Stormy seas and a rainy weekend had us in an introspective mood, and the days had caught up with us, but we soldiered on. We valiantly caught the tram into the city and were delighted with all the friendly notices announcing, ‘Lovely ozzy breaky served all day, YUM!’

Instead we visited the central market and were in awe of all the produce just bursting with deliciousness.

Then we cruised through the streets, spurning cheap nasty Chinese umbrellas, and instead bought a regular black (as opposed to long black and short whites..Oh my goodness the choices for coffee is bewildering) and we bought our brolly in a classy milliners in a very antiquated arcade.

The highlight for me this week was meeting Romano, who literally spirited the money out of my purse. He was an ancient Italian just oozing with charm, and he caught me fondling some kangaroo slippers. He linked arms with me (after the sale) and waltzed across the street (in the middle of the day) and took me to his other shop. There, I was told about his great loves of yesteryear…and of course there was a Scottish one, the lovely Irene. ‘But you know, she would drink and when she drank she would go around the room, flirting and forgetting that she was with ME, Romano. And I was famous you know…I was a dancer, I danced everywhere and I did not like it when she went drinking and talking with everyone. I told her she must only look at ME’

All the while I was standing clutching my slippers and people passed and thought we were old friends who had just caught up. How lovely.

The slippers are heaven on the cold tiles in the apartment, and I am bracing myself for cold days to come.

John and I did venture out to a National Park, and although we looked and listened we were disappointed not to see any of the legendary animals. We did go for a very long walk in the bush and saw some lorikeets and some galahs and an awful lot of Australian magpies.

I am going to add some more pictures from Korea that took our fancy!