Gurecki, Wal and I had a few pre-party beers at Wendel's where we were disappointed not to see the Craw, who was going to come, but got the message too late. He's a friend of ours who should be starting his new job in Florence about now, but has had some frustrating delays, around visas etc. He's due to leave today though. After Wal and I also met up with a few others and had some post party beers at the "new" Pig and Whistle as well, I was decidedly unimaginative in my choices for exercise/entertainment on Saturday! The bar is curiously named some rather long number, something like 8898 or something similar. The irony is that is almost exactly the same interior and exterior as it ever was....weird! When we walked in, all the same people who used to prop up the bar were there as well, with a smattering of the Green Bar boys who I suspect were just checking out the "new" facilities next door. We were joined by Bill from middle school, the new smallish Aqua Boy and the opposite in size and volume, big Ray, who is a larger than life, quite hilarious fellow doing some subbing at the school.
Cass demurred on the chance of the board party: not her scene at all and I think she was more excited about getting home, watching some trashy TV, eating a meal I wouldn't necessarily enjoy and having two spoilt cats lie with her on the lounge in the airconditioning. She and I were both quite exhausted after the first week: we often wonder how we sustain our effort over the year, but we must get "fitter" for it I reckon as the semester rolls on.
We went over to the Neihu Miramar today and watched the film Salt, partly on the recommendation of ABC's David and Margaret, and partly because the time suited! It was a real rollercoaster ride and if you could suspend disbelief over large portions of the action, it was slick and almost believable. Great fun. Afterwards we walked around the baby floor looking for a present for Katie, as she and Shaun have just had their third child, a boy named Seth. Frustrated with all the product, we eventually opted to bypass the baby present and get something for the person who did all the hard work and got Katie some French hand and body cream: a much more sensible solution we thought! We had a late lunch at Gillies to extend our French theme and it was as good as we remembered. Cass got the fish which is unusual for her, and reported it to be delicious. My german sausages were also great.
Our new PVR which works with the set top box has been working overtime too this weekend and recorded the Knights game for us in the wee small hours of Saturday morning as well as the Wets/ Parra game when we were out this morning. A smashing thrashing of the Broncos by the Knights was highly entertaining but also a bit frustrating: they can't make the semis now, but what might they have achieved in this form?
We bought two new helmets for the aging scooter today as ours were finally getting a little "on the nose" after 8 years. They were freebies when we bought the bike second hand all those years ago, so we've done pretty well. For the princely sum of $20, we got two new helmets, reasonably cool and certainly a lot less smelly!
That's it! Photos, just two are Cass at Gillies and me outside with one of Taiwan's quirky cuteness things...Disney characters bolted to number-plates! Cass is reading the infamous Swedish tome, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" while I'm still on Connelly.