Anniversary at the RSL

Today was mum and dad’s 58th wedding anniversary. To celebrate, they were going to the RSL with Lorna and Bob. Lorna is mum’s best friend and she’s married to Bob. Naturally I was invited along.

There was a bit of a rigmarole getting me in as I didn’t have any ID. However, when I told the guy on the door I lived in the UK, he said that was fine because it was just outside the 15km exclusion zone. Anyway, it was merely a hiccough on the road to lunch and we were soon happily ensconced at a table, close to a bar, with Lorna and Bob.

Actually, it wasn’t the only hiccough. As we almost arrived at the RSL, dad suddenly declared that he’d forgotten his member’s card. After a short moment of indecision, we drove all the way back to the house to get it. When it comes to punctuality, mum is worse than me and always has to be at least 15 minutes early for anything (though I hope that excludes her own funeral), so she was a bit stressed given we would now be about three minutes late. Coincidentally, we inadvertently parked right next to Lorna and Bob’s car without knowing.

Still, this was all forgotten as we shuffled ourselves around the tables and chairs and decided what to have for lunch. Mum and dad particularly like going to the RSL because, apart from the air conditioning and friendly staff, it is possible to order child size meals. The normal meal is, like English pub food, rather sizeable and a terrible waste.

I had crumbed barramundi and chips which was lovely. And a couple of schooners, which were also lovely.

Over lunch we heard about Bob’s early life as a fisherman. Apparently he has never tried tea or coffee (he’s 84). He didn’t explain why he’s never had any coffee but he did tell us why he doesn’t drink tea.

When using crab nets back when he was a lad, they only came in bright white. The crabs could easily see them in the water and they’d veer away, thinking the net was actually a wall. To combat this, fishermen would soak them in very strong black tea for a while. This made them pretty much invisible to the crabs. This put him off drinking it.

I reckon Bob was a bit of lad in his day. Lorna told the story of how, one boisterous day, he accidentally pushed her down some concrete steps into the lapping water. While she was basically fine, her upper legs did sustain some quite intensive bruising. Obviously Bob was mortified and was very concerned about her. So much so that he would go round to her house as often as possible to make sure her legs were okay.

Lorna said as soon as she spotted him coming up the drive she’d have to race in and change into her shorts rather than lift up the hem of her skirt. This led her on to the day she locked herself in her wardrobe. She was standing in her bedroom, wearing just her petticoat, when her mum yelled that Bob was on his way up to her room.

Lorna frantically looked around, no idea what to do. Rather than the obvious option of slipping a dress on, she decided to quickly jump into the wardrobe, pulling the door to from the inside. Bob, innocently, entered her room to find it empty. Puzzled, he went back downstairs to tell Lorna’s mum she wasn’t there. There followed the usual to-ing and fro-ing as perfected in French farce as Bob unsuccessfully tried to find her.

They are a lovely couple and Lorna and mum are great friends (have been for 20 years) so we had a marvellous couple of hours before heading back home.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I forgot one film on the plane. Oddly, it was my favourite as well. It was Ruby Sparks and I thoroughly enjoyed it. When it comes onto the Vision box at home, we’ll have to see it. Mirinda will like it, I’m sure.