convicts, crowns, and cool books

Sort of sums up my weekend in no particular order.

I went to the dentist on Friday, fearing a root canal and contemplating a marriage proposal so I could get some of my money back. Fortunately, the root canal was not needed (only a crown) so I opted to continue my singleton existence. Besides, he tried to waterboard me with that little water spray-thingy. Pretty sure that’s grounds for divorce.

A butterfly trapped inside the cafe. My friend had to explain I was an obsessive photographer and not casing the joint.

Anyway, after the dentist, I hopped on a train south to visit my lovely and sole Australian friend. I love love love getting out of the city. And there is something very citified about taking the train somewhere for the weekend. I spent two days in the country enjoying the quiet and finally learning the basics of cricket. We spent one day driving around the countryside so I could get my fill of natural landscape before spending hours in a secondhand bookstore in the middle of nowhere. Yes, people, this is how I like to spend my weekends. Much better than slaving over research articles, believe me.

The weather was rubbish so I worked on my b/w photography with this interesting plant.

It was the best bookstore I’ve ever entered. It looked like an old cabin with books lining every shelf from the floor to the rafters, on the floors and even on the rafters. It smelled faintly of woodsmoke and 30s music played on the radio. In this bookstore, I found an 80 yr-old book on an Australian expedition to Antarctica that I couldn’t resist. If I weren’t leaving the country so soon, I’d have left with multiple squeal-inducing pieces of literature.

Anyway, it was quiet and lovely weekend that ended on a bizarre note. I had to take the bus back to Sydney as the trains weren’t running. As we sat waiting to leave, an interesting young man boarded the bus sans shoes, shirt or ticket and gave the bus driver some sob story that belonged in the lyrics of a country music song. The driver bought it and the lad moved the back of the bus in a nervous shuffle. Creepy but there were several interesting characters on the bus so I just went about my business of staring moodily out the window (isn't that what you're supposed to do on long bus trips?).

By the time we reached the connection depot, I was doing a “dance” and practically ran off the bus in the direction of the ladies room, and plowed into several police officers. Turns out our little shirtless buddy was an escaped convict trying to get out of town.

Somewhere in the fields of Goulburn, an escaped convict waits.

My friend had mentioned the jail before and thought wondered if it was safer to have the jail in town as the escapees would likely want to leave pronto.

I believe her theory was proven correct.