A marvellously meandering Monday

One of the things I really love about my current ministry lifestyle is my weekly day off. I am apparently being a little 'old fashioned' in my practice of taking Mondays as my day off (some colleagues have told me that these days they prefer to take a different day of the week off, and some of them don't take a whole day in one go, but rather blocs of time across a couple of different days).

Be that as it may, and call me old fashioned if you will, but after the emotional energy of Sunday, I really hang out for my Monday: a day when I let the machine answer the phone and don't think of work or ministry related stuff at all.

Yesterday, I had intentions of getting up (relatively) early, and heading to Wodonga for some retail therapy. There's a particular shop there that I wanted to visit, and so the idea was to set out early, hit the shops at Centro Wodonga, have some lunch there, then head home to potter around the house, do some washing, and write Christmas cards.

Well, folks, you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men; well that seems to apply doubly so for clergy women. I ended up having a rather lush sleep-in (for once, NOT interrupted by parcel deliverers, or a certain parishioner who seems to have a radar for ringing my doorbell when I'm either still in bed or in the shower on a go-slow morning). I crawled out of bed around 11am, had a leisurely shower and breakfast (by which time the mail had arrived, so I read that over brekky).

A little more pottering, dropping off some letters to the postoffice, watering the plants on the back porch (and noting with glee that the chilli plants are budding!), then I brought in the line full of washing that I had put out on Saturday, and then started thinking about the rest of my day.

By this time it was approaching 2pm, and I decided that perhaps I needed to revise my plans for retail therapy- Wodonga might be a bit far, so a visit to Rivers in Wangaratta could be the go (as I wanted to get some summery, sandally shoes that are a little more presentable than my current 'beachcomber' style sandals).

As I hopped in the car, I thought about lunch. Given the lateness of the hour, maybe I should aim for Maccas or Hungry Jacks at Wang?... as I set out, I changed my mind, and decided to divert via Milawa and the Gourmet Food Trail, and visit the Milawa Cheese Factory to see if I could do lunch there... as I turned off onto the Snow Rd, I changed my mind again, as I remembered a rather interesting looking winery a bit farther past Milawa that I had passed many times and had been tempted to check out- this could be my opportunity!

So, with that in mind, I headed to Sam Miranda winery where I stopped and enjoyed a lovely lunch and a glass of their Sparkling Snow Road Pink. After a relaxing repast and read, (with a lovely view out the window, and friendly conversation with the girl managing the cellar door front of house), I continued on my way to Wang.

Fortuitously, I found a parking spot right outside the Rivers outlet (must be an omen! :-) and went inside to channel Imelda. I found a number of pairs of shoes that met my requirements, and as I was leaving the shop, I bumped (almost literally) into my Wangaratta counterpart, Ron Manley (who said he had not long ago been joking with the chair of his church council about how long it would take before he bumped into me on the streets of Wangaratta).

He invited me back to the church for a cuppa, and I enjoyed a lovely time catching up and comparing notes with Ron of our respective Carols by Candlelight experiences, Christmas services, holiday plans etc (among other things).

By this time it was nearly 6:30 and I headed towards home, feeling like I'd had a great adventure on my day off.

The day concluded with takeaway pizza for dinner, and writing Christmas cards in front of some trashy TV episodes on DVD (I seem to be going through a vampire phase at the moment, having just finished watching the first season of True Blood, and am now revisiting the first season of Moonlight. What is it about Aussie actors in American vampire TV shows? - Ryan Kwanten in True Blood, and Alex O'Loughlin in Moonlight- oh well, it makes for nice, familiar scenery anyway. Once I finish this current season, I might dig out my old Angel eps, because after all, Angel and Spike really are the vampires' vampires! :-).

All in all, it set me up well to commence my working week in a relaxed and joyous frame of mind (after all, we are in the week of JOY in Advent Season, so it's all rather fitting! :-)