There was quite a lot of left over turkey so what else can you do but make a pie. Using homemade shortcrust pastry, fresh onions, peas, carrots in a well seasoned white sauce, lovely. We split it with Robin, it will make 2 meals for us.

Pie filling ready to fill

Robin kindly gave us another lift to Rockridge station, another big thank you. From where the BART train took us back into San Francisco, this time we got off at Powell Station which is on Ellis Street where hopefully my two packages are waiting. Walking past dozens of homeless to get to the window (you queue in the street!) which was half covered by a broken roller shutter, not the best Post Office related experience we have had. Whilst in the queue a man talked to us, it was an impressive triade, I though this cannot go on surely he must faint from a lack of oxygen as I didn’t see him breathe between sentences. Unfortunately the packages were still in sorting, try again tomorrow.

From here we made our way to Mission Street where we caught a bus along it as far as 24th street. From here we slowly walked back to 16th street. Misson district is very different to Haight or Castro, very poor with a lot of pawnbrokers and thrift stores (a charity type shop). Although the fresh produce on sale here was a lot cheaper than the big grocery stores, you could save a lot of money shopping here.

All along Mission there are lots of old theatres and cinemas (closed now), showing what a vibrant place it must have been at one time. Many of the walls are covered in good graffiti art.

From 16th street we walked back into Castro and the apartment where some turkey pie and bread and butter pudding went down very well (and quickly). Now full up we seemed to get slower and slower, eventually stopping completely, unable to rise from our chairs.
Saturday, day 124, the weather forecast is very bad for today, rain up to 9.00 am then a chance of a shower all day, with heavy rain returning later. We left the apartment at 9.45 am and everywhere was very wet but it was not raining. Once again down to Castro then on to Powell where we successfully collected he two parcels, I am the proud owner of a new sleeping mat (thank you EXPED) and a new saddle.

A colour photograph of grey

From Ellis Street we walked he rest of the way to Fisherman’s Wharf where there was a farmers market with lots of cooked food stalls along with fruit and vegetable stalls. After chatting to a farmer we now know the differences between types of persimmons, we had one earlier in the week that was not ripe and just sucked all the moisture out of your mouth! Around this time the rain started again, sigh.

A random giant pumpkin

The San Francisco Exploratorium (science museum) beckoned to us as a dry refuge. Eeek it was $60 plus tax just to get in so we passed on it, jumping on a tram back up to Castro. Just after we got back the heavens opened and it rained heavily, this continued on and off for what remained of the afternoon. We did a lot of looking out of he window and thinking I am glad  to be indoors.