Wednesday, June 14, 2006

An Afternoon at Belmont 

A woman approached me just as I went to pet a pane of glass today. Behind the glass, two puppies came over for some attention and I couldn't resist showing them some. The woman said she'd picked up a Jack Russell Red Kelpie cross, with Corgi ears, at the RSPCA in Malaga. For free! Excellent! I said before we both grinned and went our separate ways. I hope the pet shop owners didn't hear us. I'm sure they love people crowing about their charity in picking up pets for free.

A friend is celebrating his birthday soon at Han's Cafe in the Reading's Cinema complex, and so I found myself doing a recce of the Belmont shops. At lunch time I was standing outside the cinemas and noticed that Griff's Restaurant next door advertises a steak, chips and gravy meal. Mmm, I haven't eaten red meat in a fortnight and I'm not vegetarian. I still haven't eaten any because the steak, chips and gravy meal is on the kid's menu. D'oh. So I ate bruschetta and chicken parmigiana and drank a coffee instead. Fact: A jug of pina colada costs $26.

The Sunday Times and Belmont Forum sponsored a photography competition for West Australian secondary students and the works are on display at the shopping centre. Sunlight through trees, kids at the beach with their arms outstretched, kids in the desert, old cars on a dune, grass trees and forest represented what it means to be West Australian. I always look out for work from country students (hey, someone has to do it) and I noticed a few from Manji and Broome, one each from Margs, Gero and Fitzroy Crossing and quite a few from Luurnpa Catholic School, which I now know is somewhere in the vicinity of Halls Creek. Who says a shopping trip can't be educational? The bilingual dingo wouldn't have missed out on his steak and gravy.


On the way to the cinemas, I passed A&R but nothing jumped out at me. On my second pass, I went a bit mental at the novels-for-$4.99-or-five-for-$20 sales bin. Damn bookshops. Once I found two novels, I had to buy five. They are:



I'd like to enter the Scarlet Stiletto Award competition this year, so I'm hoping all this crime reading will be beneficial.

Interesting that each author has a Web site that ranks number one at Google when searching for his or her name. Maybe that's something would-be authors should check before deciding if they need a pseudonym and, if so, what it should be?

At the bus stop I started chatting to a lady by the timetable sign. We exchanged pleasantries about the fine weather, how it's lovely in the sun and cold in the shadows. Then she commented on how the prices go up so much from year to year. Case in point: haemorrhoid cream. Specifically: Rectinol. Up from $12 last September to $16.

So that was Belmont and I'll be back next weekend!
// posted by Deanne @ 23:38
Comments:
How in gods name did you end up talking about botty cream!! Mum & Dad have arrived at their house and all are well, I think!!
Plug us in your blog next week for Jenny Morris!
Take Care
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : Sun June 18, 11:23:00 am AWST
 
Heya Megs!

I have to point out, the botty cream conflab was pretty one-sided and the lady pretty much brought it up as described above... The prices go up from year to year don't they? I had to buy haemorrhoid cream today... etc. Or something like that. Lol, she even gave details of what lead to her needing the stuff but I thought I'd leave that out of the blog. I started to wonder what it is about me that invites people to do this?

I'm glad Mum and Dad are okay and I hope you had a good couple of days at Dodges! :-)

Bye for now,

Dee
xxx
# posted by Blogger Deanne : Sun June 18, 01:26:00 pm AWST
 
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