An escape and an anniversary

On Sunday, Nanna had a bad turn.  So Jenny rushed her to the QE2 hospital.  You don't take risks with the health of a lady in her '90s.  By Monday evening she was fine however so came home. So Joe arranged a small celebratory dinner -- celebrating her escape from hospital.  We went to a nearby Thai restaurant. I shouted.

Nanna was in fact quite perky at the dinner -- which we were all glad to see. I had some excellent roast duck and Joe had a chicken dish.  The duck was described on the menu as deboned so when I saw that I said, "Well. There won't be much duck left!"  But I was wrong.  It was a reasonable sized meal. I took along a bottle of Barossa Pearl to aid the deliberations, which was, as usual, well-received

Then on Tuesday it was 10 years since Anne and I met.  So we had an anniversary dinner. We dined at home at my place.  I opened a bottle of 2008 Grange to enliven us.  I see the 2008 Vintage of Grange was awarded 'perfect' 100 point ratings from two influential American wine reviewers, "Wine Spectator". and "Wine Advocate" -- and both Anne and I drew similar conclusions, oblivious of those judgments.



I also found some very nice lamb cutlets for the main course.  Anne fried them up for us and they were very tender and full of flavour.  Anne brought along oysters and prawns for starters and I got some Persian fetta to add to the salad.  And Anne brought along two mini-Tortes for dessert.  So the food was as good as can be.  And I fired up the candelabrum so we had a genuine candle-lit dinner!

I told Joe about the dinner in advance and said that I could probably spare him and Kate half a glass of Grange each.  But he didn't like Grange when he first tried it about 5 years ago so he declined.   I wonder what Kate thought about that.  Not getting a taste for Grange is probably wise, though. The 2008 vintage was a great drop IMHO.  I chambered it for about 3 days so it was very clear, with no sediment until the very bottom.

I did make a couple of drunken attempts at singing "Some enchanted evening".  It's the only song I can sing! Anne gave the opening toast for the dinner, wishing us another good ten years.  I drank to that.

There was an amusing sequel next morning.  There were a couple of cooked cutlets left over so I said for Anne to take them home with her for her lunch.  She said, "Won't you eat them?" with proper ladylike reluctance.  I replied, "I certainly will".  She replied "Then I'll take them!"  Concern for my waistline trumped everything else!