Sunday 11th – Sunday Market and furniture shopping

We were all up and believe it or not the kids were on the Wii, think we have already had our money’s worth, Jason and I went to the local craft market which has over 300 stalls and lots of local produce, it was nice just to have a wander with no stress, it was a lovely day, nice and warm, with the sun shining. The market was great and we will be going back, we saw some great house hold things, but the foods were fantastic too. But we have to be realistic with our finances and these would be classed as extravagant and we can’t afford to be extravagant. But even if I can’t afford to buy anything next month, will still go back, it was great just to look at the lovely things, I also saw some nice ideas for birthday pressies.

We then called at Sydney’s and also Fantastic Furniture, both are cheap furniture shops bit like MFI, apparently it is all locally produced and comes with warranties and guarantees, so a good option until our stuff arrives and we sell Aspen and have some cash to buy decent stuff. We spent $2254 and have bought a 2 seater sofa, a 3 seater sofa, entertainment centre (TV stand) coffee table, side table, queen bed with sprung mattress, 2 bedside cabinets and a slim boy; personally I think it was great value. Cheryl and Adele in the shop were great; they checked stock to see what they had that we could take away and that wouldn’t need ordering in.

Jason and I will have the bed (thank goodness for a decent night’s sleep) Sam can move out of Toms room and move from the double air bed he was sharing with Tom to the ¾ size air bed that Jason and I had, the single one we also had can go in the living room, somewhere else to sit until the sofas arrive. They let us take the bed and the entertainment centre, obviously we could only take what we could get in the car, although you should have seen Jason with the mattress strapped to the roof of the car, we really are the clampets, but at least we aren’t going to be living as much like squatters as we were.

We called at Tully’s which is the equivalent to our old local farm shop, it is a great shop with a fab deli counter where you can taste things, and Jason just comes along for that. I bought some chicken for tea and some strange looking fruit, I thought we could do our own bush tucker trial, we had a persimon, custard apple, dragon fruit and a quince, they all tasted better than they looked, apart from the quince which should be cooked before being eaten, luckily we looked it up on the internet first and didn’t try to eat it.

We also bought a lovely local made pesto dip with sundried tomatoes and basil, it was yummy, even the kids liked it which we were rather upset about as it was quite expensive at $10.00 a tub, we had hoped they wouldn’t like it so Jason and I could have it, we have always liked our dips and crisps, over here they have them with Turkish bread, in fact they do lots with Turkish bread, again would highly recommend as it is delicious.

Once kids were in bed we called mum, dad, Pauline and Frank and Suzy in the UK, but Suzy wasn’t it, so Jason got to speak to Nick, will try her again in the week. We now have a phone card which cost us $10.00 for 3000 minutes, which means it is much cheaper for us to ring you, than you to ring us.