Australian adventure. October 2010 (continued)

Diary date Thursday Oct 7th

Nena and I met at the appointed spot, dead on time, which was a miracle for me, as my timekeeping isn't the best! After I rather surprised Nena with a hug we decided to go for a cup of coffee and quickly established that our sense of humour was very much along the same lines! Heading for 'the strip' or the 'cappuccino strip', THE place to see and be seen in Freo, we looked at all the coffee bars and decided that those with no prices displayed were probably more than either of us wanted to pay. We ended up going to the first one we had passed, in a shady passageway, which was pleasant as the weather was getting rather warm. We went in and ordered, a latte for me and an espresso for Nena. Now, it is some time since Nena has spent a day in a 'big' town, and coffee shops do many more varieties than she is used to, poor love. We sat at a table and waited for our drinks to be served. The very pleasant gent in charge brought our coffees out and Nena's face was a picture! I had a nice tall glass of milky coffee and she had an egg cup full of black coffee. We fell about laughing as we realised she had thought it would be a 'normal' coffee. We have now established that a normal coffee is a 'flat white', which sounds somewhat unappetising, but which was much enjoyed by Nena later in the day. Coffee took some time as we exchanged info about ourselves, in particular odd things that had happened to us or our families. It started to get really spooky, when we realised that we had several; things in common - husbands named Peter, sons named Michael, allergies to Tetanus jabs - both of us discovering this after treading on rusty nails as children! We have a certain facial similarity (colour of hair and eyes), have both been teachers and both worked in libraries (Nena still does). However, Nena has done something I have never done - she has worked on an archaeological dig in Fremantle! We made plans to go to the spot and take a photo of her there, but time ran away with us. We also talked about our writing and I told Nena how my Nano entry last year ended up almost pornographic (and has got worse since I tried to edit it!) My MC was supposed to be a BIT of a 'jack the lad', but he is insatiable!!!!!

After our coffee we decided to go for a walk around Fremantle markets, which are housed in a beautiful old building. First disappointment of the day - they are not open on Thursday, but nothing daunted we decide we could still go around the markets, on the outside, so we did just that, ending up where we had met, by the information office. Spying the free leaflets on various themed walks around Freo, I started picking hem up and suggested to Nena that we do one of them. We looked through and found one that we simply HAD to do, as it was a 'Writers Walk'. It was also the shortest and we had decided to have lunch when we had finished it. It was down the High Street and the first 'totem' was almost outside my lodgings. I had walked past it 3 times and not noticed it before! They are not particularly easy to spot but with the walk leaflet in our hands we found them all, and persuaded various passing strangers to take photos of us two either side of these somewhat 'phallic looking' symbols! Some were even pinky in colour, then we walked past the sex shop, which was tastefully displaying its wares in the window, Including a rather large dildo/vibrator! Amidst much laughter and some admiration of the writing of the authors included on the walk (a short piece of text from one of their works was shown on their 'totem') we managed to get to the end of the road and decided to go into the cafe I had used for brekkie yesterday. We placed our orders, had a discussion about who should pay, took our seats and waited. Our drinks, (OJ) did not arrive and the fact was mentioned, but they still didn't arrive. My meal came out, but not Nena's. We queried this and found that the girl had missed it off the order. The owner/manager came over and apologised profusely and said Nena could have her meal free. Off she trotted with Nena's order and I started my meal, only to find that the lasagne had a strip underneath that was baked hard and inedible. The owner was just coming back to apologise to Nena that they had no hamburger patties left, when she saw me stand up with my plate and her face nearly hit the floor! Nena had already said she looked stressed and we both thought she'd have a breakdown there and then. Luckily, I had had brekkie there the day before and it had been lovely, scrambled eggs on toast and really creamy, not at all rubbery, so I was able to convince the lady (and Nena) that I thought it was a nice cafe. By this time Nena and I had seen the funny side of the situation, but we did feel sorry for the poor lady. She told us that she was having a really bad day: she'd blown up the deep fat fryer; something else had blown up and now two customers (us) were getting really bad service. We sympathised and said that tomorrow would be better and off she trotted. No sooner had she got into the kitchen than someone, either the customer standing by the counter or the young girl behind it, knocked over the straws container. It made a really loud clatter and was almost too much for Nena and me. With a rush our poor, beleaguered hostess came back into the shop and surveyed the damage. Fortunately it was easily solved, the customer helping to clear up the mess. Shortly after this our meals arrived, with no further mishap and we thoroughly enjoyed them. Nena's of course, had the extra spice of being free! We were also told we could have any muffin we liked as a pudding. FREE! Neither of us fancied a muffin when the time came, but we did fancy some of the fruit dishes on offer - mixed wild berries for me and fruit salad for Nena. We asked if we could have them instead of muffins and said we were willing to pay, but we got a resounding 'NO!' and were asked if we'd like some yoghourt with the fruit. We both said yes, enormous portions were served to us and it was absolutely delicious. Just as we were finishing our meals and deciding which, if any other themed walk to do, Pete rang me, so I told him where we were and decamped to the rather lovely settees in the back of the cafe to wait for him. When he arrived, he bought a drink for us and we filled him in on our day. By the time we'd finished it was time for Nena to leave, so we all walked back into town and said our goodbyes, promising to wave to Nena if we went over her farm when we did our balloon trip. It really was a fabulous day and I thoroughly enjoyed it - and I have a lovely souvenir gift from Nena - a Kangaroo pen and a koala card, Of course, being a total dingbat, I never thought to buy anything for Nena, from England!