Dinner with Kenneth and Maureen

We arrived at Kuraby at 5pm after a bit of demon driving through the peak-hour traffic and as we walked in the door Ken was playing mood music on his new electric goanna. It certainly sounded good. Maybe acoustic pianos will become obsolete soon.

Maureen dished up an incredible spread with various appetizers and lots of different dishes for the main course. And everything was excellent. And I got a reward for always mentioning how good Maureen's pavlovas are. She made a super-duper layered one for dessert.

At one stage we were discussing old cars and houses -- which Ken sees little point in and I remarked that he was just not sentimental. Ken said: "Yes, I am". Whereupon Maureen shouted out from the kitchen: "You are not"! So Ken got a bit undermined there. But he retained his good cheer.

I can't remember much of what else we talked about but I think we covered a lot of ground.

At one stage Ken got Von and Paul on Skype from NZ so we heard a live account of their canoe adventure.

Towards the end of the evening we got talking about Pauline Hanson and racism -- in complete defiance of the old advice never to discuss religion and politics on social occasions. But Ken and I know one-another of old so we retained good cheer despite Ken having the usual view about Pauline while Anne and I think well of her.

Ken seemed at first to be in favour of "affirmative action" but my claim that it was racist seemed to moderate his views somewhat. Not your everyday dinner-table topic! But Ken is good natured and knows that I am pretty ornery so I think he just enjoyed the back and forth: Which is more mature than a lot of people could manage.

I pushed my luck with the beverages a bit, having champagne, Merlot and Cointreau. But I got home without police challenge so all was well. I took the Echo as I had surgery on my hand yesterday and it was still a bit sore. The Humber has very heavy steering so that was out of the question with a sore hand.

Update:

Another very small incident which may nonetheless be worth recording was when I very "incorrectly" remarked: "When I see reports of people younger than me dying, I tend to feel rather pleased". Maureen was in the kitchen area at the time but I got a big smile from her in response to that. I imagine that she enjoyed the "incorrectness" and frankness of it.

The older you get the more you feel pleased at your survival, I think. Almost the very first thing nonagenarians say to you is: "I'm 90, you know!" There are a lot of nonagenarians in Australia so I have heard it often. Anne's mother is still alive at 93.

Update 2

After Paul had related on Skype how their canoe had got out of control and tossed both him and Von into the freezing river water, Ken chimed in with an admonition that they should have been wearing life jackets. That went down like a lead balloon with Paul -- as I could tell from his silence in response. Father and son there do NOT see eye to eye in most things. I had some sympathy for Ken on that occasion, however. Hearing that two of your children had nearly drowned has got to be stressful.

Unless I have been directly asked for advice, I don't think I ever tell Paul or Joe to do anything. I just offer information about what the consequences of any course of action are likely to be and leave them to integrate that into their own thinking however they may. I have never been disappointed at the result of that.

And I never really need to say anything to Von. She always makes good decisions. Or I think so anyway.

Good new and bad news from NZ

The good news is a great photo of Hannah being fed solids for the first time. She seems to be saying, "Wow! This is great stuff".



The bad news is that Paul and Von nearly killed themselves in a canoeing accident. They ended up OK though.

Paul is in New Zealand

He and Sue helped Von to celebrate her birthday. Paul is once again greatly enthused about the unspoiled and very scenic natural environment in the South Island. The pic below is from a trip they all did on lake Te Anau.

Apparently, they didn't have an appropriate beanie for Hannah so Sue whipped one up out of some red and white wool she was given. And very attractive it looks. Sue is the perfect wife.



Von looks happier than ever in the photo. She has good reason to be. And I like her hat too!

Suzy's birthday

About a week ago, I had heard nothing about a birthday celebration for Suzy and wondered what was happening. Suzy said that it felt "weird" celebrating her birthday for the first time without her twin present so she herself had arranged nothing. And Ken is apparently birthdayed out so has declared that he is not celebrating any birthdays any more.

So I immediately offered to put on something for her at short notice. I arranged for an afternoon tea on my verandah. Jenny and Nanna also came along of course. My verandah gets a good breeze and is always a popular spot for a small gathering. Present were Suzy and Russ, Anne and myself plus Jenny, Nanna and, of course Sahara, who was the star of the occasion. She is 17 months now and walks quite well but she is scared stiff of me! Being shy is normal enough at that age, of course.

