Saturday 19th January 2008

Had a lovely day yesterday. Slept in. A bit of blogging. A visit from a great old friend who, as yet, does not have a moniker. Now I know this friend does have an occasional peek into this site so I am going to leave it to him to come up with a name for himself. For today we shall call him 'Kindergarten Friend' cos that's how long I have known him!!!

Our fathers were both geologists and had met at social functions when my mother took me down for my first day at a local kindergarten (preschool....3-4 years old). Bear in mind that at this point in her 28 year old life my mother had been in Adelaide a mere 2 and a half years. She spied a familiar Geology Wife and they immediately renewed an acquaintance commenced perhaps at a cocktail party or dinner dance for University/Geology types. She discovered the family were living in very close proximity to us and that the other mother had a boy the same age as her own daughter.

The families became very close. Kindergarten Friend and I had a sibling style relationship from an early age. We rode bikes together. Built model aeroplanes. Shared some musical tastes (I still have the Chuck Berry tape he made me in the 70s) Later, his older sister and brother would babysit me and my siblings. When I was 19 Kindergarten Friend taught me to drive (Himself: Oh, so you are responsible!!!!).

Kindergarten Friend went on to become a highly successful industrial scientist and eventually Project Manager for a major car firm. After 20 years with the same company, and seeing how the general trends in the motor industry (and particularly THIS company) were going, he took redundancy just over a year ago and has been living it up ever since.

So, yesterday we ended up at the Sailing Club after the boys' club race (they came third over the line and first on handicap) having a quiet beer with the NS14 gang. The Sailing Club is one of the only ones left in the State...perhaps the country......which has a 'wet' bar ie you can come straight in after sailing, still in bathers and sailing gear and have a beer at the bar! Very civilised. During this after-race chat the subject of next year's National Championships came up.

In 2009, the Nationals will be held at our Club. Last week Himself went to a coordinator's meeting and came back to inform me that I was in charge of 'social things'. I thought he was joking but apparently not. It seems I will be organising the 'Welcome' and 'Presentation' Events!!
What do I know of these things??????????????? Well, yesterday afternoon I started to learn pretty darn quick :-)....

Anyway, after our relaxing sojourn in the wet bar, made even more charming by the presence of a bridal party who had been married on the beach and were having the reception upstairs in the restaurant, we adjourned home to play some games. I managed to get Himself involved in a game of Pictionary with KF and two other friends who called around after tea.

The classic moment of the night occurred as Himself was drawing what appeared to be a person with a whole lot of 'x's floating around him. We were completely blank but the couple across the table suddenly called out 'X-ray' and two things happened at once. Himself threw down his pen in disgust and all the lights went out.
"Oh!" I exclaimed, "A black-out!!!!"
"No," came the exasperated voice through the darkness next to me, "It's X-ray!!!!"

He doesn't miss a beat when he has a game to play.

The light did come back on again and we had a lovely night. Lots of laughs and fellowship and of course, Himself was happy as we won the game :-D

Something has occurred to me though with the reality of The Nationals organisation sinking in. My half formed dream of going to the UK for Xmas/January has evaporated. The sailors start arriving on Boxing Day and the series runs until the 3rd of January. That leaves barely 3 weeks of January before I have to be back for Staff Meetings. I don't think we'll be going this year.

:-(