Market Walking

The weather man has forgotten which season it is.  The wind is howling, the rain is pouring and I believe it is Spring.  Spring is meant to be the season of warm balmy days with long pleasant lunches outside under the patio.  The days are even better with an active walk in the park,  helping our bodies wake up from winter hibernation. 
I have the heaters on.  All the heaters.  A jumper, a jacket and a scarf.  I am still cold.  Today is our day to visit Mum and enjoy a sun-kissed relaxing walk by the river afterwards.  As the wind whipped us and howled in its fury I made a brave decision.  I suggested to Merv we skip our regular walk and head for the indoor markets for a stroll.  He was happy to oblige.


Here is what is left!

The markets are a rather basic affair.  They are housed in an converted warehouse and still sport an ugly grey concrete floor.  A little paint could easily jazz the whole place up.  It is a maze of little shops offering customers almost anything you could imagine.  Today we saw a Cadillac sofa, black and white with red flashing lights for only $3,500!  Hmm I shook my head, no, not today but I imagine it could start many an interesting conversation.  The pet shop had the usual dogs, cats, birds, rats and even ferrets.  They have the biggest in-house cat I have ever seen.  It was curled up asleep in its basket.  The sign said you can ask to pat it but please close the door afterwards.  I'll pass on that one.  We walked past the Mystics and the fortune tellers and paused to look at the bonsai.  We took a trip down memory lane in the Retro shop.  They had a Ludo game which was older than us and a whole row of Pokeman toys.  Just next door we spied the Olde English Lolly Shoppe and I took Merv by the hand into the candy store.  He was suddenly a little boy again pointing to the freckles, the fudge, a variety of chocolates and long straps of liquorice.  He chose a small bag of Cadbury Favourites and a bag of liquorice allsorts.  He enjoyed some of them after lunch.  We sat inside by the heater as the wind continued to howl outside. 
We will continue to dream of outside lunches and hope the weather man will soon have good news for us.