Monday, January 16, 2006

The GSW (Giddy Social Whirl)

We went downtown on Saturday morning, all the family got haircuts except me. The boys and I snuck away to buy Elf the rice cooker and Precious Ramotswe book she had specified for her birthday. There were nineteen different rice cookers in Myer so I let Marcus choose. Then we bought Nice Things for lunch.

John McG and Carmen from Melbourne dropped in to help us eat it. John and I have known each other twenty years but Elf and I hadnt yet met Carmen. We thought she was very nice and until she discovers John is from the planet Neptune they should be very happy together. We certainly won't tell her - but she might guess when John eats her shoes.

Yesterday Sally came over to mind the boys and Elf and I had a lovely morning cruising on the Derwent in a big white pointy boat. We zoomed about at 24 knots - our hair was comprehensively tousled when we alighted back at the wharf. It was a terrific morning, the water was like glass, and Hobart looked very nice indeed from out on the briny.

Back on land we had a very tasty seafood lunch upstairs at Mures, and just enjoyed each others' company for a while.

Sally and the boys had fun together. From the pile of CDs around the kitchen I think they had some kind of hootenanny. Marcus is an enthusiastic and flexible dancer, and Michael loves to join in with his inimitable vertical moon-leaps. Sally on the other hand is walking with a stick at present, after a tumble on her hideously steep but narrow back steps. [Dad built her some new ones as a Christmas present.] It was great to see Sal as we don't as often as we would like, and in fact I was so overcome with filial feeling I fell asleep.

Not long after Sally departed Rob, Mel and Olivia (4) arrived with a ridiculously large pile of gourmet little cakes. "We'll be sending them home with most of these" I thought. Later after we had eaten them all, its seemed a quaint and laughable idea. After initial frostiness and prima-donnarama, Olivia and Marcus hit it off well and toured the house and grounds getting into moderate mischief but letting us chat like grown-ups.

The weekend wound down as it often does these days with a slog until midnight back at work. Sigh.

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