Well, what's more exciting? The Knights winning seven games in a row(with a chance of more to come), or buying and subsequently driving and enjoying a slick, brand new car?

We've been enjoying these experiences in the last couple of months: the Knights have yet to falter and the car is yet to crack a thousand kilometres so we'll continue to enjoy them both for some time to come. I suspect the gloss might wear from the Knights before the car loses its lustre, however! We've been enjoying other activities as well along the way, including nights of classical music magic and comedy royalty from our teenage years, lunches and dinners for various family members, catch ups with friends and long walks along coastal promenades and deserted beaches.

In Taipei we scootered around for a number of years going full Asian, before "investing" in a half share of a bomb of a car (Ross and Ains owning the other half), affectionately known as "The Aubergino" due to its unusual purple colouring! It was variously battered, dinted and keyed and barely running, but it did the trick and got us to the beach and back for years. We upgraded to the "Silver Bullet", a 1991 Honda Accord, that while well appointed, was also quite old and "feeling its years"(!) by the time we left in 2020. We'd always planned to upgrade our car when we got home and had budgeted for it; in fact, we'd worked an extra year largely to be able to lash out for something that we really wanted. The Jag back home stylishly did its job for three more years, but it too was beginning to creak and groan and had suffered a terrible hammering from the recent hailstorm: it was false economy to get it fixed.

Enter the 2023 Mercedes Benz A250 4matic, metallic black, leather-upholstered pocket rocket straight off the production line in Rastatt, Germany and into our hot, little hands withing days of arriving in Australia in late July. The entire experience from initial interest to driving it away was very special and amazingly seamless. They even transferred Cassy's rego and CAS55Y plates while we waited. They "red-bowed" it and backdropped it for photos, and gave us a through run-through of the electronic wizardry. We are, however, still discovering new tricks every day, and suspect that secrets will reveal themselves for some time to come yet. It's dreamy to drive, and we're finding it's like an entirely new experience, something closely related to "driving" but some new wonder that uses common patterns of behaviour and action  yet engenders some kind of ethereal magic. Suffice to say, we're loving it!

We've had dinners out with Mark and Mihoko, who are very excited about the recent nuptials of their son, David, as well as the news they are about to be grandparents! I had an excellent lunch with Mark W. where we once again managed to solve all the problems of the world and had fun besides! Cass has been lunching with the "Big 4", her group of old friends from Grammar, and with her mum on occasions as well as the 3 of us joining with Kristin to celebrate Val's and Kristin's birthdays at Punjab Pavilion. We had a huge outing to celebrate Mum's 88th birthday with a high tea at the cute venue of Ducks in the Field. It was a bit of an operation involving wheelchairs, walkers and driving but we (mainly Sue) managed to provide mum with a memorable experience that she had requested. Mum, despite it being her own birthday, insisted on shouting everyone to thank them for all the help they have given her lately as she transitioned into life at Mayfield Aged Care. Cass and I gave the car its first decent outing when we had a decadent lunch at the superb "8 at Trinity". It was a sublime experience on a beautiful day and we promised each other that we would return to sample the mouth-watering dishes, the perfect service and the lakeside views and ambiance.

The top photo shows the gleaming shine of the car ruined by a splatter of wet grass from some fool with a whipper snipper outside Mum's facility. Suffice to say, I was not amused, as it had just been washed. Oh well, first world problems don't come much bigger than that! I'm reading the 15th instalment of the "Parker" series by Richard Stark: I just can't seem to get enough of this nihilistic neanderthal despite a gap between this novel and the last of 25 years! Cass was gobsmacked to find that the inimitable and erudite John Banville had written a sequel to Henry James's "Portrait of a Lady", Cassy's favourite Henry James novel and the subject of her comparative Masters thesis at uni. Apparently, Banville is "Jamesesque" in his sentence construction, and faithful to the famous characters' nuances and personalities. Cass is savouring "Mrs. Osmond" and is dreading it finishing...apparently she is rating it an A++ already!

 Well, that's bizarre! Somehow, in my flurry of catch-up posting of our adventures, I neglected to write about our trip to Adelaide to meet up with Ross and Ainsley...that'll teach me to neglect my posting to the point where everything is turned around and discombobulated, and things are written months after the event!

In between our Middle Eastern extravaganza and my solo venture to Taipei we dashed across to Adelaide to meet up with our dear friends, Ross and Ainsley. We'd been lamenting the fact that Covid (mainly), and other factors had conspired to keep us apart for the longest period since 2006. They were coming over to Adelaide to attend Ains's brother-in-law's 50th birthday bash and wondered whether we'd make the trip down south. We jumped at the chance!

Newcastle has direct flights to Adelaide these days so we took advantage of that and timed our visit around the flights. Ross, as usual, had done all the leg work booking hotels and accommodation as well as a car for the duration. They surprised us by waiting for hours at the airport to greet us and pick us up: it was so wonderful to see them: it always feels so comfortable to be in their company and we fell straight back into our cosy friendship zone and chat mode! The first night was spent in a great hotel by the river and coast in Adelaide itself and we had a dinner downstairs and a few drinks to boot.

The next day, we embarked on our journey into the Adelaide Hills, Ross driving the car and we three doing the sightseeing. They'd booked a quirky and unusual option for our few days in the hills and we eventually drifted into rolling countryside and dirt roads before arriving at the Rabbiter's Hut and were greeted by the hut's owner and host from Tinline Park. Supplies had been sourced in the supermarket in Adelaide, so we loaded the fridge and kitchen, got settled in our rooms, got the fire sparked and firing before cracking open some fine South Australian red. Ross and Ains and Cass prepared a delicious meal for us and we ate, drank, chatted and were merry before hitting the sack in preparation for our tour of the Barossa Valley the next day.

Ross is still pounding out a healthy run most mornings and managed to get a good 10km done before breakfast before reporting, upon his return, no end in sight for the dirt roads and only inquisitive kangaroos for company. It was bucolic and blissfully quiet and peaceful. We drove a lazy loop through the Barossa that day, the start of the loop just 10 km away and we dropped in and out of tiny, pretty towns along the way, stopping at many of them to wander the streets admiring the architecture, getting a cup of coffee or a snack or stopping for a glass of wine or two and some lunch. All along the way we chatted about family and mutual friends and generally revelled in the company and the countryside, before heading back to the hut for another home-cooked feast, wine, fire and sleep.

The following day was the big party but we managed to get in yet another looping drive, this time in the Adelaide Hills wine trail and the German influenced towns within, including the very popular and impossibly cute Hahndorf. We spent some time sampling wines at vineyards, wandering the grounds of the Seppeltsfield complex and strolling the streets of Hahndorf proper when Ross the magician somehow conjured a parking spot right in the middle of town amongst grid-locked traffic! We ate at a German inspired pub (of course) and I enjoyed the best German food I'd had since Munich (Or "Uli's" in Taiwan!). We were invited to the big party, but Cass and I decided to hunker down in the hut on our last night and Ross and Ains partied into the partly rain soaked evening.

Somehow, and very, very kindly, they managed to rise scandalously early after a big night out to drive us the not inconsiderable distance back to the airport for our flight home, despite them staying a couple more days in the hills and necessitating a drive back the way that they had come. What a few days we had and how wonderful to catch up with our buddies. We vowed not to let it be so long before our next catch-up: we're looking forward to it already!