An expedition and a sendoff

A busy day yesterday. In the morning, Anne and I got into the Humber for our annual expedition to Syd's pie shop down Beenleigh way -- to pick up Scottish supplies. Burns night is soon so I stocked up on haggis, tablet etc. Syd makes an excellent haggis.

As soon as we arrived, however, I ordered a pie and chips for both Anne and myself. Anne first discovered the delights of pie and chips there and it seems to have become an annual treat for her. The pie, gravy and chips are all first class.

I did quite a big shop-up of British foods, including an apple and rhubarb pie, which is a great favourite of mine but is very hard to find in Brisbane.

And in the evening I put on a big sendoff dinner (15 people) for Joe at our usual Indian restaurant. He flies back to Canberra tomorrow for the academic year. Joe invited 5 of his Brisbane friends along to the dinner and I was rather impressed by Kim, a young woman who seems to act as his chauffeur when he is in Brisbane. She seems a real lady. I hope he makes sure to keep in touch with her.

Young Dan, son of Simon and Tracy seems to have grown up fast. He kept Joe engrossed in conversation for most of the night. I could hear a lot of Simon in him. I mostly talked to Ken, as I usually do.

We tried to Skype our NZ family in but there was something wrong with the Skype software so we failed. I have now reloaded it and hope for better luck next time.