Oldest and youngest

Saturday again, this week birthday shopping for the oldest and the youngest Joneses. Nephew Wyatt who is turning One (1) and Nana who is turning... Ninety (90)!  

Narrow margins (Takapuna)
A Union Jack chair assumes pride of place in this second-hand book store. 
The English, a nation of readers.

Daughter Bs card for her youngest Cousin, Wyatt,
who lives in the Blue Mountains near Sydney.

The other photo is the shop in which we bought Mum's-Nana's 90th birthday present, a picture book on London in the glamour years: 1919-39. Nana was born smack bang in the middle of that period - and in London, hopefully she'll enjoy it. 

Oldest and youngest, interesting positions in a family to hold. Being a middle child I am unlikely ever to hold either position, though one never knows with oldest. 

Shore City today. People browsing along the mezzanine floor in their shopping sets. Man and woman, older and younger woman, female friend and female friend, father with young son on shoulders. Lone men, lone women striding. 

A couple stop to study the cakes through the glass at the shop where B and I are dining (cake and sandwich) at. Man and woman, the man is small and stylish, could easily be Italian.  They know their gateaux, the Italians. I am oddly flattered to see this small stylish man gripped enough by the cakes behind the glass to study them. I wonder which cake is worthy of such intent study on this early winter's Saturday afternoon at the mall.

B is so careful with her sandwich wrap it looks like she's undressing it. Delicate fingers peel back the thin plastic like a surgeon with burnt skin. The bread is caressed as if flesh, mistaken, in her hunger, for something more than mere maize. I'm into the sugar as usual. Coconut cheesecake tart with dollop of whipped cream. Fantastic.

The cafe looks down upon shoppers on the ground floor in the centre, Colosseum style. A shiny blue car and balloons to be won assumes pride of place. Bench seating in shades of coffee are puzzled together back to back, side to side, so that eight people are comfortably seated in two cubic squares without eye-balling each other. We mallers generally prefer to look than be looked at.  

B is in her 2012 trench coat. She's so thin she could be twelve, but still cute with her short bob hair and long coat. 

Time to head home, back to the warmth of the long weekend...