Last night I got the news that Mr Moi wouldn’t be coming home for the weekend. So all of a sudden I felt very depressed as the weekend stretched out in front of me, just me alone with the kids, in an apartment that isn’t ours, that doesn’t have our stuff in it, in a city that we don’t want to be in.

Luckily, we have a car for the weekend, because being solo for so long with no car may have just tipped me over the edge.

Another beautiful dry season day dawned, and I decided I didn’t want more of the same from yesterday – yelly, grumpy mum and a threenager full of attitude. So before we even had time to think, I threw clothes on all of us and decided to head to the markets.

This is what I call circuit-breaking.

Of course, the biggest impediment to overcome was the Sprog’s attire. I wanted her to wear this outfit, and she vehemently objected. Hence the sour lemon face. Personally I think she looks lovely in shorts, and they are perfect for the tropics. She, however, prefers dresses – the longer the better (she’s three, and I currently buy her size 5 or 6 for the length, otherwise she just won’t wear them).

On promise (read: bribe) of a smoothie once we hit the markets, she reluctantly agreed to wear the shorts (as long as she could get changed as soon as we got home), and we were off.

The Parap Markets officially open at 8am, but there are always people there beforehand. We arrived at around 7.45am and it wasn’t deserted, but still mercifully cool and quiet. Sprog wanted a ‘roll’ for breakfast (little beef popia spring rolls) and I wanted a coffee.

Of course, Harrie needed something too, so we got her a banana from the fruit stall. There were masses of delicious looking limes there for $4.99/kg. I resisted. It was hard. There is a bottle of gin in this apartment that whispers my name every night.

Then we had to get the all-important juice. Now, to say the Sprog has been brought up on these juices would be a fair statement. We moved to Darwin when she was 8 months old, and we’ve always bought these juices/smoothies for her. She has never particularly liked the taste of milk, so we’d get her a smoothie every week and we figured it was a good calcium injection.

The problem is, in recent weeks, we’ve taken to buying her strawberry juices from a major national chain.

The markets in Darwin, being fairly locally grown and seasonal, obviously don’t stock strawberries, and as a result I had minor-meltdown on my hands. That is until we got to the juice stall and saw someone walking away with a bright pink juice. As we discovered, this juice stall makes milkshakes so a strawberry milkshake it was.

(Yes, grease and sugar for breakfast. But cut the kid some slack – she’s seen her dad only eight days in the past month. Guilt alert).

There were lots of gingers available but I didn’t buy any because I don’t have a vase in the apartment we’re staying in. So these babies did not walk away in my hot little hands.

All in all, it was a lovely morning and just what we needed. Now we’re planning a walk on the beach for this afternoon.

What are you up to this weekend?