Strange Notations From a Laborious Life

The countdown is on! One week from today and the kids will be rolling in Christmas presents, families will be getting together for seasonal cheer and waistlines will be increasing circumference from large helpings of turkey and sweets. Many will remember the true meaning of Christmas and attend church services.
We will be having our traditional Christmas breakfast here at our place although I am not sure exactly who will be in attendance. All will be revealed in time.
It will be a little bit different for us this year as my mother and sister will be heading for Fiji to spend the big day with my niece, her husband and their young daughter. My niece’s husband is in the diplomatic service and I believe Mum will be living the high life, attending the high commission for some of the Christmas festivities. I’m sure she will enjoy it.
It will be the first time in a long time that Mum has missed a Christmas with us here at home but I’m sure we will get on and make the most of it.
Today is a magnificent summer day in Canberra although the really high temperatures which are a staple in Canberra and Australia generally have not eventuated this year and although many are complaining about the lack of heat I must say I am enjoying being able to sleep without suffocating in the high humidity and being able to operate during the day without having an air conditioner belching all the time or feeling like you are being fried on a hot plate.
Today must have reached the mid-twenties and was pleasant enough to wander around in shorts without being drowned in perspiration. My kind of weather.
I have spent the last two days in and around shopping centres, buying up for Christmas and getting snagged into buying items for myself that I don’t really need but am too weak to ignore.
Yesterday it was to Woden with my mother as I needed to buy my sister something and as Mum knows her best I needed her advice.
We got something nice and Mum decided to go back to the David Jones department store to buy something for herself in preparation for her trip to Fiji.
As is the case when I am with Linda, hanging around the ladies clothing section while my companion is trying on the latest look is not the place where I feel most comfortable so, as usual, I took my leave and sat on one of the comfortable bench chairs that dot the precints of Woden Plaza.
There is an old saying that if you sit in a cafe in Paris for long enough and people watch you will eventually see the whole world go by.
While suburban Canberra is a long way from the “City of Light” it is still interesting watching the eclectic mix of people passing along the thoroughfares of one of our biggest shopping malls.
There were of course all types, fat, skinny, attractive, average and the ugly. Young, old, Asian, Anglo, Indian, all the types you would expect to see in a city as cosmopolitan as Canberra.
One couple in particular caught my attention.
Through a gap in a window I caught site of a pair approaching where I was sitting. The lady in question was probably in her mid to late thirties, long auburn hair, above average height, very attractive which is probably why I noticed her!
At first I couldn’t see her companion very well but I noted that he was much older than her and my first thought was that she was out shopping with her father and how nice that was. I suppose the fact that I was spending the morning with my mother had conditioned me to think of it as such a situation.
It was only when they got closer to me, out from behind the glass facade of a shop through which I had first glimpsed them, that I realised that the lady in question had her hand planted firmly and determinedly on her associate’s bottom!
Personal interpretation of a situation can often lead to the wrong conclusion can’t it!?
So with most of my Christmas shopping out of the way and another week at the mail centre done, I decided this morning that I wanted to do something enjoyable, rather than the work around the house which has been calling my name.
Thus, after an enjoyable coffee and pie at the Griffith shops and a cruise around Kingston, I found myself back at Woden Plaza again today.
Linda is a great fan of nice shoes and we ended up in Mathers shoe shop where she bought herself a couple of pairs of attractive shoes.
Noticing my interest in the mens shelf she convinced me to purchase a couple of pair myself, not from the cheap section but from the more expensive selection!
This was on top of getting sucked into a used book shop in Kingston and parting with a substantial amount of cash!
So all in all it’s been an expensive couple of days. Of course I don’t really mind. We work to live not live to work and you can’t take your money with you when you go.
So, we were out for a couple of hours tonight at a BBQ, both of us sporting our new footwear and feeling pretty good about ourselves.
That’s half the weekend now done and I must say it sure goes quickly.
An early Christmas dinner with my mother tomorrow night will round things out for Sunday and then, for me it is the last assault on the mail before the Christmas break.
Steeling myself for a productive day tomorrow and a productive week for Australia Post. Hope everyone else has a nice Sunday too.