24 Hours Around the Ridges

Last Friday I drove to the Sunshine Coast to attend the funeral of Jo's lovely Dad, whom I have known since about 1970. Jo, you will recall, was one of the participants in The Great Op Shop Road Trip.  Jan, the other participant, lives west of Cooroy at Carters Ridge, so I headed there first with my trusty suitcase.  It was a glorious day for driving with an excellent musical soundtrack all the way up on the radio. And I noticed the Ridgewood Hall was a having a fair the next morning.
  
Jan and I decided that lunch in Cooroy plus a bit of op shopping was the best possible lead-in to the funeral that we could think of.  Cooroy has four op shops, and Jan volunteers at the Lifeline, so she gets staff discount!

We didn't have a lot of time, so it was a bit of a rushed exercise.  Endeavour first.  It has lovely leadlight windows.  It is a small, thin shop, but beautifully presented. However, I only managed to find a book there, a gift for my brother.  Next was the Hospice Shop, which raises funds for the beautiful Katie Rose Hospice at Doonan, where Jo's Dad was cared for until his death. It is rather well hidden behind the main shopping strip. It has a good bric-a-brac collection (unlike the Endeavour shop, which doesn't have the room). I was impressed that every item of clothing has a size-marking hanger, which makes life so much simpler.  I tried on a couple of things here that didn't quite work, but Jan found the tray she was looking for.

Onwards to Lifeline, where I was introduced to Jan's co-workers and found the treasure of the day, a pair of purple crushed velvet pants!  The perfect thing to wear to the launch of my cousin Lorelei's book Dress Memory next week (the book tells her journey through her twenties, relating it to her love for vintage fashion). Now it was time for a lunch break, so we headed for the Thai restaurant, where we sat out on the footpath in the main street and shared two $9.50 specials. Good value.

We realised we still had time to do op shop no 4, the Bloomhill Shop. It is the prettiest of the Cooroy shops, and has a brightly lit, but cottage-feel interior.  Here I found the two extra plates I needed for our picnic set (bright red), another knife for our everyday kitchen set, and a pair of dangly shell earrings.  Not a bad haul for a quick visit.  Jan bought a beautiful red and black velvet skirt.

It was time to head to Tewantin to the funeral, where we cried and reminisced. We then headed back to Carters Ridge for our own private wake and an early night.

Next morning Jan asked if I would like to go pop in to the Hall, as she had entries in the photo competition and was feeling hopeful about her orchid. A country fair? Of course I would!  After we checked out Jan's three highly-commendeds and one second-place photo, we were doing a slow loop of the hall, checking out all the entries. As I stood on tip-toes to photograph a beautifully crafted little model WWII truck about 10cm high, I felt my worst-ever cramp in my right calf, and crashed to the floor like a sack of potatoes.  People came running from everywhere with skilful massage fingers and kindly advice, and after a few minutes I was back on my feet.  Suffering for my art, I finally successfully photographed the truck.  But as my calf was improving, my foot was starting to hurt.

After about half and hour, I was worried about the drive home, so left Jan and her friend Frances at the second hand stall, and carefully applied foot to accelerator.  The trip home was OK, despite my nervousness, until I hit the brakes at Carseline, and I knew I had a problem. Now braking with my heel, I headed to the butcher to buy sausages for the Father's Day BBQ, and as I limped slowly from the car to the shop and back, I knew I had a BIG problem.  Off to the chemist before they closed to hire a set of crutches, then home where help was available.  Car emptied, stomach full, then off to the hospital.  I have a fracture of the fifth metatarsal, to go with the fractured third and fourth that I suffered in 1999. So no driving, no work, no book launch...but the crushed velvet trousers look good with my moon boot, don't you think?