It does great champagne. I'd like to offer up a special thanks to Jansz. For being there.
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| Friday Lunch. Yes it was a bit chilly. But check out how happy we are.. |
And of course, there's an exciting freedom to being without your kids, because there are so many things you don't have to do, like make food for anyone else, clean up after them, hell, you don't even have to clean up after yourself.
There were four of us, my friend J from Bowral (co namer of this blog) and I flew in from Sydney, my friend K came from Melbourne and K's friend J from Perth.
NB: You will be happy to know the two J's do not share a first name, only a first initial, which is confusing here for the purposes of privacy but was not at all confusing during the weekend.
At the beginning we did not all know each other, by the end, we were the richer for having spent time together. Sometimes we did stuff together, other times we went solo. No pressure, no agenda.
No girlie weekend would be complete without a significant focus on eating and food. And Tassie is a complete winner. It's fresh, and beautifully prepared. Bacon and egg rolls as big as my head, delicious seafood, a most splendid antipasto plate and perhaps some more champagne. Did I mention Jansz? Yes, I think I did.
I'll say it again...Jansz.
Hobart's famous museum, the museum of new and old art (MONA) was closed for some fancy schmanchy festival with $600 tickets. It had a arty name, Synaesthesia or something. I am suspicious of anything that uses the ae when just an e or an a is required. Is it really necessary? Is it perhaps, a bit of a wank? Maybe I am just ignorant, and a bit bitter because I didn't get to go and by all accounts, it's a marvellous museum.
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| Yachts, trees, water...serenity. |
Anyways, once I got over not going to MONA and moved on, we all went for a seafood lunch near the water and started talking.
And we talked
And talked
And...talked.
Sometimes we ate and talked, or drank and talked, or both at once. Virtually no subject was out of bounds. We walked and talked and shopped and talked. We unpacked our troubles to one another and shared points of view. Sometimes we disagreed, sometimes we challenged a thought process, or gave advice. Sometimes we said nothing and acted casual. We shared anecdotes about our kids, showed each other photos, became Facebook friends. And we laughed. The best thing about a girls weekend is the laughter. Letting your guard down and spilling your guts, and laughing so hard you can't talk any more.
There was no agenda, no one had to be anywhere at any particular time. We paired up, peeled off and went solo. An hour in a bookshop for two of us. Heaven. A mission for Tasmanian Snowdomes? The other pair took it on and extreme tackiness is the glorious result.
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| Did I mention the cakes? |
The Salamanca markets were sensational. We shopped and browsed and oohed and aahed for five hours. No one came away empty handed, presents were bought, kids trinkets and a bit of Christmas shopping in advance. The food was excellent, the coffee superb, the buskers (mostly) talented.
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| The markets just went on and on and on. Brilliant. |
To counteract some of the damage I was doing by eating three large restaurant meals a day, I took a constitutional each morning. On the way my friend K and I were impressed by the beautiful houses of Battery Point, a well to do inner suburb of Hobart. the gardens were gorgeous. I have never noticed gardens before much but I noticed these.
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| See! Purdy. |
As one of the girls said: There's a lot to do in Tasmania. We didn't do any of it.
Instead, we played according to our own interests and it couldn't have been better.
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| Us, not doing anything in Tasmania. |
I will leave you with a sign I saw in one of the market stalls. It made me laugh.
