I just realised that I haven't gotten around to finishing the story about my trip to Melb last weekend !!
I woke up in Bordertown, barely able to move. I'll grant that Morris Dancing isn't the most athletic-looking thing a person can watch, but one gets a fair workout. And after a 10 hour dancing engagement, one's limbs are v. sore the following day!
At 9.30 I commenced the drive to Melbourne – something I'd never before attempted by myself, nor had I tried in the Celica. I'd secured the use of Tim the Accordian Player's Road Atlas, so I wasn't so worried about where I was going, but it was the time factor that was more of an issue. Plus the boredom factor – my CD player isn't presently working… nevertheless, I had my notebook handy, which was good for playing about 2 hours' worth of music at any rate.
Upon entering the outer environs of Melbourne I was stricken with my first snag – it's not that I didn't know where I was, it's just that in our earlier discussion of which route to aim for (in Bordertown) I'd not noticed that they were pointing at the wrong road as my initial point of entry. So all the while I'm driving along, glancing at the map and looking for signs pointing me to the next logical step of the journey. I should have known I was lost when I found myself taking the exact same roads I took LAST TIME I navigated for someone and was hopelessly lost (and Beaver, Bret, Tristan and co. would know exactly what I mean there).
So yes anyway, I managed to take a fairly substantial series of wrong turns and detours before getting on the road I was meant to be on. Time was ticking slowly past, only I was in a bit of a spot because of my somewhat unorthodox approach to timekeeping.
I'm got this longstanding theory that it's always worth setting your clock a bit ahead of the actual time on the offchance that you'll get places early. Most people say “that's stupid, you know your clock's fast, so you allow yourself extra time accordingly”. This is partially true, however with every single clock set slightly differently it makes it too difficult to know how much extra time to allow yourself, and therefore it's just easier to get there on time.
That's all fine, except I was running late anyway.
Once on the Eastern Freeway however it was a simple race against time to get to the wedding. The bridal car arrived 12 seconds after I stopped my engine, and thanks to all their farting about out the front, I was able to hurreidly change into my suit and get a seat in the chapel about a minute before the first bridesmaid hit the carpet.
Whew.
The wedding was a nice, fairly quick ceremony, with a rather amusing celebrant, and it was good to see Mike scrubbed up & looking reasonable.
The reception took place next door, and to my great relief
- I'd been placed on a table with Rovers
- Mike had organised Coopers Pale and Sparkling
Partway through the night a couple of the lads on my table thought it would be a good idea for us to take the bows off the chairs and wear them as sashes, which I must admit made me feel a little like some kind of Bulgarian prince or something.
Oh yes, and I was seated next to Liz Hurley. Who gets to claim THAT, eh ?
The next day I woke up at Michelle & Craig's place (scarcely a surprise though – it's where I went to sleep, and all… I just left that bit out of the story because it's all getting a bit long now, isn't it ?), and eventually headed back to Mike & Cath's for brunch. Again, the navigation gods were not with me, because though I've driven down from Michelle & Craig's a number of times now, I still managed to cock it up and find myself in Belgrave, then on Ferny Creek Road (lovely scenery, mind you), and a bunch of other places, before EVENTUALLY finding the Burwood Highway.
Not surprisingly, I missed brunch (and also missed any chance of having time to catch up for a coffee with Em – I'm SOOOOOOO sorry, but you already know that!), however Vern, Spiro, Trudy, Reedy, Taara, and of course Mike & Cath were still around, so it was good to have a relax and a brief chat.
The drive back to Adelaide was fairly uneventful although somewhat more pleasant, because I had Trudy to chat to this time. We also stopped in Ararat to see Pat and Jules – I always love seeing those 2. Sorry, did I say “Jules” ? I meant 622 !
About the only other things of note were that my calves still hurt like hell from all the Morris Dancing, we had dinner at Subway in Horsham and Trudy discovered that their vege-burgers aren't too bad, and we found out that you can use premium unleaded quite safely in certain pre-1986 cars.
Quite an educational journey, all told !