Inappropriate coat touching

What could possibly go wrong with a toasted ham and cheese sandwich? Plenty, it would seem, when a printer is involved.

This morning we went down to breakfast then went for another wander down to Echo Point. And, as the very loud Australian tour guide announced to everyone within super earshot “What a difference a day makes!” Most of the fog of yesterday was completely gone, the clouds had vanished and the sun was beating down on the gums and sheer rock faces. It all looked fantastic as we know it can.

I decided that after yesterday’s photo of me and the aborigines, it would only be right if Mirinda had her photo taken with one of the convicts. For some frivolous reason, she thought he needed to wear her scarf.

I was forced to buy a new fleece and to dispose of my City Uni one that, to be honest, was getting a bit frayed. I was kind of hoping I’d not be able to find one I’d like but (damn it) I did. I left my old one on top of a covered bin. Who knows, it might turn up on someone in Katoomba who thinks there’s something wrong with loving New York.

We then had to high tail it back to Lilianfels because we were meeting Sally for Elevenses. Sally went to uni with Mirinda and we’ve not seen her for years (though she came to the funeral) so it was to be a lovely catch up. We tried. Oh, how we tried. Sally turned up just after 11 and we settled down in armchairs with a latte.

Mirinda and I were still recovering from breakfast but Sally was a bit peckish so she ordered a ham and cheese toasted sandwich. I should add that it was a child sized ham and cheese toasted sandwich. The young, vocabularically over-indulgent waiter (he thought playing snooker on a pool table would be ‘preposterous’) put the order into the little touch screen machine and left it at that.

We waited for quite a while for that sandwich. We put up with this woman constantly coming over and offering her insights into our conversation. This woman, I should add, works at Lilianfels. Perhaps her job is to chat inappropriately to guests. She certainly accomplished that at breakfast for the last two mornings. I’m certain she thinks she’s being friendly but we just found it annoying. We only had a couple of hours with Sally and we hadn’t figured on her joining in with our chatting.

After a while, we told this irritating woman that Sally’s sandwich had not yet appeared. She rose up, flustered a bit and then went off to fix it. The sandwich still hadn’t turned up half an hour later and we told her again – Sally was getting quite short. The woman was reasonably upset and went off in search of it again. Then the young man who had originally taken the order came over as if he’d been ordered to explain the situation. He told us that the sandwich didn’t turn up because the printer had broken.

But then, miracle of miracles, the kitchen door opened and there, nestling on a plate and surrounded by free chips, was Sally’s sandwich. After eating one half of it, Sally claimed it wasn’t very nice but shortly before that announcement, the inappropriate woman leaned in and, having taken a good long look at Sally’s sandwich, proclaimed that it wasn’t what she’d call a toasted sandwich. It was, she said, ham and cheese between two bits of toast.

There was a lot of inappropriate interjections by this woman but I think the worst and the one that broke the camels back and turned the atmosphere very frosty, was when she ran her fingers across the back of Sally’s coat and asked whose it was because it felt so nice. It was, fortunately, hanging over the back of a chair at the time.

I left a 50 cent tip which I think would have shown my displeasure adequately. So much better than leaving nothing though it would have been quite good to leave a negative tip given the lousy service. And, to be honest, in most places we’ve been to around the world, we would have received the sandwich free of charge. Mind you, that would probably still have been too expensive.

Love your coat, Sal

After a quick snap at a distance from the inappropriate woman (I didn’t want her stepping in and snapping away with my camera), we went our separate ways (Sally had a meeting at 4pm back in Orange). Following yesterday’s trip to lookouts never before seen (by us), we decided to see some more, going back to Dural via Mt Victoria.

I need to say right here that I’m not going to describe every lookout we looked out from because the day was far from over and this post would wind up being ridiculously long. Suffice to say, we saw lots of great sights, including a couple of bridges named after people’s aunts. Most notably (and the only one I wrote down) was the Aunty Dawn Colless Bridge which spans the Great Western Highway just north of Katoomba.

Actually, ‘Aunt’ is a term of respect in native circles and Aunty Dawn Colless was an Aboriginal elder of the Gundungurra tribe. The bridge is named in honour of her.

Here’s the view at one of the lookouts we stopped at…

Gary on a trig point

Ok, here’s the view from a proper lookout…

Govett’s Leap is the waterfall on the right

On the way down to Dural we had a rather odd stop in Bilpin at a big shed. We had apple pie and a coffee, bought apples and apple jelly and wondered how this massive barn could possibly make any money. We were the only customers. While we were there two guys turned up but they were friends of the guy who ran the place. It was a bit weird (in a Deliverance way) but we managed to escape unscathed. And the pie was quite nice.

Back at Dural we had an hour to relax before heading out to Parramatta to have dinner with Janette, Donna and Ron at the Workers club. Janette is Claire’s oldest friend (they’ve known each other for around 60 years) and Donna is her daughter. Donna grew up with Fiona and Mirinda and claims she suffers from the middle child syndrome, seeing as she was born between the other two.

We spent a lot of the night in hysterics. It was a lovely catch up for them all.

Mirinda, Ron, Donna, Janette, Bob