When everybody was seated I brought out my 3-tier cakestand absolutely loaded down with big pumpkin scones and huge lamingtons -- so that immediately made a good impression. I offered rosella jam to go with the scones. So it was an all-Australian offering on ANZAC day.

A most enthusiastic consumer of the lamington offering was Sahara. She grabbed handfulls off one and scoffed them down at a great rate. Apparently she had never had a lamington before so she showed she is a born Australian. Very appropriate on ANZAC day.

I asked Suzy about how Sahara was going with her landmarks and talked a lot about her current pregnancy but beyond that I cannot remember what we all talked about. Lots of things, I think. As usual, it was a jolly occasion, though.

A busy Easter

With two Easter activities already behind me I had another one tonight. Anne likes to put on a dinner for her two sisters around this time and that happened tonight. Two mere males in the persons of myself and Ralph were also invited.

I talked to Ralph for a bit about Byzantium as his Masonic order is the Red Cross of Constantine and Byzantium is one of my enthusiasms in history.

Then we sat down to an excellent dinner of roast lamb. We were all Presbyterians of one sort or another at table so a lot of the discussion revolved around church matters. That might sound very dull but it was not at all. We had quite a jolly time in fact.

Anne had brought home with her a copy of "New Directions", a Presbyterian church newspaper that was handed to her at the Good Friday service -- and that was something of a hit. I think everyone had a look at it.

We were all rather surprised to read that the church now has its own theological college in Queensland. In the past a lot of our ministers have come from Scotland.

I was pleased to read in the paper that Archie McNicol had been given a good sendoff. He "demitted his charge" (retired) earlier this year due to ill health. He had been the minister at Ann St. for about 10 years and I always had a good impression of him

The great tribe of Rays

I have no idea of the actual numbers but at a guess I must have about a thousand relatives in Queensland and more interstate. And that is just on my father's side! Much the same would be true on my mother's side.

The Ray family are so numerous because we go back to the convicts. The convict couple had a big family and their kids had big families and their kids ... Even in my own family I was one of four.

I am of course completely out of touch with most of my fellow descendants of the convict couple but every now and again someone in the family takes an interest in genealogy and a few contacts are established.

My third cousin Jan Bemrose is one of those. She is a very smart lady who has done an immense amount of work on the family genealogy and she eventually tracked me down as well. Most conveniently, she lives only about half an hour's drive from where I do so I arranged to meet her today over an afternoon tea at my place. I got my brother Chris along as well. It was a very lively afternon with lots of reminiscences, information and stories being exchanged -- and lots of laughs. We seemed to have quite a lot in common too.

And Anne made some excellent cucumber sandwiches to go with our tea. I also managed to get the local baker to make us some pumpkin scones, which are an old Queensland favourite. And to fill the top level of my three-tier cakestand I made something that could hardly be more Australian: A bully beef sandwich. I cut it into quarters and each person's quarter seemed to go down well. It was a rather mad thing to serve at an afternoon tea but I wanted some real Australiana to go with our discussions of the old timers in our past. And it seems that both Jan and I actually LIKE bully beef!



We have arranged to meet again.

I made it!

Although I have been an atheist for nearly 50 years now, I still like to pop in to my old church once or twice a year -- particularly on Good Friday and at Christmas. Getting out of bed in time is the big problem, however. Easter services tend to start early and I get out of bed late.

Today however Anne woke me up at 8:15 for the 9am service at Ann St. Presbyterian so I got going as quickly as I could and arrived blearily but in good time at church.



The Ann St. church stayed out of the "Uniting church" when that takeover was on. The "Uniters" are pretty wishy-washy these days but the continuing Presbyterians remain old-style. So when Anne and I attended there this morning it was the Gospel of salvation only that I heard. To preach anything else on Good Friday would be very peculiar Christianity indeed. And it was the moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Queensland that we had preaching.

He was an enthusiastic and learned preacher but shouted a bit too much for my liking: Rather un-Presbyterian I thought. But as he "heads" the whole church in Queensland, I guess he knows better than I do about that.

