Sadly Lacking Scones.

The Fringe program advertised a morning of tea and scones, catered by the local CWA and entertained by live music.  Roger immediately booked tickets, his mind awash with visions of a veritable tsunami of scones of all descriptions: date and sultana; savoury cheese; good old-fashioned plain scones; mountains of delectable jams and rivers of fresh-whipped cream...  We booked a ticket for sister too and took ourselves down to Unley Town Hall for a feast, and if we weren't quite drooling in anticipation we were certainly close to doing so.

I'll be in that.

Alas, despite the gastronomic delights promised by the words "Scone Fest" we were greeted with two small cold scones, a dab of crusty cream, and two little plastic packs of Beerenberg jam (at least it was Beerenberg jam, local to Hahndorf).  All three of us sighed sadly and made the best of things.  

Oh well.

We even paid extra to go back for two more cold scones and a different selection of plastic jams.  To the backdrop of several very pleasant but not-going-to-challenge-Taylor-Swift-any-time-soon musicians we made small talk with our table mates.  She had grown up on Kangaroo Island and he was a baker by trade.  He ate his cold scones with exemplary professional politeness and refrained from commenting on the plastic-ness of the jam.

We emerged from the Unley Town Hall two hours later, waved Roger off to further Fringe events, and jumped on bicycles.  I couldn't have sister come to visit and not go for a bicycle ride, could I?  Sister, not being much of a bicyclist herself, put up with my foibles and gamely allowed me to set her off aboard my little Trek, the first 'real' bike I ever owned.

Not that my nostalgia meant a thing to her as she gamely pedaled off along the Rugby St bikeway toward town.

 

I wasn't silly enough to expect her to enjoy a long ride of ups and downs.  No, we promenaded genteelly into town, crossing all the streets sensibly on foot and maintaining a steady and sedate pace.  It was Sunday afternoon and the streets of Adelaide were blessedly empty of both car and bicycle traffic.  We explored the rose garden on South Terrace where at the end of summer the roses were few, the bushes slightly tatty, and rose hips in abundance.

End-of-summer rose garden.

 

Beyond the rose garden we ambled through the West Terrace Cemetery with no particular purpose in mind other than enjoying the afternoon and the gentle pleasure of pathways winding through graveyards.  

Under the watchful eye of a gargoyle or two (and a fine collection of spiders).

 

At the far end of the cemetery we stopped to appreciate sculptures that spoke of the devastation wrought by cats on native animal populations.  

Feral and domestic cats gobble indiscriminately, to the detriment of native wildlife.

 

We pedaled past tent villages where those less fortunate than us lived, took a brief stop at a permanent art installation, and found our way to Mile End Station for the train home.

How can I take a serious photo when my sister runs around photobombing my shot?

 

Sister was due to catch a plane back home to her real life on the morrow, so there was time for a final game of Quiddler, my last chance to redeem myself in the world of word games.

I won!

 

I'd like to claim it was all raw skill and talent but it wasn't.  She got bad letters, I got good letters, and the rest was history.

About time too.

I'm off to make some scones now.