Amateur shoppers

There is an art, perhaps it's a craft, to shopping well.  We do not posses it (whatever "it" may be).  The plan was simple but like the best laid schemes o' Mice and Men ... you know the rest.

We were in search of an eclectic mix: a Saturday-special bargain, garden mulcher from our local ALDI; breakfast; fuel for the car plus the tyres inflated; a table (maybe) from the Resource Management Centre, Mugga Lane (better known as the local tip)  then finally, groceries.  As events turned out, had it been the Eurovision Song Contest we'd have gone close to scoring nul points.

We were late making it to the local ALDI store at Chisholm to try to buy our Saturday-special, $199 garden waste mulcher.  We arrived about an hour after the store opened so that would be ... nae chance!  An ALDI store on a Saturday morning is a sight to behold.  It's a bit like watching the ants teeming back and forth across the brick paving outside our front door.  Pause to catch your breath and you'll be trampled beneath the many feet of shoppers and bargain hunters who know from experience that the Normandy landings are but a template for a truly effective sortie into the land of cheap garden equipment. 

Is that a spider I see before me?  Pic: Look and Learn

I can be a stubborn beast however - inspired (as are all Scottish boys of my generation) by the story of Robert the Bruce, the cave and the spider.  Never say never.  If at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again.  

So we drove to an ALDI store in a suburb called Conder (sold out of mulchers) then the ALDI store in Tuggeranong (likewise bereft of mulchers).  It's not that we gave up.  It's simply that we ran out of ALDI stores.  And all of them had run out of bargain mulchers.

Breakfast then: My first suggestion - a very pleasant cafe in Chifley with good food named A Bite To Eat - turned out to be closed until Tuesday, which explained the ease with which we parked.  My second thought - Idelic in Kingston - was exactly the same; Fachado ... as we learned to say last year in Brazil.  Two other Kingston favourites - Penny Univesity and Two For Joy - were teeming, infested in an ant-like manner with diners who had reached the tables first and may have clambered over others to claim a seat.  Spike found us a cafe on the Kingston foreshore that we'd not died at before - 38 Espresso - with a limited menu on offer because of the Easter holiday.  But the smashed eggs on toast were very welcome and tasty, the chai was well-brewed and Spike's cappuccino looked rather marvellous.  So ... not entirely unsuccessful.

Fuel, we more or less managed.  We had to use a Caltex filling station because I was paying with fuel cards I'd received in lieu of cash reimbursement for my travel costs for a meeting last month up in Sydney.  The service station counter guy was less than wholly helpful, which Spike (on the verge of tears) told me on her return from paying with the fuel card whose mysterious ways of transacting business neither of us had encountered before.  Maybe the guy had been having a difficult Saturday.  Maybe he too had failed in his endeavours to snaffle a bargain mulcher or chain saw from his local ALDI.  But that's no reason to be a dick and / or shouty.

Air for the tyres was beyond us.  There was no nozzle on the end of the hose down which the pressurised air should flow when one pushed the lever on the aforementioned nozzle.  Like many service stations, I imagine, the necessary but absent part of the apparatus was kept behind the counter inside the shop.  The prospect of re-engaging with Mr Angry / Disappointed-Shopper was not one I wished upon Spike so we skedaddled.  The tyres can wait.  No pressure.  I exaggerate, of course.  There's enough pressure for us to survive.

Spike brings her own door to the party

Second-hand furniture shopping at the local tip - the excellent Green Shed on Mugga Lane - we could manage.  Spike is always in her element here.  I wander around like Bilbo Baggins in Smaug's lair under the Misty Mountain.  So much treasure my eyes bug out - but to be honest there are only so many upright pianos, thermo-nuclear barbecues and 90's style three piece suites a man can take home.  None is the exact number given Spike is in charge of purchasing decisions.  We bought a door that's now a work bench in Spike's sewing room; one of what I suspect was once a set of five or six nested tables from a primary school to use as a reading desk in our book case alcove (library is way to big a word to describe half a dozen Billy shelf units from IKEA) and a small bedside cabinet that'll be fine once Spike deals with the womb-coloured coat of paint.  I''m assuming wombs are a shade of pale pink.  But I'm guessing.  All in all then I'd say 'Mission Accomplished' when it came to recycled goods.

As for groceries.  Well that was easy.  I sat in the car because there were no spaces free in the car park that would give me room to deploy the ramp.  Spike could, therefore, enjoy the tranquility that is a Coles supermarket on a Saturday afternoon without the benefit of my helpful advice.

Sometimes it's hard being as hip, happening and groovy as this Saturday suggests we may be.  We shall need a rest tomorrow (at least I shall).  Thank goodness it's Easter Sunday.