lunch in the country

What could be more pleasant than lunch in 'the country' (actually a regional city) with a select collection of some of my favourite people: Fran, Hairy, Kylie, Bren, James, Miranda, Felix, Shane. I was going to alphabetise them but instead I kind of went round the table of my mind. The food was delightful, the cake my goodness, the coffee sublime, the music remarkable (hmm... Kings of Leon sound more like U2 than I had anticipated, then in the same song they kind of morph into some kind of odd post-punk thing rather funky, and that new royalchord album christ! And all that mazung Bob Welch music...) I wasn't taking notes so until Hercules Poirot comes and tells me a terrible thing happened that night and wart deed yew tock abeaut, great Belgian accent Hercules if that is your real name, I can only remember the definition of 'piss fit' and discussion of a certain individual and a certain other individual and how one is apparently obsessed with the other, and discussions regarding retirement (good lord!), the concept of how a chocolate cake might 'shit all over' another cake and what form such shit might take and japanese bowing competitions, but I daresay there was a large amount of even quite erudite discussion like what about Felix's drawing a big F for Fran and the like?
One odd thing no doubt the first indication of my impending appalling nervous system disease that will rapidly spread and claim my life in two weeks for now ('look he even joked about it, little imagining the pain') was that at the end of the evening I rose from my seat tripped on a chair leg and fell flat on the ground. I did put a hand out to stop myself I think but essentially I just went down. It was one of those odd things that you think about as it is happening, though not much (come to think of it I had a similar experience on the Calder going up when I saw, too late to do anything about it, that I was about to drive over a pillow; the effect was, actually, minimal). I scraped my knee and that was about it, my beautiful face was untouched. But it was a most interesting experience. I was not at all drunk (one beer all day). Anyway, that was mentioned only as a point of interest it did not at all mar the day (for me at any rate) which was marvellous. What a good idea, let's do it again next weekend.

laurie-isms

We went to Felix's birthday party (2) this evening and it was great, I don't know Felix that well which is my fault, but everything I saw of him suggested a fine young man. Laurie who is a little older (2.8) took my hand when we got there and led me to a particular chair and insisted I sit. I was suspicious and sat down gingerly, which was the wrong thing to do as there was a concealed whoopee cushion there. However we got it out and stomped on it, so that was OK. He then made small talk, asking me if I went to the Grand Final today, I said no. He said 'Did you just stay at home?' and I said yes and asked him what he did, 'I just stayed at home.' Later people were praising his cricket swing and he was acting as though he wasn't listening and just casually happened to mime his cricket swing, which is very good. As he was leaving I gave him a book (Joe Annual 1970) which I had picked up with him in mind when we passed through Northam a few months ago, also a couple of records including the one depicted below. I gave them to him in a Readings bag and he said 'Oh thank you David, I wonder what it could be.' (Later describing this to Mia I suggested he sounded a bit like Alexander Downer, but this has unfair connotations). Anyway I think he was into it.