Our old minister retired recently because of ill health and I missed him. I liked old Archie McNicol. He was a tall and dignified Scot.

When I go to church I feel reconnected with my past and my ancestors -- and conservatives generally do tend to like their connections with other people. Leftists are more into criticizing other people.

Anne says she just goes for the music but I think there is more to it than that. It is her old church too and she does her best to get me along whenever she thinks I might be amenable to it. I never have to twist her arm.

We had a lady in a big hat sitting up the front so I presume it was Penelope Wensley. Having two State governors in a row support that church must mean something but I am still figuring out what. Quentin Bryce used to turn up in a big hat too.

So it was a pleasant morning and Anne cooked me up a good breakfast afterwards of scrambled eggs and Haloumi with toast.

A greeting from a NZ babe

You can tell she's a NZ babe by the rugging up. It's already snowing on the mountains where young Hannah is (below).



Here in Brisbane some trees are stiil flowering and the days are warm. And it's STILL raining!

It's autumn in the shaky isles

Some recent photos from Lady Von






Invercargill beach looks a bit muddy to me but locals like the fact that you can drive on it



Von is a bit worried about the impending winter but her good cheer (and some good house heating) will carry her through

A mustard taste test

I have run wine tastings and whisky tastings in my time but a mustard taste test must be something of a departure.

I organized one last Thursday night with just Anne and myself as judges. The aim was to decide what mustard went best with Pastrami on rye. I got in some light rye bread and Crown lager to wash it down and made up four sandwiches. I cut the sandwiches in half so Anne and I would have the same.

Each of course had a different mustard on it and all had plenty of butter on them. There were: Dijon mustard, English mustard, wholegrain mustard and mustard pickles.

For me it was a tossup between wholegrain mustard and mustard pickles but Anne was firmly in favour of wholegrain mustard

I already use Pastrami in Reuben sandwiches. Maybe I should try Pastrami with Russian dressing next. I have never seen Russian dressing in the shops here but I have ketchup, mayonnaise and horseradish on hand so I should be able to make up my own. There are various recipes for Russian dressing on the net but I have found a simple one:

1 cup mayonnaise
¼ cup (4 Tbsp) chili sauce, cocktail sauce or ketchup
1 Tbsp drained horseradish
1 tsp minced onion

With a bit of coleslaw it could be good

Went down to the St. James Infirmary...

Whoops! Wrong song. My sense of humour will be the death of me one day

Last night was a meeting of the Westside Music Circle, which I have been attending for around 10 years.

We had a violist who rather made me sit up. I didn't realize how low a viola could go. He even played one of the Bach cello suites on it. Marjorie, the human pianola (she can play anything) was in good form too and I particularly liked some Schumann that she played.

The old gang were there, including of course Jill and Lewis.

Anne gave me an excellent meat pie to eat before we set out which was a rather civilizing influence. I normally make rather a pig of myself at the supper afterwards but the pie filled me up rather a lot so I was more restrained than usual. I did try one of each of the sandwiches on offer, however.

I was a bit dubious about the Humber as I suspected that the battery was on the blink. It performed faultlessly, however.

More news from Lady Von

Von is always a happy lady but she seems even happier in her new abode. An excerpt:

During the picturesque drive [to Queenstown] it dawned on me that we really are living in paradise... I have never felt like this about anywhere I have ever visited or lived until now, I have fallen in love with this place.

It is amazing how much the sun can make a cold temperature feel warm, it was only 14 degrees but the sun made it feel like 25 degrees and we could easily walk around without a jumper on.

We also visited Arrowtown yesterday which is near Queenstown and is famous for the Autumn colour in the leaves and the whole town has restored the original old buildings so the town has a lot of character not to mention GOLD. Yes, you can still find gold in the river that runs through Arrowtown. There are still many rivers where gold can be found in NZ but commercial mining of gold has been banned to preserve the natural environment.

Some pics of Von's new environment

The New Zealand news

A picture of Von's humble home

And an excerpt from her latest email that would make big city dwellers worldwide envious:

"Another thing I want to mention was about our garbage collection. Our wheelie bin is collected each Thursday morning and Simon and I managed to fill it to the brim with the lid poking up over the top.

