Friday night – wonderful catch up
Some time on Friday arvo Jason sent a text message, asking if we wanted to catch up for dinner that night. A mutual friend had initially teed up a Sat night dinner at that friend’s home but had a change of plans, so that might have been the prompt for Jason’s text.
Tress and I had busy Fri arvos so it was only when we were both in the car, on the way home, that we responded and so we met at “De Fazio’s” in Blackburn, on Whitehorse Road. Tress and I had forgotten about the Blackburn Station level crossing works currently underway and so what would have been a 10 minute drive turned out to be a 20+ minute one, as we detoured and took a roundabout way via Springvale Road.
The pizzas we had were very nice but it was even nicer just to sit down on a Friday night with friends, and talked over dinner, with a bottle of Pinot. We ate, talked and drank for a while and before we knew it the packed restaurant had emptied out and we were the last 2-3 tables left. We had been there for 2-3 hours …
Wales and … election (sigh)
Early on Saturday morning, I watched the marvellous football match between Wales and Belgium. Wales are on a magical ride on Euro 2016, and they were good to watch as they beat a very highly rated Belgian side to play Portugal in the semis. During half time I caught up with some news and read Tony Abbott’s plea for Liberal voters to stick with Liberals, the Turnbull treachery notwithstanding. What a man Tony Abbott has turned out to be. I still don’t get why the mainstream media spurns a man like that. It is probably his conservative Catholic background – a mix that is repugnant for most of mainstream media, as George Pell’s treatment also proves.
Straight after the game, I watched (on iView) that episode of Kitchen Cabinet where Turnbull talked to Anabel Crabbe about the coming elections. Watching that episode and reading Abbott’s plea made me rethink my decision to deliver a donkey vote but I still wasn’t sure as Tress and I walked towards the Holbury Children’s Centre on Raleigh Street. At the entrance, I collected all materials on offer so as I waited for my turn, I had the voting cards for each of the ALP, Coalition and Greens, as well as that of the ALA on my mobile….
At the time of this entry, there is the spectre of another hung parliament. Rudd Gillard Rudd killed Labor but the Coalition refused to learn anything from that disaster and allowed Turnbull to do to Abbott what Gillard did to Rudd. Peter Hendy lost the Eden Monaro seat. That seat has been the bell weather seat for many elections and Hendy hosted the meeting Turnbull called, on the eve of Abbott’s overthrow so his loss is significant on several fronts.
If Shorten becomes PM, Same Sex Marriage will happen much sooner without the public having any direct input, and we’d lose negative gearing, probably lose value on our properties. So, I’m just jaded in order to suppress the anger against Turnbull and his fellow assassins.
Tress and I had gone to The Glen after voting and after taking the little guy for a longish walk. We went to The Glen for Tress to do her mobile plan switch-over. We then did our grocery shopping there and then went home and later that evening, as I was getting excited at the prospect of cooking a pork rib congee in that new pressure cooker, my bubble burst as that cooker sat still, completely lifeless, as I plugged it in. It had died… so that congee was cooked on the stovetop, and while it meant I had to stand over the stove for an hour instead of leaving it in the cooker, that congee was delicious and very satisfying all the same.
Cousins day
The church was a bit empty when we got there a touch after 10am. It soon filled out however, and the simple message (final one on the “Fruitfulness on the front line” series) that we ought to be the channel for the gospel at our workplace, continues to resonate and seeks action. I continue to wonder what I can or need to do in seeing His Kingdom come, and seeing His Will done on earth as it is in heaven.
After church we drove to Footscray. Wei, a cousin who lives in Brunei, was visiting Melbourne en route to NZ for her family holidays and Ruth had arranged lunch. We suggested somewhere nearer Ruth, Jon and little Micah, as Wei, my Auntie Swee Har, Uncle Shu and Wei’s 2 boys – Zachary and Luke – were staying in an apartment on Flemington Road in the city. Wei’s hubby (Tze Horng) was going to join them later to meet up in NZ, together with his parents. What a wonderful family holiday – 3 generations! – that sounds like it’d be.
We caught up in a Vietnamese restaurant in Footscray. Ruth shouted and it was a very good catch up. We talked about how things were in Malaysia, in Brunei, and how everyone was, including Kiddo and what she’s been up to since finishing up in ANU in Dec last year. Little Micah was very adorable as always and everyone had a good time. Zachary and Luke were however, fans of the Scousers, so that was the only setback…
After lunch they went to Ruth’s home but we had to decline as we wanted to take the dead cooker in for a replacement. So we left Footscray and drove straight to Nunawading, and got the cooker replaced. We then went home, walked the little fellow, and prepped to cook the week’s meals in the cooker. We watched a wonderful doco on TV while waiting for the marinated chicken to get to room temperature. “Wild China” on Channel 9 showed us many wonderful parts of China, and we caught mainly those parts on the Silk Road and the macho Kazakh horsemen, neither of which screams China but it really shows what a vast country China is.
Tress brought in and organised the laundry and did the smoothies for this morning, I did the cooking and nearer 7pm, everything was done and we sat down to another Masterchef episode. My glass of red tasted very good, as I wondered about what this country’s immediate future would look like…
Ante 