After breakfast, there was nothing for it but to head off in search of interesting retail venues with a side trip to Chinatown for yum cha.
Madam may have rolled her eyes each time she arrived at the agreed rendezvous, but limiting purchases to the recent Byrds box set, two New Orleans collections and the new Richard & Linda Thompson live set meant that the credit card escaped lightly from time spent in Basement Discs and Greville Street Records.
She’d have been much more impressed if she’d been able to see how much I’d put back on the shelves. The damage could have been much worse.
That night we headed to Villa Romana with Madam’s Melbourne Mates for another go at spaghetti allo scoglio (highly recommended after our previous visit to Melbourne and still as good as ever), then adjourning to Jimmy Watson’s Wine Bar for a couple of glasses to round out the evening.
After we’d broken the fast at an eatery a couple of doors down from the Leo Pacific next morning, there was nothing for it but to haul the luggage across to Southern Cross to catch the Skybus.
Before we knew it we were touching down in Mackay, contacting the Better Five-Eighths of the Cox Combo, handing over the Dalrymple Pinot Noir as thanks and heading homewards.
Given the fact that a survey of the larder once we’d arrived revealed that the cupboard was bare I guess it’s hardly surprising that we ended up visiting Franco at Pizza Pronto for a family-sized pizza that cost me a little more than my return flight to Melbourne.