Weekend goodness

An excellent weekend – full to the brim but pretty relaxed for it.

Friday: Most exciting – Shanta arrived from the states!!!! There was much bouncing. We haven’t seen each other in two and a half years. Mostly, with her staying at and pottering around my place, it really feels like it could have been just last weekend that we last hung out together. But then there will be moments where she’ll ask about something or someone and it suddenly strikes me both how long it’s been since we’ve hung out, and how I am actually kinda crap at keeping her up with news. I have done to her what used to so frustrate me when coming to visit – assuming she knows all that has happened in the past 3 years since she was last here without having actually told her most of it! At least however, my response to these moments of clarity is not to be surprised and act like I can’t believe she doesn’t know, but instead to hit myself upside for being so slack in keeping her informed.

I had to work during the day, but arrived home to find a well rested Shanta who was raring to go. zen_cat arrived over and we all headed out for a yummy dinner and to see the HP movie. I just love all the HP movies and was particularly impressed with the casting in this one – Luna Lovegood was just perfect and Dolores Umbridge captured perfectly the sickly sweet, condescending, self-important manner I had imagined. My skin fairly crawled. I would, however, love to have her plate collection!

Saturday: Up bright and early to pick up my car. I am so impressed with the quality of work and dedication to customer service that Peter has shown the whole time. So anyone ever needed smash repairs or wanting to repaint the car or anything like that, I highly, highly recommend Coburg Super Finish on Gaffney st, Coburg. They have been brilliant.

Then Shanta and I headed up to Daylesford for my godmother’s book launch. It was very exciting; she has been published before, but this is a different style from her normal work and is being published by an American company.

Shanta and I wandered around Daylesford for a couple of hours and had lunch there. Shanta had never had pumpkin soup before so she tasted that which then started a discussion and comparison of pumpkins here vs there. We have now worked out that our butternut pumpkin is known as butternut squash in the states. I love these random little tidbits that you would never think to look for but invariably discover when hanging out with people from different cultures.

While there, I bought a kettle for my house – I have been particularly uninspired by kettles thus far, but had accepted that I just needed to choose one and be done with it. So I did, then, as I was on my way to the cashier, I saw this stove top kettle which is really just perfect. I love it! Every time I walk into my kitchen I get a little shiver of delight to see it sitting all ready on the stove. So homely.

After getting home we chatted for a couple of hours then both crashed out for a bit before heading out to Anna’s heater warming party. Anna has a new heater which is impressively warm and apparently uses very little energy – a heater well worth having a party for 😉

I’m sorry, gadge. The plan had been to go on to your party after Anna’s, but then I crashed and we went home and slept instead.

Sunday: Shanta’s birthday!!!!! After a sleep-in (my body allowed me to sleep until 7:20!) and a slow relaxed brekky and present opening, we headed to the Vic Market to get ingrediants for okonomiyumminess. When living in Japan, Shanta and I would very regularly go out for okonomiyaki and Baskin & Robbins icecream, so it seemed appropriate that for her birthday we do okonomiyaki and ice cream. What she didn’t know was that I had invited over a number of people who she met and made friends with last time she visited 😉

It was a relief when enough people had arrived that I could stop trying to pretend we were cooking for just 3 people, and actually make the quantities required for 10!

After okonomiyaki, we had seven different icecream/gelato flavours (yummy gelato courtesy kitling and nigelw) with toffee sauce, marshmallows, choc drops and dessicated coconut as possible toppings. , lj user=”zen_cat”> rules at decadent desserts :-D. Such indulgence! It was somewhat wrong to have so much ice cream and sugar and no evil_hamster around to enjoy. Alas he has succumbed to the dreaded lurgy doing the rounds currently and so abstained from joining us.

Em and Ben had also brought along a new range of Australian juices, which had things such as lemon myrtle and rosella flower added to them – very delicious.

It was indeed a convivial afternoon.

After everyone had left, Shanta, zen_cat and I headed over to zen_cat‘s place for dvd watching and the domesticity of laundry.

Now I am at work and Shanta is at large in Melbourne. *grins* Already her social calendar is filling up and I do not feel so bad about working the entire time she is here! If there is anyone else in lj land who remembers her and would like to catch up, contacting me is the best way at the moment.