a trip to the country

After idling away most of the day, Martine and I raced up to the Uraidla Market to help celebrate its tenth birthday. We arrived just as they were bursting the balloons, but there was still enough time for festivities and purchases. I was delighted to introduce Martine to Bep and Harry, woollen goods manufacturers extraordinaire. Bep strongly encouraged us to enter the raffle as she believed the last entry tickets to go in the box had a good chance of being drawn, and sure enough she drew my ticket herself. So we left the market laden down with the prize of a basketful of potted plants, as well as fruit and vegetables, jams, dips, slices and soap. And balloons of course, which were later to come in very handy...

This part of the Adelaide Hills is very beautiful, narrow winding roads sometimes with native bush, sometimes pine trees and market gardens. All I wanted was to find a donkey to photograph, but the only thing of interest in the fields was a scarecrow, which actually seemed to look down as we drove by. Honestly, if it wasn't a scarecrow someone knew how to dress like one.

We then called in upon my surrogate parents Robbie and Roger at Montacute Heights, bearing bribes of cherries and other foodstuffs. (Bribes are necessary as my stuff has been in storage in their shed for a couple of years.) Robbie was making raspberry jam and the place smelt amazing. Rog had recently returned from a conference in Sarawak and - after empathising with Martine about the worst aspect of conference attendance, the fellow attendees - pulled together all the equipment necessary for blowpipe target practice, Sarawak-style. The pipe was something he'd found in the shed, but the darts were genuine, without the poison. For targets we used some balloons we just happened to have in the car.