How I Made My Fracture Worse - Or How I Spent A Fruitful Saturday

It's a beautiful Saturday with blue skies. I started my day at 9.30 am, raring to go. But now I'm convinced I've made the hairline fracture on my left foot worse. Well first of all, I'm convinced I've got a hairline fracture on my left foot. And the 5 hours of walking around, inspecting 4 apartments and wandering around the Surry Hills Markets in between, did me in. I can actively feel the fault line running down the outer length of my foot, throbbing even as there is no weight on it now. The good news is that I don't see any swelling, I just need to rest I think.

Ok the apartments. I was tempted, sorely tempted by one. It was a furnished (albeit with mostly crappy stuff which needs to be improved upon cosmetically by the tenant) one-bedroom apartment, 5 minutes' walk to the office. In fact the coffee shop that C and I go to is right at the front of this building. There is a sun room with a day bed in there, which can double up as a guest room. The living room is big, with a separate laundry from the bathroom and a decent kitchen. But it is $90 per week above my budget. For the extra $360 per month, I convince myself that it's not that much to pay for lots more space, furniture, white goods. But I guess if I'm going to increase my budget, I should look around a bit more as the choices will definitely open up.

I dropped my scarf (which I thought was securely knotted to my handbag) on my way to view this apartment. The new (more) laid-back me told the agent I was walking to the apartment with, that it's ok, I'll retrace my steps after the viewing and it should be along the way. No one will take it. That's how much faith I have. True enough, I saw it languishing on the road, I waited for an opportune opening in the traffic before I rescued it. My faith in mankind has not been misplaced.

In between inspections, I stopped for lunch at Kava, a usually crowded cafe along the cafe stretch. Today I was enticed by the sign touting "Bill's homemade chicken pie" so I had the pie and a pot of ginger lemon and honey tea . The tea turned out to be fresh ginger slices and lemon in hot water. There is not a speck of tea leaves to be seen in the pot. I queried, and was told yes, that's it. How can that be called "tea" is beyond me, it's absolutely misleading. I think I'm striking Kava off my list, despite a rave write up in the Surry Hills cafes website I consult religiously.

I exercised my usual self-restraint at the markets today and didn't buy a pair of nesting tables (mid-century Australian, 2 choices, a lighter coloured pair for ONLY $10 - how could I have resisted, I don't know, and another darker coloured pair for $50), a coffee table and a solid wooden stool. There are just so many lovely furniture, glassware, and other household things like lamps, cases and all sorts of bric-a-bracs that I want so badly. It's the shoebox that is holding me back. I need to move out so that I can finally indulge myself in these treasures. I did buy a lovely handmade journal covered in an exotic Indian fabric and there are leaves and flowers pressed into the paper. It might end up as a pressie for one of my friends or I might use it as a scrap book, I haven't quite decided yet. I am waiting for memories which will be more suitably captured in a physical book rather than in a blog.