A natal anniversary and Timmy

What is the difference between natal and Natal?  One is  a province in South Africa and the other refers to birth. So a natal anniversary is what is normally called a b*rthday. We are advised by security people never to use the normal term because evildoers can google our writings and find out what our natal anniversary is.  And that is an important form of ID, enabling evildoers to impersonate us and perhaps steal our money.  The age of the internet has its own problems.

So on Saturday last we had an evening  party to celebrate Joe's natal anniversary.  The first thing that morning however was to bring upstairs another of my furniture purchases from Vinnies.  It was a rather magnificent sideboard that I had bought about a week before and had it delivered into my garage.  Getting it upstairs needed two strong men so Joe and the ever-helpful Aristides got it upstairs at about 9am.  Much furniture re-arrangement was needed to get it into place but it is now adorning Anne's bedroom.  Its front features some very clever veneer work.



The party  was a quiet occasion, as Joe wanted it to be.  There were only 12 people present in Jenny's backyard for the occasion -- Joe's old friends plus close family. The twins came over from NZ especially for the occasion.

There was no music, no dancing and only a tiny amount of alcohol.  I supplied one bottle of Seaview champagne for toasting purposes and that was it. It could almost have been a fundamentalist Protestant occasion.  But it wasn't.  Joe is a baptised and confirmed Roman Catholic but he doesn't believe in anything much at all these days.  So why was it such a Puritanical natal anniversary?  It's because what we like to do is talk -- and we have no difficulty talking to one-another.  For many other people, music and dancing are substitutes for conversation.

So what did we talk about?    We just covered a lot of ground.  Mr Trump got a mention, of course.  Von sat with me for a while, as did Jenny and Joe, but we didn't talk about anything specific.  Paul's Susan once told me that talking about family matters was gossip, which was rather hard to refute.

I shouted us a number of pizzas for the food and Jenny provided several side dishes and canapes.  Pizzas are humble food but Jenny ordered a variety of them so they went down well. I asked Joe the next day what was his best memory of the occasion and he said that it was just seeing everybody together.  He has very good friends but the family does not normally see much of them. It was actually quite a jolly occasion and Joe had a good share of the laughs.

I left after about 2 hours there -- which is my usual socialization capacity -- so I missed the cake.  Jenny had asked me what sort of cake Joe would like and I hazarded a guess that it would be icecream cake. And that was apparently well received.  I hear that the party wound up not long after the cake ceremonies.

Then on the Sunday nothing much occurred -- though Joe and I had our usual leisurely bacon 'n eggs breakfast at the pie shop.  We talk continuously for about an hour there every Sunday -- mainly about American politics.  We both follow closely the many crazy events there.

Then on Monday, we welcomed Timmy back from his travels. Jenny put on a dinner of butter chicken and many accompaniments for the occasion.  Timmy and Rachel got married recently and did a lot of travel in Europe for their honeymoon. Timmy had some rather strange girlfriends in the past but when he met Rachel he recognized quality so he did not waste too much time before he married her. She is a pretty and sensible Kiwi dental nurse and is slowly getting used to our strange family.  Timmy these days is a bank Johnny. He has what has always been seen as one of the best jobs in Australia -- a job with the Commonwealth bank.

A significant part of our evening was a wedding present for Timmy.  I had said that I had an ideal wedding present for Timmy when he invites me to a proper wedding celebration.  His actual wedding was a minimalistic affair. He too doesn't like a lot of fuss.  The news that I had a mystery present for Timmy did get around so I suspect that Jenny put on the dinner in part to find out what the present was.

Before I delivered the present I told the story behind the present.  I told how the 4-year-old Timmy always raided the jar of choc chip cookies the moment he arrived at our place in Queen Bess St. I gather that Ken and Maureen didn't allow many cookies at their place so I understood Timmy's practicality.  The jar holding the cookies was a rather distinctive hexagonal one and was still in good condition many years later so that was my present to Timmy -- filled with Arnott's premium choc chip cookies.  So it was a link to Timmy's 4-year-old self and Timmy greatly appreciated it.

We always adored Timmy when he was a little kid because he was so smart.  So in all the many family dinner invitations I sent out over the years, I always included a special shout-out to Timmy. And he is a really nice guy now that he is grown up.

During the rest of the dinner I periodically piped up with stories about the young Timmy. I even repeated the old story about two cents for blood -- as Kate had not heard it. And the marvellous curative powers of the "red stuff" (Mercurochrome) were also mentioned. With a two cent coin and the red stuff I could dry all tears from all of the kids.  I used to plaster it on and Tmmy in particular loved having big patches of red on his limbs. And the story about Timmy as a 4-year old lawyer was a classic. Von greatly enjoys the old stories even after she has heard them many times and I noted that she did this time too.

So it was a great dinner and we broke up after a couple of hours or so.  Joe drove Anne and me to the dinner and looked after me generally.  I am a bit unsteady on my feet these days so Joe walks with me on uneven ground in case I trip over.

Dusty and Hannah playing  in Jenny's back yard