May 4 - Moving Miss M

  Getting up early after a late night watching movies is rather taxing, but I left by 9am and headed out to Coburg because today was moving day.  Miss M was stepping on up in the world to a nicer place but not very far away.  When I arrived, everything had already been packed up into boxes, it was just a case of helping back everything into the removal truck and the boot and back seat of my little car and heading off to the new location.
  One of Miss M's travelling buddies works for a removal company, and a few weeks earlier, he says in an intoxicated state, he was convinced to offer up his services.  He was a lovely chap, and it was super helpful having someone who was indisputably "in-charge" of moving day (apart from Miss M herself obviously).  Tell you what though, I wouldn't want to play two-person Tetris against this guy, he would just scoff at the zig-zag pieces!
  We carried out furniture and boxes of various shapes and sizes as bidden.  The contents of Miss M's wardrobe ended up on their hangars in the back seat of my car along with some more delicate baskets of odds and sods.  It took a few hours, but with the aid of a professional it took a lot less time than I'd expected.  It was fun chatting about moving days in general.  I've not really moved much myself as I've been in the one house for twelve years now.  I was informed that Mr Smart, who arrived not long after me this morning, has helped Miss M and the Masterchefs move a collective total of about eight times.  That's certainly brownie points in the bank for the next time he has to move!
  When the trucks and cars were loaded up, we all headed off first to the new location.  Mr Smart and I arrived first, and we found that although it's very close to the freeway, the driveway seemed peaceful and you couldn't really hear the traffic noise, certainly no worse than at my place.  Everyone else arrived shortly after and the unloading commenced.  It was amazing how much faster it was to unload and we were soon being directed where to take what and opening boxes.  Once everything was off the truck and unpacking was underway, thoughts turned to a late lunch.
  Pizza and ribs had been the suggested lunch earlier in the day, but disaster!  The ribs place was closed leaving poor Mr Smart feeling ever so slightly betrayed.  In the end though, we had some really lovely fish and chips.  Damn good batter on the flake too.  After lunch, Mr Smart and I headed back to my place and studied and read and watched TV until we got peckish again.
  Of course.. having been disappointed earlier, Mr Smart had ribs on the brain, so after a few calls we managed to get a booking at Squires Loft Tooronga.  It was fortunately a late booking so we had time to feel hungry again after lunch.  I'd only been to the Albert Park Squires Loft previously, but I knew vaguely that the Tooronga one must be in the new shopping complex on Toorak Road which proved to be correct, but my method of finding the right spot to park still had me do at least one u-turn.
  We were seated and served very quickly, a by-product of going in knowing exactly what you want.  A 500g serve of pork ribs and a whopping 1kg serve for Mr Smart.. of course there are bones in that weight.  They didn't offer the beef ribs at this location though.  I quite enjoyed the beef ones last time, though the pork ones were very enjoyable tonight.  I did enjoy my green peppercorn sauce, but it was nice to also occasionally steal a little of Mr Smart's creamy garlic sauce too.

Saturday's food was:

• Breakfast was a 45g Carman's Classic fruit muesli bar and a 45g Carman's apricot and almond muesli bar.
• Late morning snack was about 16 Arnott's Barbecue Shapes.
• Lunch was a piece of flake with a little tartare sauce, two potato cakes, chips and four steamed dim sims with two glasses of Coke Zero (because who needs extra calories on top of fish and chips...)
• Dinner was at Squires Loft Tooronga.  I started with the complimentary slice of bread (it said I looked fabulous) with half of one of those little butter tubs, then moved on to the 500g serve of pork ribs with green peppercorn sauce and chargrilled vegetables.
• Dessert was a relatively nice sticky date pudding (Mum's is much nicer) with a cheap and nasty vanilla ice-cream which kind of spoiled it.  I regretted dessert.

  After all that physical labour moving a household, such a big meal, and a reasonably longish drive home, it was off to bed for the both of us, resting up to face a day of study and housekeeping in the morning.
  Jess