I forgot to mention...

That one of our trips out was to check out a new butcher. Yes, I DO lead an EXCITING FULFILLED life.

We've been to wholesale butchers before. Our biggest stumbling block is lack of freezer space. And we've always thought it too expensive to do the whole buying in bulk thing. Well, initial outlay anyway. But prices in the supermarkets are climbing and if I wasn't menu planning, the meat bill would be around $100 or more a fortnight anyway.

Bestie and her MOTH recommended this butcher. Good stuff and sometimes you get good bargains. They ended up buying two whole fillets and somehow scored another three. Five fillets for the price of two. Or something like that.

We thought we'd give it a shot.

It's located down the coast so the drive would be nice if nothing else. I had an address and an exit number. We decided to wing it without Karen. The GPS. Daring! *told you. exciting and fulfilled*

The drive was pleasant and the exit loomed before we knew it. Once off the exit, things got a little hazy. We knew the street name but no idea where it was. We picked an exit off the roundabout. Computer Road it said. Why not. Good a start as anywhere else. We laughed at some of the road names - the inner geek was happy. And there it was. The street we needed. We came to a T junction. Uh oh. No indication if the road we needed terminated here or continued around the corner. MOTH pulled over ready to do a U turn. He had to wait for a car. Oooh, let's follow that one. They look like they know where they are going.

So we did. And followed them right into the driveway of where we needed to be. *hi five*

The car park was full of inch deep water. And cars. It was busy, and most were family affairs. I managed to cross a puddle and only got one thong wet. *good going!* That's the part where you put your feet right. One foot stayed dry, the other did not.

Maybe I was distracted by a car driving over painted yellow lines. Only to discover they were painted yellow to alert to the fact that there was a drop of several inches on the other side!

On entering, you're directed down a narrow corridor by padded partitions. Just in front of the door at the end are large polar fleece jackets. I grabbed one. Cause I had forgotten the warning about needing a jumper. *kicks self* Through the plastic door and into the warehouse.

It was cold. Not positively freezing, but cold. The warehouse is huge. The meat stock is huge. Whole fillets. Whole rumps. Big hams. One I peeked at was around $100. It would have fed a family of 4 for a week. At a guess. Roast lamb legs for $24. Must have been on special. MOTH's fave pork spare ribs for cheap. Packs of 4 T bones for $23. The staff were all running around, greeting customers and looking like they were having a good time.

We bought a whole black angus grassfed rib fillet for around $70. We had it sliced for free at about 3/4 inch thick. It worked out around 5 or 6 meals of varying sizes. While wandering around, we managed to score a free 2 litre bottle of milk, and 1kg of bacon on special for $6.

I'm not sure how that compared to supermarket prices, but it was a fun way to spend the morning. We're considering doing it again for next shop.