We caught up with Jason and Mel on Friday night and even in that little hole-in-the-wall local Thai place, we chatted away until about 10pm. I felt bad for the proprietor, as we were there for over 3½ hours for a very modest bill. But that place was as friendly as ever and coupled with quite delicious food, it has become a favourite local joint for us.
On Sat I had sweeping duties at St Alf’s, and Tress did some vacuuming at home. Later that arvo we drove up to a café in Doncaster for a very good Malaysian feed – the pork noodles I had (offal and all) were quite delicious. We then did some grocery shopping and Tress then went on one of her ethereal group activities. I was going to just either lounge around or stream something but the little fellow kept pawing me so I took him out for a long and slow walk. That night, we lazed around at home and got in and out of the Kangaroos v Crows match, and went to be early.
On Sunday, after St Alf’s we went for a funeral of a distant relative. My late grandmother’s brother in law brought his family over to Melbourne some 30 years ago and he died over a week ago. The funeral home was close to our home. We caught up with a range of friends and relatives there, including some who happened to be travelling through Melbourne. My late grandmother had a really big extended family, with her father having had 4 wives. Good thing during my childhood, I was exposed to that Malaysian thing about meeting and greeting every relative no matter how distant, so I had a good memory of many of them. It wasn’t so difficult remembering most of them when I met them yesterday arvo. Unfortunately, it takes a funeral to remember we have a wide network of family and friends if we choose to invest time and tap into that.
This morning, as I was doing my push up’s and stretching exercises, I watched a clip on tele which asked why people cull their circle of friends when they age. I found myself agreeing that that was the case with me. I guess a whole range of reasons come into play as to why we lose contact with friends over time and it gets increasingly difficult to cultivate new friendships.
At St Alf’s yesterday, we sat next to a friendly elderly lady. Laura is a sweet lady and as we were invited to discuss Mike McNamara’s message to close out the 1 Cor 12 gifts series, she asked what my gifts were. I hadn’t thought about that for a while now, and she suggested I prayed about that. I told her I’d do that this week and it made me wonder if I’d keep drifting or if I’d see something that I can or would like to respond to, in combating this inertia. I need to be on a quest of some sort, I guess.
Ante 