Not a particularly exciting day – more just a rather pleasant collection of little chores. We lazed around in bed for quite a while, tho’ I did venture out to make breakfast, then leapt back in again. There’s an old-fashioned toaster here, so we were able, yet again, to have toast + honey. Rob appeared eventually, prompting us to actually get up properly – Val went to collect a cheque from Mrs K, + then, after some dallying, we finally organised ourselves enough to drive into town. We split up when we got there to deal with various jobs, Rob disappearing to do what he had to, all agreeing to meet in the library. We bought some stamps, paid our cheque in, bought a couple of knives + a quilt (to cover the torn front seat of the car) from the Sally Army, then made our way to the library. We sat around for some time, drinking coffee, eating cinnamon buns, + writing postcards, then headed back. We stopped off at the shopping centre on the way – to cash in some bottles, get some shopping, + for Rob to ring home – $9 it cost him. Then home sweet home.
Lazed around a while, before lighting the stove, heating up as much water as we could manage, in order to do some washing. Had a few problems with the machine, almost flooded the place in fact, but were able to cope using saucepans etc, until the magnificent Rob appeared, + was able to fix the pump. In the evening we had curry … I don’t think Meher would have been overly impressed, but it seemed pretty good to me. Val just boiled up various veg, plus some hot peppers Mrs K had given us, + a couple of spoons of curry powder we’d inherited from Tony + Jenny, + we had it with rice. In the evening, we played some dice games that Rob knew – they were fun. He’d first had to fashion the dice themselves, cutting up a couple of pencils + carving Roman numerals on them. Then, finally, bed.
I should comment on the postcard reference (and indeed on plenty of similar in previous posts.) I don’t think I have mentioned before, that each of us wrote a postcard home to our mothers each week while we were away, whenever it was feasible. Both our mothers kept these cards, but we only looked at them again recently.
Incidentally, each of the two piles was headed by a card home which told of our safe arrival in America… and these both had written “FORWARDED BY MRS LAPORE, 192 BLEEKER ST” – we had lost both of them in the street. Only now have we learnt of this person’s kindness, so here’s a big belated thank you to her. But postcards, like much of the postal service, are another of those things which have now more or less disappeared.
In case you were puzzled, the games were Yum and 10,000 and the pencils were hexagonal in section, with each one providing three dice.
Leave a Reply