We unfortunately slept in on Thursday and didn't get the bin out in time so it wasn't collected. We thought we would just leave it there anyway and deal with the rubbish later.

At about 4pm that afternoon the rubbish truck sped past then noticed our bin and reversed back to our house and emptied it!! We were amazed! How nice. We really are living in the country when you get service like that."

By the river again

An army recollection

This post is a bit indelicate so perhaps anybody feeling delicate should stop reading now

In the great scheme of things, my time in the army was undoubtedly of the most minuscule importance that you can possibly imagine -- but I enjoyed it and that is what matters to me.

One very amusing recollection is when we were "in the field" (at Tin Can Bay) and we had our first experience of army sanitary arrangements. With perfect good sense, the army does not make allowances for privacy in such situations. When you have to "go" in battle no privacy may be available. So you need to get "broken in" to primitive arrangements.

In Tin Can bay the "restroom" consisted of a number of "thunder boxes" set in a semi-circle with no partitions between them. This lack of privacy did have a considerable constipating effect on a number of my "brothers in arms". I have chronically loose bowels anyway, however, so I was not held up to any degree at all. I just blurted away, rather to the envy of some of the others, I imagine.

One occasion when I did surprise myself, however, was when we were all in the back of an army truck returning from leave in town. In good army style, our leave had involved much beer. And beer consumption can suddenly hit you hard with an urge to "go". So I did. I stood up at the back of the truck and peed it all out on the road as the truck bounced along. I would not be able to do it sober. Nobody else did likewise but I have always had a rather weak bladder so maybe their need was not as great.

I think my performance did earn me some kudos, however.

Earth day

Anne and I celebrated Earth day in appropriate style. Everybody was supposed to turn all their lights out at 8:30 pm.

So at 8.30pm I turned on every light in the house and Anne served up our dinner on my verandah. We had Forfar Bridies from Syd's, with salad, and they were of course excellent. We washed them down with some Wynn's Coonawarra Shiraz

I live within earshot of "The Gabba", one of the holy grounds of cricket. They had a well-attended (judging by the roars of the crowd) football match there last night. It was of course held under huge floodlights. And they certainly were not turned off at 8.30pm. Thank goodness for sporting Australians.

Some pictures from scenic Lumsden

With Von and Hannah





The beach looks very English -- but it is a river beach, not a seaside beach. I note that Von is warmly dressed while I have the airconditioning on! A difference between the shaky isles and Brisbane of course.

Paul's birthday

Paul has his birthday this week so I put on a small birthday dinner for him tonight at my place. We managed to fit 9 people onto my small front verandah but that meant that we were close enough for everybody to hear one-another.

Present were Paul & Sue, Anne & myself, Ken & Maureen, Jenny, Nanna and Timmy. So the lad had his mother, father, grandmother and his old stepfather all present. Not that he's really a lad anymore. He is a man in his 30s. But all the relationships seem to be much as they always were.

It was good to have Timmy present. I always enjoy telling stories about what he did when he was a kid. Fortunately, he seems to enjoy the stories too.

We had curry as usual for the main course and an impressive range of desserts brought by the ladies. Paul managed -- just -- to blow his candles out and ate heartily as usual. Paul and Ken are both great eaters so there was no curry left over but I was rather pleased that there was half a Pavlova left. It is in my fridge at the moment but will not last long. Maureen made the Pavolova as usual.

I can't remember what we talked about: Mostly politics, I think. Though we did spend some time talking about the Royal succession. Australia is a monarchy and who will reign is a topic most Australians have an opinion about. I favour Prince Charles and I think Paul agreed

Before everybody went home, I sang them a song! It was an old Australian favourite -- "Click go the shears" -- which almost no Australians understand these days. You have to know:

Why the shears go click?
What is a blow (not what you think)?
What is a ringer (nothing to do with bells)?
What is a snagger (not a sausage maker)?
What is a "bare bellied yo"?

I explained it all and everybody seemed to enjoy that little bit of Australiana. Ken was the only one to know any of the answers and he is a Pom!


