Whimsical Wednesday # 103

Welcome back to Whimsical Wednesday!


The day for your googled giggle that gets you over the hump that is Wednesday and sliding down into the weekend.

cookie burglar!

a little Christmas sparkle in our city

I walked through Rundle Mall earlier today on my way to the bus stop and guess what I saw?

a carousel for the children,

Thomas the Tank engine for the tiny children,

glittery things hanging in the new Rundle Place mall.

shimmery sparkles

all of the light fittings have been dressed up.
I wonder if this was pre-planned in the design stage?  The circular fittings are perfect for hanging shimmer trails through.

the first one again from a different angle.

and here's Santa, checking his naughty and nice list.

How is your city looking this close to Christmas?

if I don't clean up soon I won't be able to see the table

really, it's messy here.

Not at all usual for me, but I've been letting things slide.
tsk tsk

The table is covered with clutter, the coffee table is covered with newspaper, there are folded clothes waiting to be put away, even dishes on the sink. Washed, but not dried, certainly not put away.

Seems I've been spending too much time zooming around the internet, what other explanation could there possibly be?
Or maybe it's the hours I wander around with the camera, or browsing around the shops wondering what to get so-and-so for Christmas.
Oh that's right, a gift card, easy choice, weighs nothing and fits in the handbag.
No lugging home of heavy items.

Maybe the fault lies with me staying in bed until 7am most mornings?  Then there's the afternoon nap, although I don't have one every day....

Really, where does the time go?

this is not right....must clean....

unread newspaper, I really should finish reading that so I can toss it in the recycling. There's a couple of magazines under there too, from the library, they're due back in a couple of days and I haven't even opened them yet.

and of course cooking steak and chips took a few minutes.....

and gravy, there's another two minutes. 

Add in the minutes I spent playing with this new toy...

a cute little Christmas Candy Fan. The big section at the bottom held a tiny packet of M&Ms.

hold this button in....

and the fan spins, creating the tiniest of breezes.

It's battery operated and I bought two more to give one each to my two youngest grandchildren.
I even bought extra batteries!

Guess I should stop playing and get busy tidying.

Sunday Selections #149

Welcome back to Sunday Selections!

This once-a- week-meme was originally begun by Kim of Frog Ponds Rock, as a way to showcase some of the many photos we all take, but don't get around to showing on our blogs.

Kim spends more time writing at The Shake these days.

The rules are very simple:-

1. post photos of your choice, old or new, under the Sunday Selections title

2. link back to me, River, somewhere in your post

3. leave me a comment so that I know you've joined in and can come over and see what you've posted.

4. hop on over to TheElephant’s Child to see more of her wonderful photos.

Kath and Andrew often join in as well, although Kath has been quite busy lately and unable to join us.

There are several other participants now though:

Jackie K at WorkingThrough It

Gillie at RandomThoughts From Abroad

I usually go with a theme for my Sunday Selections and this week I have a Christmas Theme for you. 
Run, Santa, Run!



Last Sunday, I was down by the Torrens Riverbank again.
Why?

It was the day for the annual Santa Fun Run for Charity.
Naturally I took photos.....

here's a few Santas heading for the meeting point.
I didn't know where that was, so I followed them.

following Santas up the hill...

to the gathering point. Red and White suits as far as the eye could see. This is just a fraction of them.

got a good spot near the starting point, I learned later there were over a thousand Santas participating this year.

TV cameras were there, I made a mental note to watch the news later, but wouldn't you know it, I forgot to! Too busy processing the photos...........

and they're off! runners went first, walkers and Santas with strollers came behind.

heading up the hill....

crossing the bridge...

more Santas crossing the bridge

from here they ran or walked around the Torrens Lake and back to the starting point which was now the finish line, a total of 4km.

some of the runners returning

Elmo was there...

...giving two lucky little kids a ride.

Even a plane flying overhead was red and white.

high tea in the bath

Last Thursday when I arrived home from the shops, I found a little package waiting for me.

Woo-hoo! I like surprise packages....so of course I opened it before unloading the groceries.
Well, I did put the ice cream away first. 

I took a photo of the little box, but can't show it here as my address is clearly visible, should have turned it upside down.

Inside?
This lovely card with daffodils on the front....

and......

a slice of cake!

not real cake of course, a delightfully chocolate scented cake of soap!

it looks so delicious, I can't bring myself to use it. Not yet anyway.

And yesterday, I visited my daughter's garden again, and managed to get another cat photo.

this is the other stray cat that seems to have adopted my daughter's yard along with the pretty pregnant one.

we don't know his name, so we're calling him Gus. He doesn't seem to mind.
He's very young, very friendly and quite hungry every time he shows up.

I want to scoop him up and bring him home, but I'm sure he has an owner, he appears to be cared for, much like the other one, they don't look like they're living rough and scavenging.

Wednesday's Words on a Friday

On Wednesdays, Delores, from Under The Porch Light, has a meme which she calls

“Words for Wednesday”.

