We went to Marvel Stadium for the first time this season. It was a Friday night game so I went there from the office and Tress trekked into town to meet me at Spencer. Marvel is only a quick walk away so that worked out well for us.
It didn’t work out well at all for the Hawks however, as notwithstanding a really good start, North Melbourne played some good football, was very gritty and clean in midfield to deliver really good chances to their forwards, and they got up over us easily in the end. It should be the end of Hawk’s rare season with no finals footy.
We got home close to midnight again and tried to get to bed quickly as it was going to be another full day the next day.
We were going to be at Alex and Li Har’s on Sat night. We left early on Sat morning to shop for the stuff we wanted to cook and bring to the dinner party, had brekky where we shopped, and got home to prep the cook. I then left for a meeting of Steer’s out in Montmorency – Eltham way – but first dropped into an optometrist shop to leave my sunnies for a repair job.
The meeting at Montmorency was a longish one. Steer is an asset management company, a faith based not for profit, with a rich farming DNA. So the AGM was filled with rich wisdom of fiscal conservatism and lively volunteerism and with an ethos of giving. The meeting was mindful of regulatory requirements as well, spending time and attention on regulatory compliance that is an increasing focus for faith based not for profit activities. As usual, I left that meeting feeling privileged to be serving amongst such company.
I dropped into the optometrist on the way home, just after 4pm, picked up my sunnies, and went home to get straight into the cook. About a couple of hours later, Tress got back from her ethereal activities, which had only started just before I got back. When I went out to dump some veg cuttings into the compost bin, the lawn looked cleaner of weeds and Tress said she had done several hours of weeding.
We left for Alex’s close to 7pm, and spent the evening catching up with their friends. We didn’t get home till close to midnight and for the second night in a row, we ended the night really late, with me watching a bit of the Ashes on tele to wind down the longish days.
On Sunday after St Alf’s we did our usual rounds of lunch and grocery shopping and caught up with Jason and Mel in a café, before heading home to savour what was left of our weekend. Kiddo and Mic had intermittently sent us messages about a home they liked, not far from their present place, and we talked later in the arvo, about their plans to purchase this property. It would be bigger than their current townhouse, which Tress and I had bought for them to live in (“renting” from us) when they got married, over a couple of years ago now. This other property would be more spacious and would probably better suit for the longer term. As we await the outcome of the process, it is yet another potentially interesting turn of events.
When we were at Alex’s, we met their friends, who were a hotchpotch of vocations and experience.
Two of these friends, we had met numerous times over the past few years. One is a restaurateur who was retired, but recently reopened a new restaurant. He was quiet and polite, but funny, pleasant and kind. His wife is loud and entertaining, but equally kind. The other is a bon vivant, who talks about his days of golf in the morning, long lunches thereafter, and closing out with massages. He can talk about the best alcohols and foods but the only episode of work I have ever heard him talk about was a short bout of a café business, which he walked away from after a couple of months. When we once caught up in Malaysia, he showed up in a swanky Mercedes so despite a lack of visible vocation, he appears to have ample financial resources. He is however, a kind and funny person so he wasn’t unpleasant company…
A third person was a lawyer who had a practice in the city. It is a practice comprising entirely of Asian lawyers. It would not surprise me if his clients are equally representative. He appears to be a warm, generous and pleasant person – one who is more likely to blend in than stand out, and who probably stakes that trait as the source of his success. I liked him, as he was comparatively less ostentatious and was more generous with his views of others.
There were others there that night, and as is often the case with their dinner party, there was much merry making with little attention to conversations with traction. It made for a stark contrast with my other event of that day in Montmorency. I have been fortunate to have been at both ends of this spectrum. However the turn of events play out in Kiddo and Mic’s lives, I somehow feel they too, in their time, would have their own version that is the rich tapestry of life.
Ante 