Self flanked by Anne and Paul


The gathering, with Paul's gorgeous and pregnant wife Sue on the far left. Sue helps me to take lids off things! And does many other kind deeds

Abraham's bag factory and Gearco

My first job in Brisbane in 1964 was as a clerk at Abraham's bag factory out at Rocklea. I bought an old Army B.S.A. 500cc motorbike (for ten pounds) to get to and from work. I loved that bike: Manual advance/retard and all. It was a couple of months before I discovered that it had a fourth gear! Tram tracks are very dangerous to bikes and I once slipped on them and came off in the middle of Ipswich Rd. I was lucky not to be run over.

I eventually wrote the bike off in another accident in which I broke my leg. Where I came from that was almost a rite of passage for young men. I went back to my parents' home in 308 Mulgrave Rd in Cairns while I recuperated. It was then that I took the picture of Roxanne as a little girl that now hangs on my wall. She always was the good-looking one.



I stayed at the bag factory for only a few months but had some educational experiences there. I was a stock clerk so was sort-of half way between the office-workers and the factory workers, most of whom were female. I kept factory hours, however -- starting at 7am. The office workers started at 9am. It was my introduction to class distinctions and was all very new to me at the time. I was struck by how the factory girls seemed to live in a different mental world to me. I hardly understood them at all. My head at that time was full of writers from Thucydides to Ruskin and that would have been greeted with great derision had I mentioned it.

I was at one stage given the chance of driving the forklift but a veil of silence over that is probably best.

There were a couple of freemasons working in the factory and that was new to me too. The factory foreman -- a very important man named Henry Trenerry -- was a Mason and there was another guy too. The manager was a former salesman named Garlick. It was my introduction to the idea that salesman often become managers.

The factory made bags (paper sacks) for one of the sandminers on Stradbroke Island and Henry had to ring them up at times. I still remember their phone no.: "Dunwich 16".

I cannot remember why I left Abrahams but I imagine that I got bored with it.

I then went to work for Harry Beanham (usually resident in Sydney but he visited his interstate shops occasionally) at Gearco in the city. The job was to run a business selling second hand factory machinery and some new machinery: Mostly to do with lathes and other machine tools. I found it interesting.

Harry was in partnership with another bloke (Bob Naesmith) selling new and secondhand photographic gear. I ran my side of the shop and the other side of the shop was run by George Smith and Mrs Staer. I had for many years a SLR Pentax camera I acquired from the other side of the shop when it came in second-hand.

I made my mark in Harry's mind by being a very successful seller of diehead chasers. There was a complexity to them that interested me. He eventually sent his total stock of them up to Brisbane for me to sell. Don't ask what they are. You don't need to know. Mechanical engineers know already.

Jill's birthday

I very naughtily forgot Jill's birthday recently but she forgave me when I offered to take her and Lewis to the Kafe Meze as a late offering. So we went there tonight.

The Kafe Meze has a large array of excellent appetizers so I ordered a selection of 7 or 8 different ones as the meal for us all. The Kafe Meze is set up for that.

That was very well received as we had a mini-banquet of very tasty dishes (the food on them was good too). As usual, the keftedes were much praised but the Taramasalata was much enjoyed too, as it usually is. I believe I also had the privilege of introducing Jill to Haloumi, slightly to my surprise. A Greek meal is not complete without Tarama and Haloumi.

Anne and I had a sort of parfait for dessert while Jill and Lewis played it safe with Baklava. The parfait was comprised of walnuts, yoghurt and honey, a combination new to me -- though yoghurt is very Greek of course. In fact, the first time I ever tasted yoghurt was at the Innisfail Greek club, where I was taken by the inimitable Panayotis Kokkinidis. Isn't that a marvellously Greek name? Anyway, I enjoyed the parfait.

I was glad that I booked in advance as the customers kept pouring in to the restaurant. A majority of them seemed to be young too. It clearly is in fashion with the youth for their weekend outings at the moment. The restaurant is a big one but when I went to pay the bill, there seemed to be no vacant tables anywhere. The restaurant is not a cheap one so I guess quality counts.

