“That lady looks jolly attractive in her hat and Australian flag draped around her,” I thought to myself.

I rather wished that I had thought of something special to wear, it being Australia Day, but I hadn’t planned on going out today at all – not until I had a phone call from our friend Roland last evening. And even then I had no idea that we would be going to the West End and South Bank, which is where we were when I saw the cute elderly lady in her patriotic outfit on the seat. As I drew nearer to the lady I noticed something else unusual about her – she had the same white crocheted shoulder bag as I have (and which I had with me at the time).

“I like your bag ,” I said, making her look up. “It’s exactly the same as mine!”

She looked at my bag and smiled.

“Where did you get yours from?” she asked.

“Oh, my Mum gave it to me years ago – maybe twenty years or more – and I think she probably acquired it from a charity shop. It’s my favourite bag. When it gets dirty I just bleach it and wash it and it always comes up as good as new.”

“I do the same,” she said nodding, “and mine came from South Africa over twenty years ago!”

The nice lady with excellent taste let Roland take a photograph or two of us together. I was going to sit beside her on the bench but the seat was wet so she suggested we stand… I hasten to add that I am not over six feet tall and three feet wide – by my reckoning the lady was a petite four feet seven or eight!

Still on the subject of bags, Archer the cat (the elder of my charges here at Charis’s house – I’m house-sitting) joined me while I was painting on the verandah yesterday afternoon. Admittedly, the outside settee had rather a lot of my art equipment resting on it and you might have thought that a furry cat would prefer to lay on the cold concrete on such a hot day… but no, Archer fancied the black shopping bag that normally holds all my paintbrushes! He looked so sweet I had to stop painting and take photos. And there was another coincidence this morning… Whilst waiting for the lights to change at a road crossing in West End, Brisbane, I saw another animal in a bag, this time a darling little dog in a mauve bag suspended from a woman’s neck.

That’s it for now – my blog post is “in the bag”.