sunday culminated in a waffle cone of badde manors sour cherry sorbet and pistachio gelato, and a detour into the side streets of ultimo to admire a row of decades old corrugated iron warehouses. before that, a two hour walk through the inner west to the inner inner west. before that, a big fat greek breakfast, which due to surprise “sydney weekender”-induced crowd delays, became brunch, which by the time it was served, became lunch.

whatever, it was tasty. “greek beans and scrambled eggs” on the menu, but plated up, it was beans (fat creamy white beans and al dente green beans) cooked in tomatoes and onions, eggy eggs, fried haloumi, avocado, baby spinach and a basket of turkish bread toast. oh, and a cup of tea. after which the boy’s mother cheerfully said, “round the corner for cake and coffee?”

it is a sad and unprecedented day when i turn down cake, but i didn’t think i would eat again until, um, tomorrow. obviously, three hours later, the ices proved me wrong.

saturday was napped away after crumpets and jam. i awoke midafternoon to stroll up to the corner and procure a fillet of snapper, a sweet potato and a little knob of ginger. a couple hours later, there were three bowls of fish porridge eaten as quickly as the scalding factor would allow, while watching potato battle on “iron chef”.

friday ended dismally at the table of a portuguese restaurant in petersham. maybe because it had started on such a high — double plates of pippis in garlic — there was only one other direction for the evening to proceed.

so, there was this girl visiting from england, friend of a friend, who due to a bottle of wine, or the professional requirements of being a barrister, or something, could not stop talking. towards the end of the night, after the boy (to my right) started telling her about travelling through pakistan, she (to my left) thought it appropriate to cut me out of her line of sight, lean across me on several occasions, and gesticulate with her hands not five centimetres from my nose. she really wanted to go to pakistan to scatter her father’s ashes, and to find pakistan and have it find her, and not be like when she went to india and was disappointed to not finally feel a sense of belonging, and —

oh bloody hell, shut up, and remove your hands from in front of my face, and your wine glass from my bit of table. no kiss goodbye for you when we all finally end up on the pavement at midnight. pah!

the oven roasted salt cod was meaty and good, and there were so many paprika-sprinkled potatotoes i couldn’t even meet them halfway. if only i could have shared the cab back to the city with them, instead of non-stop talking indian barrister girl from the UK.