An unexpected Visitor in Ashburton

Thursday 21 May

A quieter day with a lovely coincidence.

We treated ourselves to scrambled eggs for breakfast & the use of clean flushing toilets just metres away from where we parked up at Mayfield Domain then packed up, refuelled at the McKeowns, said hello to a curious horse, admired the untimely Halloween decorations & headed to Ashburton, just half an hour away.

A quick trip round Kmart & Woolworths, then I headed to Liquid Laundromat with a bulging basket of dirty laundry while Louis took Banjo to the dump station. Turns out we didn't need to drive all the way up into the hills and lakes to see Mt Sunday/Edoras - could have just gone to Woolies!!!

We were meant to meet our daughter Ella from E Creative Photography for a quick lunch before she did a photography shoot for a client with a kids music group, but the timings didn’t quite work so we bought her a mocha at Triangle Espresso and sent her on her way.

Meanwhile, we had a lovely lunch, still at Triangle Espresso - all amazingly home cooked produce including the best ginger crunch I’ve had in months! I loved the bird murals on the walls, all painted by Wongi Wilson who also did the amazing gun turret historical murals out at Godley Head, as well as a couple of other local Ashburton murals including the lovely geisha girl below. Pretty sure Animal from The Muppets is not one of his - but it's pretty awesome too!

Finished off the laundry at Liquid Laundromat and met a guy who was washing the horse racing number pads from a recent race-meeting which was kinda cool. I popped into Vinnies as the washing was drying and got Josh a cool shirt for a mere $2 which made me happy. Next, Louis had a swim at EA Networks Centre (odd name for a sports complex - sounds more like a power company!) and Ella swung by Banjo for a catch up post shoot (and to collect Josh's shirt!). Amazing coincidence that we were all in Ashburton on the same day!

Trekked over to Robbie Hewitt’s POP after that and settled in for an admin evening on power… it’s good not to have to worry about the solar once in a while! Cooked up a porcini risotto from a discounted pack at SaveMore - it was better than expected but not something I'll be getting again...