Well – with my very fuzzy memory, the only thing I can remember happening since I last managed to write anything is a little trip to the Southern Hemisphere. And my memory of large portions of that is extremely fuzzy indeed.
But – here’s roughly how it went down…
Flew from London to Melbourne, via Dubai. Lovely long flight. Bought a heap of duty-free. Found my way to Nathan’s – and slept for a little while. Awoke just in time to be slightly late meeting Nathan, Mike & Skye at the cleverly(?) named Lambs Go Baa. Chit-chat ensued – although I seemed to have remarkable difficulty with words. A few other people arrived – Elise, Alison, Jess. Maybe others -my brain didn’t work so good at the time.
The next day – a bus up to Colbinabbin. Went to the pub, found it deserted. A couple of phone calls, and soon after, I had Slab, Ben, and some others to keep me company. As this was a short trip, I didn’t have enough time to indulge in the normal activities Colbo has to offer – such as streaking at club cricket matches, wine tours, crop inspections, or getting the police to drive for an hour to pick one up. However – we did drink a few beers, and then went back to Ben’s place – where champagne was opened (setting a very very dangerous precedent) – and some drunken cooking.
Then – off to work. Helped Ben make some wines. And then, off to Melbourne. Picked up a couple of bottles of champagne, and then went to Jess’ place to wait for Nathan. Drank some champagne. And – then flew up to Brisbane. No champagne on the plane – so had to settle for beer. Nice ladies decided to stop serving us after two. Well – when taking our order for the second, I think she regretted taking the order. It was probably something to do with Nathan wetting himself.
Got to Brisbane, and Nathan headed off to his sister’s place, while Ben & I checked into an hotel. Nathan wouldn’t trust us around his sister. Ben & I went for a wander to try and find a restaurant that would serve us at midnight – but none were to be found. Kebab Pizza had to do.
And then – the madness really began. Into town, and did a bit of shopping. Met up with a Colbo lad who was in the area. And Nathan joined us. And then somebody went and ordered a bottle of champagne. And what had started as a day of shopping – buying essential goods (my suitcase was full of gifts – and therefore I had no clothes, shoes, toiletries, anything) – turned into some kind of pub crawl. Ben stole my beautiful paisley shirt I’d bought. So – I went back, and got myself another. Now – Brisbane isn’t the kind of place where paisley shirts are respected. So two New Zealanders wearing identical paisley shirts – possibly a little drunk on champagne – isn’t high on the list of things they love. Anyway – we started walking from town back to ‘The Valley’ – stopping at every bar which served champagne. And some that didn’t. And then Pete, the chap getting married, decided to come and meet us. Made us promise that we’d come to the dinner at his sister’s place that night – and then dropped us off somewhere. I know not where – but I do know that we were in the midst of a lot of bars. There were beers, shots, ciders, and a gay bar. And then… well, then there was Cloudland. Cloudland is a very nice looking bar, with not very nice atmosphere, but a very nice selection of champagne. And we drank it. I can’t remember if it was at this point, or earlier – but I suddenly discovered that in quite a lot of bottles of champagne, the dastardly French have hidden tiny tiny razor blades. And these razor blades slice up one’s oesophagus as it goes down. It stings. Nothing that tastes this good should hurt. Oh well. Anyway – after I don’t know how many bottles of champagne, the Colbo lad slunk off to hide. And then – Pete came and picked us up. I don’t know what he was thinking, taking us to a dinner with members of his family – despite seeing what state we were in already. And – allowing us to stop off at a bottle store to buy, you guess it, champagne. Just the one bottle each, seeing as we were going to at least try to be on good behaviour. I think we managed to do fairly well, until I started hitting on Pete’s mother. In my defence – she’s a lovely lady, and she was most certainly up for it.
And then, possibly in revenge – Pete dropped us off outside Cloudland. I have a vague memory of being dropped off – leaving some unfinished bottles of champagne behind a dumpster, and then entering Cloudland. I also have a vague memory of the bar-staff, at least twice, telling me that my bartab had become so large that could I please pay it now and start another. No problem, I said. And bring me more champagne. Things continued in this vein until Nathan slunk off. And there was more champagne. And I think eventually we were asked to leave. And – when we tried to get into another bar on the way home – the barman didn’t even tell us “No”. Just looked at us with disdain. We got the message. And fair enough.
