Tress and I took Friday arvo off, and headed to the Yarra Valley. Ray, Auntie Hooi and Uncle Marloney’s eldest, was getting married to Lesley. We dropped the little padawan at Heather’s, and then got home, got dressed and drove towards the wine country for the occasion.
The wedding was a simple but beautiful event. Lesley was fashionably late, arriving some 40 minutes after the scheduled time of 3.30pm. She looked really happy, as did Ray.
The reception that followed, at the same location (Rochford Wine vineyard), was also very lovely. The Ng family was raucous, but good naturedly so, and was certainly the loudest group of the night. Many of them would stay the night in Yarra Valley but Tress and I drove home. We got home a bit after 11pm, and after checking to ensure LBJ, who had been alone at home, was ok, we went to bed.
The next day was wet so we didn’t go out. We were going to keep an appointment with our tax agents to prepare and submit our tax returns so it wasn’t going to be fun morning anyway. I was again aghast at the amount of tax we were paying – Australia is almost certainly one of the highest taxed country on earth. Kerry Packer’s comment that anyone who paid more tax than he has to should have his head examined, never rang truer. I recall a leader of our local church once said she didn’t mind paying more tax if that meant more people could access support and aid. I would certainly rather we paid less tax and use the saving to directly contribute to more charities.
With the tax meeting over, we picked up the Padawan, spoiled him a bit, and then headed out for lunch and some grocery shopping. I had also wanted to see if I could pick up a new suit for another wedding that is coming up next weekend. Jason and Mel’s Sammi will be getting married next Sunday and theirs was going to be a formal black tie thing. I thing I can get away with using one of my existing suits but thought I’d check out the more formal stuff. Buying suits is such a pain so after browsing around in a couple of outlets (Peter Jackson and David Jones), I gave up.
We got home, I did some vacuuming, then walked the dogs. At the oval, an acquaintance became visibly upset and complained to me that other at the oval often mistreated her and said mean things about her. She was bawling her eyes out and was practically yelling at me when I told her I didn’t think others were saying anything bad about her. She said she was suicidal and that disturbed me greatly. I rang the “R U Ok” line to check out what I should do but then others at the oval told me she has been seeing someone to get therapy so I left it at that.
We got home and I cooked some fish and veg on the Weber GA. After dinner, Tress and I settled down to watch the footy and I prepped the next day’s cook for our lunches this week.
At St Alf’s the talks on Genesis 1 & 2 continued and we chatted with a Melbourne fan and commiserated with her. The demons were knocked out in “straight sets” (2 consecutive matches) so were out of the finals. Collingwood prevailed against Freo so will play Sydney at the prelim final next week, at the SCG. Brisbane, who beat the demons, would play the cats at the G. Winners of both matches will square up for the big dance on Saturday week. Tress and I have planned to go away that long weekend so we’re kind of really looking forward to that.
Ante 