She puts up a selection of six words which we then use in a short story, or a poem.

I’m hopeless at poetry so I always do a story.

It’s a fun challenge…why not join in?

This week's words are:

1. surprise

2. aromatic

3. elfin

4. toboggan

5. steep

6. dashing

We also have a photo to work with:

and a sentence:

"The yard bore a striking resemblance to the aftermath of an explosion in a marshmallow factory."

Here is my story: (okay, technically it's not a story...)

Kate had been baking most of the day and the house was filled with the aromatic scents of warmed cinnamon and ginger.  As she pulled the final tray of gingerbread men from the oven, Kate thought about the surprise gift Richard was bringing home later today.

 Their son, Nick, was eleven and a half and had been reminding them for weeks that his old toboggan was too small and they had promised him a try at the steeper hill behind Johnno's farm this year, since he was so much taller now. Richard had ordered a larger toboggan from a city department store and was collecting it on his way home from work.
Setting the tray on the cooling rack, Kate heard the sounds of children gathering at the door. It was the carol singers, the newly formed children's choir, coming around early so they could all be home before dark. None of them was over twelve, so a ring of parents stood behind them as they sang their way through Good King Wenceslas. Kate spotted the elfin face and wispy curls of her niece Alexis, at six, one of the two youngest of the group.

 After the children had sang three carols, Kate handed out fresh cookies to each child and after dashing quickly back into the kitchen for more, a couple to each of the parents too.

 Later, while washing up the mountain of mixing bowls, cookie sheets, cutters and spoons, Kate looked out the window to see snow beginning to fall gently upon the garden. Richard should be home any minute now, looking forward to the beef potroast and mashed potatoes Kate always cooked on this last work day of the year. Tomorrow he would be on holidays for a month, plenty of time to do all the little things around the house that needed his attention, as well as helping Nick learn to handle the much bigger toboggan.

 With a self-satisfied smile Kate gave the now clean sink a final wipe down and began to set the table for two.
Nick was spending the night with his cousins Alexis and ten year old Steven. Kate's sister Sarah had invited him so the big new toboggan wouldn't accidentally be seen before Christmas day.
Dinner was a very peaceful time without Nick's constant reminders of how tall he now was and how the steep hill behind Johnno's seemed so much smaller now that he was "practically a grown up, Mum".
Kate and Richard left the dishes to soak in the sink while they wrapped the toboggan as best as they could, but really there was no disguising the shape of the thing. Richard said after two rolls of paper had been used, they might just as well have stuck a bow on it without any paper, Nick wouldn't be any less surprised.

They washed up the dishes and went upstairs to bed, glancing out of the landing window long enough to see the snow was falling harder now and beginning to blanket the yard.
Next morning, as Kate let the puppy out for his morning ritual she stared in amazement at how much snow had fallen overnight.

 The yard bore a striking resemblance to the aftermath of an explosion in a marshmallow factory.

 Soft mounds of snow, looking remarkably like melted marshmallow, lay on the ground, on the bushes along the side yard and

over the side fence, Kate could see the rest of the neighbourhood similarly blanketed.

Looking out over the bay behind their cottage, while waiting for Roscoe to finish sniffing around, Kate could see the same mounds of marshmallowy snow blanketing the foreshore that lay between their cottage and the town.
It was going to be a picture perfect Christmas this year.

bonus goods, free with purchase of....

Have you ever bought a magazine in a supermarket that have a bonus offer attached?

Hanging on a stand near the magazines are bags of goodies that say 'free with purchase of....'

Many people just see the word "free" and think they can have the goodies without buying the magazine, at the checkout we inform them otherwise. Some relinquish the freebie, others run back to get the magazine.

Sometimes the magazines on sale, with freebies attached, aren't all that popular.
They don't get sold.
The store is left with out of date magazines and a box of two of "freebies".

What happens to these? you might be wondering.
I'll tell you....the store has paid for the magazines, so any unsold are returned to the supplier and the store is credited with the appropriate amount of $$$. (Pretty sure I'm not giving away any secrets here)

The "freebies" however, cannot be returned, so if there are a lot of them, they are offered to shoppers at the checkout.
I used to love giving away these freebies.

Anyway, I was shopping at my local Woolworths recently, just raced in for milk, which I could have got the next day....but (there's that butt again, buttinsky) this must have been my lucky day.
As I scanned my carton of milk at a self-serve checkout a lovely young man offered me this....

woo-hoo! A small cookie sheet and a set of three Christmas themed cookie cutters!
He asked very politely if I would like to have this free gift and I wondered if anybody ever said "no thanks".

last month these were free with any purchase of any of the magazines listed on the packaging. I haven't been down the magazine aisle for ages, so hadn't seen them.
Fate must have decided that I really needed to have some Christmas themed cookie cutters though, why else would I suddenly decide to get milk when I could have waited an extra day for it?

There's even a Christmas Cookie recipe included.
Aaaand.....I have all the ingredients.
Mmmm, cookies.