Market Friday Provides My Wife With Breakfast and a Hat

Today is #MarketFriday, a project initiated by @dswigle, and this post is my contribution to this project for this week.

If you want to learn more about this project and would like to participate, visit today's post by @dswigle.

My wife always goes out with me when I go out to take photos.

We have learned the hard way what the South African sun can do to you...well, I suppose not just here in South Africa.

I have spent a lot of time outdoors in the sun during my lifetime, and now I have to deal with the consequences in the form of skin cancer. Last year I had it cut out on my left ear and we thought I was done with it. But a few months later it appeared again.

As they cut right to the bone last time, the doctor said if they cut again, they might have to go into the bone, thus removing a part of my ear. So, I am currently on treatment, doing all we can to prevent that from happening. I've been on this treatment now for the past couple of months and it seems to be working so far, although it's quite expensive.

But, that means that I now try to stay out of the sun as much as possible, especially over the warmest time of day. Secondly, I never go out without a hat.

To get to the point, as mentioned, my wife always goes out with me and she loves the sun. But, dealing with what we are currently having to deal with, we are very cautious.

Last weekend, my wife mentioned to me that she remembered seeing a hat that she liked at the nursery down in Illovo, down on the South Coast.

Primarily, it is a nursery, but they also have a nice little craft market (where my wife saw the hat) on the same premises.

So I decided to get her the hat and off we went.

Having Breakfast.

It was still relatively early and we decided to stop over at The Pavillion shopping center to visit the local Wimpy for breakfast.

They had a nice special, called "The Meaty Grill" at R99.90.

I bought us each a cold drink to go with it. I misplaced the slip, but if I remember correctly, it was R20.00 for a cold drink.

We both had the same, so it worked out to be about R239.80.

At the time of writing this post, the exchange rate for USD/ZAR was R17.29.

That means breakfast cost us $13.87.

Off to the Nursery.

From there we left for the Illovo Nursery.

They have a beautiful little wooden bridge that takes you to a pond where we often like to sit down and just enjoy the peacefulness and tranquility of the area. I have shared some photos of the bridge in previous posts here on the blockchain.

But strolling around, I found another little bridge a bit further down that is clearly not in use anymore. But to me, it still had character.

We spent some time at the pond.

On the one side, they have this "floating pier" that you can walk onto. When we have the grandkids with us, it's always a treat for them when I take them to stand on it.

You have to be sure of your balance when stepping out onto it though. Stepping out from the solid ground, it is suddenly very "unstable" and moving around beneath you, just floating on the water. If you are not careful, you can easily lose your balance and end up in the water...lol.

Looking out over the water, they have this boat on the water, being decorated with flowers.

All around the pond, it's dense but colorful and beautiful.

If you have a peep at the first photo of the pond again (with the pier in the foreground), you'll see, at the top left, an art gallery that is visible.

We decided to walk up there and have a look at the art they have on exhibition.

Going up some stairs towards the art gallery.

I didn't take any photos of the artwork...I just didn't think the artists would be very appreciative of someone taking photos of their art instead of buying it...

But standing on the porch, outside the gallery, you have a nice view of the boat on the pond.

And then it even got a "passenger"...or was it perhaps the captain...lol?

We then decided to go to the craft market where my wife remembered seeing the hat.

To get to the craft market, you have to pass through the nursery which provides some colorful scenes along the way...

There is one little shop in the craft market I normally like to pay a visit to...(yes, even though I hate shopping...lol). In all honesty, I don't even know what else they have on offer, but what caught my attention the first time, is that they always have a beautiful display of knives outside.

I have bought two pocket knives there to add to my little collection in the past.

The one is a Browning.

The other one, I don't even know the name, but I found it interesting enough to buy.

It is also a pocket/"flick" knife, with a safety catch so that you cannot flick it by accident.

What made it unique to me, is the fact that it has a little "built-in"/fold-out torch.

I was actually pleasantly surprised with how functional such a little torch is. It doesn't make "daylight" around you. But when you find yourself in pitch darkness, it makes enough light to easily find your way without stumbling over stuff.

Oh yes...then the hat. Yes, I didn't forget about the hat...that is what we came for...lol.

We found the shop with the hats and they still had some in stock.

They actually had a special... Two hats for R100.00. My wife spoke to the shop owner and asked what we would be charged if she only wanted one hat...I mean...she can only wear one hat at a time...lol. The lady was very helpful and immediately said that we would then only pay R50.00 for one hat. Bargain!

At the exchange rate mentioned earlier, that works out to about $2.89.

We went back to our car and found these little guys waiting for us on top of the car. They looked at us so casually as if they were thinking... "gee, we thought you're never coming back"...

Anyhow, as we approached the car, they headed off in their own direction and that was the end of our visit to the Illovo nursery for the day.

Final Thoughts

Spending money on breakfast and buying the hat for my wife, we spent about $16.78 in total. But we also had some quality time to just relax and enjoy the peacefulness and quietness of the nursery.

Thank you for reading my post. I do appreciate it!