Weather has been all over the shop this week, and so have I. Tuesday and today I was on the History Room, so Wednesday, having checked the forecast I decided to do the washing and defer my trip to Hobart till Friday. Then I remembered Friday is Good Friday so a trip to Hobart would be a bit pointless. So I set off at around tennish and was therefore late home.

For all the time I have lived here, people have been telling me there is a hedge on the back road that bears sloes. Every year, for some reason or another I have failed to get there at a suitable time, but yesterday was the day! I of course forgot this in my rush to head to Hobart so arrived without anything to pick into but decided to pick anyway and sort it out later. As I approached the hedge I could see lots of fruit, but nothing that resembled a sloe, but I picked it anyway, pausing from time to time to wonder at the softness, largeness and pinkish redness of the fruit. Having finally picked a jumper full and discovered a ziplock bag under the car seat to transfer them to, I finally cracked and tasted one. Now a sloe is a bitter fruit, one that puckers your mouth and makes you want to gag. They are only acceptable when translated into gin. This, it turned out, was a damson. Sigh. Fortunately damsons also go into gin and make nice drinkies, so that will be their fate tomorrow. Gin, sadly turned out to be remarkably expensive, so I bought vodka instead, so I will have damson vodka on offer in a couple of months time.

On to Kemp and Denning, Shiploads, and other various shops at Cambridge Park at which I spent not a penny, and so into town to the Salamanca Wool Shop where i was once again subjected to the life history of the saleswoman, avoided buying anything (I had promised to go look at some coloured fleeces) and headed off to Howards Storage World. There I scoped out the hanging thingies for the inside of cupboard doors (to store spices, custard powder, smaller sauces and vanilla etc) and bought some drawer dividers (the next lot will come from Shiploads I think). After finally relocating the car I headed to Enwrapt to get some small ziplock bags to use for my record of my spinning activities which turned out to be cellophane bags which I though would be less susceptible to sweating. There I encountered the lovely relaxed approach of store security that is still a hallmark of Tasmania. Total stranger to the shop, carrying a large shopping bag, but the attendant asked me to keep and eye on things as she had to go out the back, lol. She didn't even ask to see in my bag when I left! And yes, most of their stock would have comfortably fitted in the bag with no evidence of its presence. This is the second time i have been asked to do this recently, I find it terribly amusing.

From there it was off to the Reject Shop to get some more storage containers for my ever-increasing stash of wool, and to Coles for food and so home. Walked the dog, cleaned the bank and headed home exhausted.

I spent a happy hour or so labelling bins, transferring contents adding mothproofing and so forth before collapsing into bed.