fish with chips (the best I've ever had) and a lovely garden salad included.   I never mind paying for a meal when it is worth the money but
'posher' places that charge just because they can don't impress me one little bit.  I thought Phil was wonderful when he whispered to me that he'd like to shout us all our lunch and I know it was much appreciated by Anita and Cheryl.

Anyway it was great Phil was able to join in with our chatter and I thought the four of us got on exceedingly well, so well in fact I am sorry Anita lives over 2,000 miles away.  I doubt we will ever meet again but I know we will keep in touch through Facebook.   She has always said I am her second mum as when times have been a little tough for her I've tried hard to smooth the way and she told me today that she had even told her own mother that she was going to meet her second  mum.

Phil and I came home via a long drive through Kings Park where you could see some of the devastation caused by the dreadful bushfires there a few years back.  Our Australian bush does regenerate so well after bushfires but I noticed some trees that hadn't survived which was sad.  Neither Phil nor I are people that enjoy driving on busy freeways and are patient enough to use the older main roads with their traffic lights every few streets.  We actually had a wonderful run through until we got to the Stirling Bridge which crosses the Swan River near Fremantle and there is always as bottleneck there as the huge container trucks come in from the Fremantle wharf on to the main road.

We both sat and put our feet up, after I'd turned on the airconditioning, when we got home and then Phil was busy doing the watering, moving the sprinklers every 10 minutes.    I'd left the blinds down when we went out and although the temp did reach 36C in our living room it was only 26C so cooled down quite quickly.  P.S.  Phil did have a reticulation system set up years ago but with now only being allowed to use sprinklers two days a week it wasn't worth maintaining it.  At least I guess he get a little exercise on watering days.