Sunday, May 20, 2012

John and Carmen

One of my longest-time buddies John was in town with his wife Carmen over the weekend. Sadly they were here to see John's dad who is in a specialised dementia care place. He still lived on a property where John grew up, on the far North West coast, but keeping it all together got beyond him. He was such an independent and capable man - it's a bugger of a thing.

I left work a little early so we could come home and walk the dog around the neighbourhood before it got dark. Melbourne has it's charms, but it is quite flat, so to hike up and down some hills and see water views and bushy slopes seemed like a good outing for them.

It would be something like 10 or 15 years since I had dinner with John, so it was a special occasion. While Elf and Carmen caught up generally, John and I had an intense discussion on music. [We have both been listening to a lot of early 80s live recordings on YouTube - there is some amazing music up there. I find things and then just enjoy the audio while I work, lately Talking Heads' concert in Rome, 1980.]

It was terrific just to be together for a while, but I was keen to be grown up and cook a decent dinner and keep myself nice. Next time I'll get a slab of Boags and four or five bottles of wine and we'll do it good and properly.

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