Not The Tale of the little Pig and the Molasses...again?

Up with the sun, birds and refuse truck this morning and of those only the sun shows any thought to those people who might still be sleeping in bed. I went with Will to work and brought the car back. I was honked at, at one set of traffic lights for getting in the wrong lane. I found myself in the left lane which could filter left but I wanted to go straight on so I just sat there and blocked it. ‘Honk!’ I just raised my arms in an ‘Oh well, you’ll just have to lump it’ gesture.Back at Celtis St I made my breakfast, scrambled egg.‘Did you use the eggs nearest this end?’ asked Dulcie.Crikey! I checked the fridge and I had. ‘Yes,’ I admitted.‘That’s good,’ she said and blew out a cloud of smoke.I wondered what the consequences of using the eggs at the far end would have been. I don’t think I will try to find out.The radio was on and someone was saying “I don’t like the taste of Brisbane water”, it was an ad for a water purifier, it went on “all those chemicals and decaying bits of organic matter.”Heck! What organic matter was exactly decaying in the Brisbane tap water and what were the water company doing about it? Perhaps a water purifier is a good idea.‘Good God!’ said Dulcie when she saw my scrambled egg. I had to explain how I made it in the microwave, she always made it in a pan.‘I’ll have to try that,’ she said.After breakfast it was time to make the shopping list. I had a list for Aldi and a list for Woolies.Aldi is big here and like in the UK has been voted Supermarket of the Year. Dulcie is a big Aldi fan. She didn’t want to come so I was charged with going on my own.I set off just after 9 but had to go back to Will’s work first to pick up my wallet which I had forgotten I had left in the top of his rucksack. I headed back towards Aldi, not exactly sure which way to go but made sure I was in the right lane at all the traffic lights! By luck rather than knowledge I found my way straight to Aldi. I didn’t have a $1 for the trolley so had to use a basket...and it was quite a long list.I filled the basket to brimming with half the shopping list and joined the queue for the till. I had forgotten to bring the reusable bags too and Aldi don’t give out plastic bags! I had to buy a reusable bag. I paid for the shopping with the money Dulcie had given me and then took it back to the car. I then went back into Aldi to get the other half of the shopping list. Back at the till I realised I still didn’t have a flippin’ bag! I wasn’t buying another one! This time I paid using our card and then with four loaves of bread hanging from one hand, two large milk cartons in the other, a pack of six porterhouse steaks held between the two and a tub of vanilla ice cream balanced on top I staggered back to the car.It was scorching and the car was like an oven. I decided to head back and drop all this stuff off before going to woollies.As I unpacked she checked everything. I’d got the wrong fish...but it was ok. She was pleased with the steaks and the Roma tomatoes were ‘lovely’.She was glad I’d come back because she had a prescription she needed me to take too.‘Here let me give you some more money.’‘No,’ I said, ‘I still have loads left.’‘Are you sure?’ she said, ‘You wouldn’t lie to me?’We are having a bit of a battle to pay our fair share. I wasn’t going to tell her that she had only paid for half the Aldi shop.‘The money’s fine,’ I said.I went to Woolies and got the prescription.‘How is Mrs Rodgers?’ asked the Pharmacist.‘She’s fine,’ I said. Dulcie wouldn’t have been so positive, but she is fine, actually remarkable for 90!I got the Woolies shopping and ‘ummed and ahhed’ for ages over her vanilla yoghurt!I got pies for lunch on the way back.Back home, the yoghurt was fine, the sugar loaf cabbage was ‘beautiful’. I’d done a good job.I gave her the change.‘That’s not right!’ she said.‘It is,’ I said.‘I bought the pies and some of the Aldi stuff were things I wanted so it’s only right that we pay our share.’‘Bovine excrement!’ or words to that effect was her reply to that!‘Look,’ I said, ‘that’s your change, we’ve paid for some of the stuff but if it makes you feel better you’ve paid the most.’She sat and ate her pie.‘Shall we have a game of cards?” She asked after lunch.We decided to play canasta. I had just dealt and the phone rang. She jumped.‘Good God!’It was Iris, or ‘Oiris’ as Dulcie pronounces it.I only heard one side of the conversation...‘Hail? No hail Oiris.’‘About 50 mls, Oiris, it’s been the best rain we’ve had for months.’‘Bill and Nick have been planting in the garden.’‘He’s here, Oiris. We were just going to play a game of cards.’‘Well, he stops with me and I order him about.’ She laughed but it was true!‘Oh, he’s done a terrible lot for me , Oiris.’‘He’s been and done the shopping and brought back pies for dinner.’‘I have tomato sauce on mine and Nick has...(hesitation) his sauce.’ (It’s HP.)‘Beautiful pies , Oiris, melt in your mouth pastry,’It then went quiet for about 10 minutes. I had my back to her and turned round just to check she hadn’t dropped off or worse! She saw me looking and pulled a face and waved the phone about in the air angrily.I got the message...Oiris was off on some tale.‘I’m not a sugar person either ,Oiris’ then silence for another 10 minutes.Finally.....‘Alright Oiris, yes... yes,... bye for now.’She put the phone down and erupted ‘Jesus Christ! I was just about to say I’ve got to go Oiris someone’s knocking at the door. I don’t know how many times she’s told me that tale of the little pig and the molasses.’I wanted to hear the tale of the little pig and the molasses but she wanted to play cards.I absolutely smashed it! The cards were definitely on my side today!I called at Bunnings on the way to pick up Will. I wanted a humane rat trap. Would you believe it they were sold out?‘They’re very popular those,’ said the chap who I caught who worked there, ‘We’ll have more in next week!’ I wanted one now...I had a date with a rat tomorrow!I went out into the open air gardening bit to get more mulch. Someone had been messing about and had left a garden statue of a two foot lizard lying in the middle of an aisle. I tried to get my trolley past it and it suddenly ran off! That would not happen in B&Q!Tonight we went in to the west end of Brisbane and met Maree and Jef. We went to Huong’s for a lovely Vietnamese meal. We had a wonderful evening of catching up and then Jef showed me all the pictures of the carpet python that lives in his garden!They’re out there!