Wagon Wheels & Woolongong

This morning I got up and showered, then had breakfast with Hez and Robyn. We watched some tv and chatted about the strange behaviour of some people – having watched odd reality programmes like Toddlers & Tiaras and What Not to Wear.

Hez and I took a ride into town, for a look around the shops. We had a particular look at jewellery in the little gift boutiques and then popped into IGA to ,mget a few groceries. We then decided to go to the bakery and get some sweet treats for afternoon tea. I was amazed by the array of cakes, slices and all sorts of other delicious looking indulgences; it made it hard to choose!

When we got home, we had some lunch with Robyn and Jim, then enjoyed a cup of tea with our cakes – I had a gigantic (and I mean, really gigantic!) Wagon Wheel, it was very tasty indeed, but it so big I could only manage half of it! Hez had a passion fruit pastry, which also looked delicious! She then went off to work and I spent the rest of the afternoon clicking about online and then looking at the results that Robyn had found whilst researching my family tree. I couldn’t believe how much she had found out in such as short time! She then showed me her family trees and it was absolutely fascinating – she has worked on both her side of the family and Jim’s. Robyn has found lots of old documents online whilst searching her ancestry, so we looked at scans of the original censuses and births/deaths registers. I also saw lots of really old photos of her relatives and I was stunned to see one of them was taken outside Latimer House, near Chesham! She couldn’t believe I knew the place! How strange!

I then got my things together for my night out and Robyn drove me to meet Hez from work. She is currently pet-sitting for a family, so we sorted out the pets – giving them their dinner and letting them out for a run around in the yard. Once they were done, we hopped in the car and drove to Woolongong, stopping at a bottle shop along the way to buy some cheap and cheerful pink bubbly wine. We then continued on to her friend April’s, where I met both April and her boyfriend James.

We had a few drinks at April’s and chatted about all sorts of things, including Michael Jackson – I think it might be coming up to the anniversary of his death, or it may well be the anniversary, I can’t remember, either way, several tv stations had back-to-back Jacko. We watched Moonwalker – none of the others had ever heard of it, I couldn’t remember if I had seen it before, but I had heard of it. We laughed at the comedy nature of the film; the horrific acting, bad costumes, peculiar story line and feebly tenuous links between the story line and the MJ songs they included in the film!

Once we’d gotten changed, James drove us to the city and we went to a fantastic Thai restaurant. The girls recommended some dishes that they particularly enjoy, one of which was called Crying Tiger – a very entertaining name, it reminded me of that film I’ve never seen (and have no interest in seeing still) called Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, so as a result, I kept accidentally calling it Crying Dragon. We enjoyed a delicious meal and some entertaining fizzy wine called ‘Pink’ - as it was a BYO restaurant, we’d picked up some silly drinks to take there – Pink was indeed pink!

After dinner, we headed to a pub but the woman on the door wouldn’t let us in because I hadn’t brought any ID. The others all had their driving licenses, but the woman was having none of it. I pointed out that I hadn’t been asked for ID when in other parts of Australia, and she agreed that I looked older than the others, who did have ID with them – but she was adamant that even so I could not go in. This was very annoying and pathetic; clearly she was just a person who had been given a bit of authority and takes great pleasure in lording it about. Feeling rather miffed, we got back in the car and decided to go back to April’s.

It turned out that it was probably a good idea we didn’t stay out as we all flaked out pretty much as soon as we got back to the house. We got settled on the sofas with some drinks and some cheese and crackers! Over dinner we’d been talking about films and it had come up in conversation that I hadn’t seen the film ‘The Hangover’, which I have to say I have heard countless people going on and on about at various points while I have been away, so I figured maybe it would be a good idea to see it. April went and got the doonas off the beds, we all got comfy and cosy underneath them on the sofas and she put on the DVD. Heather fell asleep after about twenty minutes, but April, James and I managed to stay awake and watch the whole film. It was good, but possibly not as amazing as I had expected, having heard so much about it. When the film finished, Heather woke up and we all sat chatting for a bit, playing with the dog, Sooty (a black Labrador) and the mouse, Flash. At about 1am we decided it was time for bed, so dragged the doonas back to the bedroom and turned in for the night.