So – the next morning rolled around. I managed to get up – go the closest convenience store, and buy some supplies. I wanted grapefruit juice. They had no grapefruit juice. So, instead, I bought about a dozen other substitutes which might possibly suffice. Just to be sure. Ben finally found his way to my room, and we sat there for a while trying to figure out what was so wrong with us that the French wanted to punish us so. We had more shopping to do – so back into town we went. Ate some japanese. Bought some shoes. I can’t remember what else happened that afternoon – but Nathan joined us at some point, and I believe there was some champagne at some point. And then we got a taxi to Pete’s place, where a barbecue was to be had. And, of course, we took some champagne. One bottle of champagne was a little fizzier than normal – and there would have been quite a mess on Pete’s couch if it wasn’t for my heroic groin. Ever heard of a groin described as heroic before? No – and I doubt you ever will again. But that’s exactly what my groin is. It selflessly collected all the spilt champagne, despite the risk of tiny razorblades – thereby protecting Pete’s couch. After the barbecue – I don’t know what we did. I can only assume we found a bar, and drank some champagne.
And then – it was the day of the wedding. So – Nathan joined us. We got all nicely dressed. (Ben ruining one of my shirts in the process.) And then – got a taxi to the botanical gardens. Spent quite some time trying to interpret the map of the gardens. For some reason, three well educated gentlemen could not read a map. Well – we could read it – but just couldn’t figure out what direction was what – despite having very clear landmarks all around us by which to get our bearings. Eventually – we guessed – walked five paces, and found signposts leading the way, and Pete’s niece to give us directions. So – we found the spot, and watched Pete get hitched. And then – caught a ride with Andrea & James back into town. Not much room in the car, but luckily Nathan is little – and fits comfortably in the foot well in front of a baby seat. Well – it looked comfortable anyway. Found a bar to wait for the reception to begin. The bar happened to sell champagne. And then – off to the reception. Lovely affair. Sparkling wine flowing. But, after a while, silliness took over. Instead of drinking the complimentary sparkling wine being carried around by the hostesses – I decided to buy a bottle of champagne. Had to apologise to the lovely young girl who had quickly gathered that I would never say no to a top-up – but gave her the chance to follow me around with my own bottle, if she liked. She did like – but not for long, too attached to keeping her job I suppose. Oh well. Anyway – drank the bar out of champagne. And then – got a taxi to somebody’s house for an after party. I went in one taxi with Nathan, Ben in another – I think. I found a liquor store on the way – and was allowed out the back to check out their champagne collection. Bought a few bottles – and paid for these. As I was about to leave – Ben arrives. Has apparently decided he needs some champagne also. So – he buys a few bottles also. And – we get to somebody’s house, quite late at night, with far far more champagne than most people would consider necessary. Or possible, really. I’m pretty sure that the amount we turned up with would be considered too much at the start of a night. We tucked in though – and put a decent dent in our stock. Ben discovered that opening a bottle of champagne while the cork is aimed at his friend’s groins is rather amusing. To him, at least. Eventually, I believe we left. Turned up back at our hotel with a couple of bottles of champagne left – just in case we happened to want some the following morning.
Which we did not. However, after watching some terrible movie – at which we couldn’t help laughing, for some reason – and Ben joined us – there really was no other option than champagne. And, yum cha. Can’t remember what order those came in. Yum cha was difficult – and during the meal it was universally agreed that the best course of action was suicide. Nathan made a poor effort at breaking his own neck. I tried drowning myself, but didn’t have the strength. Ben just wallowed in self-misery. And eventually – it was time to go to a barbecue at Pete’s place. Via the liquor store, of course. And champagne did flow. And then we left, and went to a restaurant- to eat steak and drink wine. No champagne though. Couldn’t find a seafood restaurant, so had to settle for steak – with red wine. And then headed back to the hotel. Except – I insisted on one last bottle of champagne on the way. So – we entered a bar, drank a delicious bottle of razor-blade tainted champagne, and promised each other we would never ever talk to, or spend time with each other ever again. It just isn’t worth it. So – the next day, we all went our seperate ways – never looking back.
And I flew to New Zealand. New Zealand – with it’s amazingly generous duty-free allowance. But that, my gentle reader, is a story for another day.