Instead of wet and windy, it was a warm and sunny day in Moruya today where we spent most of the day, visiting the Salvos and Vinnies op-shops before enjoying a beautiful Roast of the Day lunch at the bowling club and then going for Padma's x-ray.
We parked next to a large 4-wheel drive with a man behind the wheel, obviously waiting for someone who'd also gone in for an x-ray. With a bag full of newly acquired books beside me, I decided to also sit it out in the car. As we were almost an hour early, I settled down for a long wait with "The Land Before Avocado - Journeys in a lost Australia" which I had been meaning to buy on ebay but there it was this morning in Vinnies' second-hand book section for a mere three dollars. What a find!
After a while, I looked up and saw Padma leaning over someone on the foothpath. I walked over and found her comforting an old woman who'd fallen down. I got a cushion from the car to raise her head which had a slightly bleeding bruise on the side. In the meantime, a nurse from the x-ray place had come out and began phoning for an ambulance.
While all this was going on, the man from behind the steering wheel next to our car had joined us. He looked blankly at the woman on the ground and wanted to know what was going on. I told him that we thought she must have fainted and fallen over. Did he by any chance see how it happened. "No, I didn't", he replied, "but I've been waiting for her. She's my wife!" REALLY!!! All this with not the slightest of emotion in his voice or on his face. I would hate to play poker with that guy!
With the photo of my latest apostrophe offender safely in the camera, Padma's x-ray done, and all those newly acquired books waiting to be read, we retrieved the slightly blood-stained cushion and drove straight back to "Riverbend" where I'm taking stock of the latest acquisitions:
- "The Land Before Acocado - Journeys in a lost Australia"
- "Blood and Oil - Mohammed Bin Salman's ruthless quest for global power"
- "Shell" by Kristina Olsson (set in Sydney and around the Opera House)
- "The Man Who Found Time - James Hutton and the Discovery of the Earth's Antiquity"
- Gavin Maxwell's "The Ring of Bright Water Trilogy"
- Michael Wood's "The Story of India"
- "The Dark Side of Camelot" (a chronicle of the Kennedy years)
And I also found a DVD of yet another Australian movie, "Jindabyne":
It's been a good day all round (except for that old woman perhaps!)
