Monday: my workmate Foodjunkie had her last day of work with us on Wednesday this week – she’s moving over East – we will really miss her. On Monday, she brought in this beautiful Dolly Varden cake made by her Aunty Janet. I promised Foodjunkie I would mention that she reckons her Aunty Jan is the best aunty in the world, and this gorgeous cake was one of many that Aunty Jan has made for Foodjunkie and her twin sister – this was one made especially for Foodjunkie. Underneath Dolly’s pink butter icing skirt is delicious homemade butter cake. Poor Dolly had her skirt demolished by the team as we all had a slice – it was lovely! The icing was my favourite bit – it truly was as yummy as it was pretty. Aunty Jan is certainly a most talented cake maker.

Despite having eaten a slab of cake for morning tea I was still hungry for lunch (but of course). I got one of my favourites, takeaway teriyaki soba (AU$7.30) from Nippon Fair. It was as good as always – I ate it how I always do , stirring the slivers of pink ginger through the noodles before tucking in.

Tuesday: I felt like Singapore rice noodles and went to Fantasian Noodle Bar. The Singapore noodles here feature chicken, tofu and squid (maybe too much squid – I’d prefer less squid for a little more chicken and/or tofu – the dish is really yummy though). Whenever I’ve been here the place has been almost empty, and my food has come out within five minutes of ordering, which is great, as I’m always starving and ready to stuff my face.

Wednesday: a sandwich from MYO, with my usual fillings – roast chicken, swiss cheese, sundried tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce and mushrooms with fruit chutney spread on the bread. They have facilities to make your own pizza at this MYO – one of these days I might just do that.

Thursday: I couldn’t decide what I felt like, and having no better ideas, I went back to Nippon Fare for teriyaki chicken and sushi. I made sure the wind didn’t grab my food this time!

Friday: we enjoyed morning tea brought in by one of my workmates to celebrate a recent success. She got half a Boston mud cake and half a quiche Lorraine from the Cheesecake Shop. Eyes like this: O_O Everyone except the vegetarians in the team had a slice of each. I’m a savoury rather than sweet person but I really enjoyed both. I’ve always liked the Boston mudcake (if chocolate isn’t your thing, the Caramel Gold Mudcake is amazing too). Chocolatey fingers, yum.

I would eat more quiche in general but as they usually contain lots of cheese or cream I have to be careful how much I eat (or deal with glugginess afterwards). This was really tasty.

I had lunch late on Friday, not because I was particularly full from morning tea (you’d think so though, eh?) but because I got busy and just didn’t get a chance to take a breather until then – I left the office at about 2pm and headed for the Pavilion Markets in search of a big comforting bowl of noodle soup – chicken noodle soup from the Chinese stall next to Gelatino ice cream. The chicken broth was lovely – so lovely in fact that in my hunger and eagerness I scalded my tongue in my first few mouthfuls. That didn’t stop me from enjoying my lunch though – there were two kinds of noodles in the soup, thick egg noodles and thin rice noodles, nice big pieces of tender chicken, lots of bean sprouts and choy sum, and the whole dish was topped with fried shallots. Mmmmm.

As I ate, I read my book, being careful not to flick soup on the pages as I sucked my noodles down. Now that my latest shipment of goodies has arrived from Amazon, I’m enjoying Ellen Hart’s Jane Lawless series. Actually, all week all I’ve wanted to do is curl up in bed with one of my books and just read. In the last week I’ve read Hallowed Murder and Stage Fright, and have now begun A Killing Cure. That’s one thing I’ve been spending money on, now that I’m working and earning a pretty good wage – books. Most of the books I bought during the past three years were all for uni, for my thesis. These are purely for my own pleasure – the pleasure of reading and the pleasure of ownership. I love owning books and being able to look at them arranged on the shelves, and read them whenever I want. Which reminds me – I must get back into cataloguing my collection on Librarything. I have so many more books to catalogue. Unfortunately, just the thought of it makes me feel even more tired than I already feel!