Things I saw on my walk today

• The odd juxtaposition of houses that you often see around here - one house that is impeccably kept with very neat garden, cheek-by-jowl with the scruffiest of scruffy houses where the paint is peeling and the garden is an overgown jungle.
• The Bogan Princess, complete with earings that dangled to her shoulders, pushing a pram and studiously avoiding my eye so she wouldn't be forced to smile at a stranger.
• The old man getting out of his car to open his garage door, the young woman taking her toddler out in the stroller, the Italian woman with the market flower garden, all of whom responded to my smile with one of their own.
• The furry brown catterpiller trundling his busy way across the footpath.
• The Noisy Miner in the tree barely an arms length away.
• The knobbly brown seeds left after a bottlebrush has lost the flowery bits.
  

My eyes took many little photograhs along the way, all the colours and shapes. I actually really quite like living in the 'burbs, especially a well established one, with houses of many kinds, and lots of greenery. I just wish my friends weren't all a 30 minute drive away...

I am trying to use this time that I have on my hands to establish some good habits - daily walking, doing stuff in the garden, good cooking and eating practices.

Today's walk was a backwards version of the same walk that I did on Tuesday, but took me about 10 minutes less to complete. I walked it faster and felt better when I got home. At this rate I will be running the whole way by the end of the week! (yeah, right)

A Conundrum

Well, technically it's not, because I already know the answer. You must admit, however, that it is a great word...

Imagine this scene:

A person goes to a shop with the intention of making a purchase. This person discovers that a very high quality variety of the product that they were wishing to purchase is on sale, therefore allowing them to purchase this high quality item rather than a lower quality one at the same price. This makes the person very happy, and causes them to exclaim "Excellent! I shall take two!" The person takes note of the little red price tag on the display item, which we shall call Price A. The person takes their intended purchases to the counter.

Once at the counter, as the sales assistant is peeling off the bar code stickers, the person makes note that one of the stickers displays Price A, and the other displays a price a little higher than Price A, which we will refer to as Price B. The person doesn't let this bother her, as she is quite well aware that trade practices allow that the product must be sold at the displayed price (I'm sure there are extenuating circumstances here, but I would imagine that they are generally for extreme cases).

So, imagine this person's surprise when the total cost issued to her is twice that of Price B! Remember, one of the items was barcoded at Price A, which was also the price on the display item. Technically, the shop assistant could have been in the right had she rung up one product at Price A and one at Price B, as this was the price shown on the items themselves. Then she could have been gently reminded that the goods must be charged at the display price (and isn't there something inherently wrong with charging different prices for identical items?). No, she deliberately chose to scan both products on the Price B barcode, therefore charging more that the ticketed price for one of the items, which the author hesitates to suggest is ILLEGAL, YOU STUPID WITCH!

When this was pointed out (far more politely that strictly necessary, by the way) one of the items (count it, just one) was reluctantly recharged at Price A as shown on it's bar code. Okay, so now the situation has wandered back from the precipice of illegal transaction, but still not right. There's still that pesky display price (Price A) and the fact that one can't charge different prices for identical products in the same transaction. It wasn't until the display item, with it's little red sticker with Price A on it, was fetched and shown to the World's Stupidest Shop Assistant, that she relented (with much grumbling about how people should check these things, and how she was going to get into trouble - LIKE I CARE! - and boy, how much trouble do you think you are going to be in if I write a letter of complaint about your very nearly unlawful transaction?) and chaged both products at the displayed ticket price, and to the purchaser's, by now very small, satisfaction.

All this happened at David Jones. At the Royal Doulton counter. You'd think they'd know better.

Next time I'm going to Peter's of Kensington.

Wow. No, really...just...wow.

Festival has been and gone. I got the tent* finished in time to be used - needs a bit of tweaking done to it - the roof decoration still needs to be painted, and the walls need to be re-brained (I got the angles all wrong, so instead of being taut they were a bit on the saggy side), but it was workable. I even managed to get together enough stuff to have a display in the Laurel Prize Tourney this year, which turned out to be a handy thing...

On Sunday I was invited to join the Order of the Laurel. If anyone chances across this blog who is not intimate with the workings of the SCA, this is the highest level award in the Society for learning - arts, crafts, singing, gardening, research, music, cooking, etc. It's a pretty big deal. I'm still in shock. In my case this award is for my work in embroidery and costume. Neither was quite there on their own, but together made up a body of work worthy of elevation, or so I am told. It still feels a bit unreal, and really was totally unexpected. I'm pretty blown away that a bunch of intensely clever people, who's work is of a really high standard, have deemed me worthy to be their peer. The ceremony formalising my elevation took place in the Royal Court on Sunday evening.

So there you go. I went to Festival thinking nothing of note was likely to happen, that there would be hanging out at the tavern and the wine bar, carousing, maybe some shopping or taking in a class or two (I didn't manage any, which I think is a first for me), and I come home a Laurel and a Peer of the realm. Wow.

*Which spent much of it's creation being known as "that fucking tent", mostly because it took me 4 years to build it. Not because it was hard, mind you, just incredibly tedious, so I'd keep putting it aside for 9 month periods...