At noon I drove a primped and preened Gub up to Rokk Ebony, the hairdressers. She was off to a hen's night this evening and wanted to look utterly fabulous. Traffic around the Kings Way was horrendous due to a lane closure to allow some building supplies to be craned into the Glen Waverley Train Station works, but I managed to make it through to the supermarket. I grabbed a few grocery items and headed back home.
I made and ate a quick lunch, brought in the laundry, and then headed back out, off to work. I sighed as I typed that. Hopefully this will be the last weekend I spend any time at work but of course I can't know for sure. Fortunately, today I only needed to go in for a couple of hours, just long enough to belt through three performance appraisals. I despise the performance appraisal process, I feel like it's utterly unproductive. People should (and I do) give their staff feedback all the time, not just once every six months.
I finished up at work, a little earlier than I expected in fact, and headed straight on to Mr Smart's. I played around on his laptop for a while, until he was ready for the evening's events, and then we both headed off to the home of the Masterchefs. It's only a short walk, just over a kilometre so it takes us next to no time but this afternoon it was sincerely a challenge. It was so hot and humid this afternoon. By the time we arrived we were literally dripping with sweat.
We were ushered into a hot kitchen where the Masterchef and the littlest Minichef were shaping the gnocchi into the traditional rectangles. Mr Masterchef was slaving over a hot stove boiling two pots of water and making the pasta sauce. A kitchen in full swing.
It wasn't long before dinner was served and we all retreated with our bowls of delicious pasta into the cooler lounge room to eat. Masterchef learned to make gnocchi from an Italian Nonna and it definitely showed. It was amongst the very best dishes of gnocchi that it's ever been my pleasure to eat. It was just a shame we couldn't stick around for the jovial evening's banter but I had a ticket for the soccer and I wasn't about to waste it.
We walked down to the train station and jumped on the next train. Unfortunately, we did not know much in advance that there were partial line closures for track works. All passengers had to disembark at Clifton Hill and catch (gulp) replacement buses. It was not a pleasant experience and the idiot bus driver was clearly not aware that he had a bus full of Melbourne Victory supporters. Instead of watching what was happening when the bus got to Jolimont, he tried to lock me and three other supporters into the bus and drive off with us still inside!
Bus adventures thankfully over, we walked around the MCG and over the bridge to Melbourne Victory's home ground, AAMI Park (aka Bubble Dome). We went in and found seats near enough to the cheer squad to enjoy the atmosphere, but far enough away that we weren't deafened by their drumming and war cries. We also had a good view of the Western Sydney Wanderers support contingent, discreetly tucked away in a corner of the stadium. Not so discreet when the buggers let off a pre-game flare. They let off four flares all up I think, I'm just glad our side didn't set any off this match.
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| Naughty naughty Sydney, just look at all those security guards in yellow vests! |
As the match was about to get underway, on the big screen they showed film of the players putting on their numbers. They obviously show it every game as the cheer squad and crowd shouted the last names of the players as the emcee finished calling their first names: Marco ROJAS, Andrew NABBOUT, Adama TRAORE and so on and so forth. It was amusing and fun. I lost it completely though, when they got to Francesco Stella. As one voice, the whole crowed screamed 'STELLA' as Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire, I nearly wet myself laughing.
The match got underway, and disaster! The Sydneysiders scored in the first fifteen minutes. They scored again in the second half, then it looked for a moment like Melbourne were coming back, they scored a goal too but couldn't find the second they needed for a draw, let alone the third needed for a win. I said to Mr Smart at one point, "I don't think I can be an avid soccer supporter, I just don't need anything else to be frustrated about!". I am continually surprised though, by how much I enjoy watching it and how much I've learnt about the game in one short year. I also found out something un-soccer related tonight, the view of the sunset from AAMI Park is quite lovely.
As the final siren sounded we rose and joined the throng of disappointed departing fans. There were a lot of them. 21,638 people attended tonight's match and 90 - 95% of them were Victory supporters. I realised as we departed that I had forgotten my scarf but it was too late to try to fight my way back in. I expect I shall have to buy a supporter's t-shirt for wearing at any future games. It's too hot to wear a scarf here and I can't forget a t-shirt!
Mr Smart and I were none to keen on catching replacement buses back to his place, so I suggested we walk to the tram stop in the city. It was only as we walked up the steep beginnings of Exhibition Street that I asked knowingly, "Who's dumb idea was this again?". We made it though, and caught the packed tram back. It was hot, sticky and almost as horrible as the buses, but at least it dropped us much closer to our destination.
We arrived home exhausted. I was very hot and a little dehydrated so Mr Smart grabbed us each cold bottles of water, and made a small supper and then we went to bed. Despite the outcome of the game tonight, I don't think either of us would have not gone to the match, it was still an exciting game to watch and a fun night out.
Today's food and exercise were:
- Breakfast was scrambled eggs (five eggs and some milk between two), served on top of toasted garlic Afghan bread. I also had a glass of approximately 250ml of orange juice.
- Exercise was twenty minutes on the cross trainer at load two.
- Lunch was a Mission Mediterranean wrap with skinny capsicum dip, baby spinach, 140g Virginia ham, a slice of Bega So Light cheese and five semi-dried tomatoes.
- Afternoon snack was a single double choc vanilla Tim Tam.
- Dinner was homemade potato gnocchi with tomato, chicken and baby spinach sauce and a light sprinkle of grated Parmesan.
- During soccer snack was a Peter's Tropical Frosty Fruit ice-block and a 600ml Coke Zero.
- Further exercise was a 2km walk from the soccer stadium to the tram stop at the top of Bourke Street.
- Tram stop snack was two Brazil nuts, two almonds, two hazelnuts and two pecan nut halves.
- Supper was three steamed dim sims with salt-reduced soy sauce.
Until tomorrow!
Jess
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