When I was coming home from yoga the other night there were fire trucks outside The Garage (People’s Coffee, Garret St), firemen inside swooshing out water and evacuees hovering in the neighbouring car park. I forgot about it until today so we went over for a coffee and to get the goss.

Their glass front door was boarded up and it there was a kind of nice (if you didn’t think about how it got there) smokey coffee smell. Apparently a cigarette butt in their rubbish bin (tsk tsk) caught alight and smoked out the people in apartments above who called the fire brigade who smashed the glass front door open to get in there and hose the place down.

They are so lucky that all they lost was the bin.

Had trek around town today to see if purple cabbage is in season. We’ve got Thanksgiving Dinner coming up and remembered last year it was difficult to find purple cabbage for the coleslaw, although the Mister did find some at the Victoria Street Sunday market – thankfully dinner was on a Sunday last year. Not so this year and Moore Wilson’s haven’t had any in store yet and tell us not until February, New World doesn’t have any but the markets do. Seasons must be changing. The first couple of dinners we never had trouble getting it which is why it was featured on the menu, then the last minute panic last year and now this year looks to be a similar challenge.

However, we did come across peas in pods at New World so it might finally be pea season – will definitely try out the pea, parsely and paresan risotto again this week with fresh peas – yaaay!

Last night at Capitol we sat next to a couple of women. Using my bat hearing at one stage I heard one say to the other “Gosh I love that necklace, is it new?” The other said “No, Jane gave this to me for my 50th.” My mouth physically fell open. I could’ve sworn the women were in their 40’s. No WAY was one of them 50+ No way. Perhaps a really good hair job – no greys that I could spot from 2 metres (or probably less) away in the great flowing brown locks, crows feet around her eyes sure, but smooth plump skin and not too much makeup and still young-looking skin on her hands. The woman looked fabulous. I don’t remember Mother at 50; neither of my parents look like they’re in their mid-60’s so they probably didn’t look 50 when they were 50 so there’s hope for me!