Update

I cannot leave mention of Panayotis Kokkinidis without paying some tribute to him. I have a photo of myself with him when I was about 16. He was a very happy man. His happiness was part and parcel of the fact that he was a God-filled man. You get men like that in all Christian denominations and in Jewry. His utter faith in his Lord gave him a degree of happiness and confidence that most of the rest of us can only aspire to.

Last I heard of him he was doing some sort of missionary work in Vietnam. That would be just like Taki (his nickname). His faith would carry him through all sorts of situations that would daunt other people. Compared to him I see myself as "Thy poor earthbound companion and fellow mortal", as Burns put it.

An amusing thing about Taki is that he looked very Greek and yet had somehow acquired a good command of Italian. So when Italians heard Italian words coming out of this very Greek face they tended not to believe it. That of course amused Taki. I know of it because he told me. I can vouch for the fact that he spoke Italian and looked very Greek and the rest I can imagine.

The world has been a better place for having Panayotis Kokkinidis in it. I hope his Lord has been kind to him in the 50 years since I last saw him.

Australia's surprising origins

Australia started out as a military dictatorship. That sounds like a bad start but the military concerned was subservient to the parliament of England so it was fairly humane and permissive by the standards of its day. But most Australians know that (I hope).

What is perhaps more surprising is what a modern place Sydney was in its earliest days. Stories surrounding my two convict ancestors help illustrate that:

From Sydney's newspaper of the day ("The Australian" -- particularly the issue of 30.7.1828) we learn that when the convict ship carrying my male ancestor arrived in Sydney harbour, there was smallpox on board.

So what did they do? Just say a prayer and disembark everybody straight away? No. The illness was immediately notified to the appropriate authorities. The ship was then sent to Neutral Bay in quarantine and the Sydney population warned. Thousands of people had cowpox vaccinations as a result. After official investigations, the ship was eventually allowed to disembark on August 5th at Spring Cove. Pretty modern! Precautionary vaccinations in 1828.

So Sydney was a pretty sophisticated place by 1828. A "visiting English gentleman" writing in "The Australian" of 13 August 1828 under the pseudonym "Delta" was surprised to find Sydney comprised of substantial brick and stone buildings instead of the mud huts and log cabins he had expected. He found it "a bustling, elegant and extensive city" with shops as good as London's but with much cleaner air. So the convicts had built well in their first 40 years.

A subsequent writer in "The Australian" found "Delta's" encomium a bit exaggerated but did nonetheless still see Sydney as a place with opportunities that might well entice emigrants from England.

And when my female ancestor from those days was being transported to Australia in 1840, the convict ship departed from Kingstown, about 12 kilometres south of Dublin city centre in Ireland, and now called Dún Laoghaire (or Dunleary). So how did she get from Dublin to the port? By steam train! The railway from Dublin to Kingstown opened for business in 1834 and terminated near the West Pier. So Australia started out as an offshoot of the most advanced country of its day. And it has always been a "modern" country. Around the year 1900 it was by some accounts the richest country in the world.

Two departures

Vonnie, Simon and Hannah are departing soon for the Shaky Isles. And they are going via Christchurch! So I organized a big family sendoff dinner at my usual Indian restaurant on Saturday night. There were 21 people plus three babies present, including George, who was in excellent spirits.

I managed to get in a bit of a chat with Von about baby matters but found, rather as I expected, that she was already thinking along the same lines. She is a very sensible young woman and we have always got on well.

The occasion was also supposed to be a sendoff for Joe but something came up and he had to leave on Saturday morning so missed the big family dinner. He actually drove down to Canberra in his Toyota Corolla, much to the disquiet of his mother and me.

I did however manage to corral him for a Friday night curry dinner on my verandah. There were only six of us for that dinner (including Paul, Sue, Anne and Jenny) but it was quite a fun dinner with lots of chat.

I spilt rather a lot of curry on the tablecloth at one stage, which greatly amused Joe. His sense of humour has not changed since he was 2. At that age, his favourite joke was: "The boy fell in the mud".

Joe told us quite a bit about his exploratory trip to Canberra and the ANU, including his encounter with the endemic socialism there. His exploratory trip (by air) was to enrol and to arrange accomodation; and he did manage to get college accomodation.

He will be starting his Ph.D. studies anew at the ANU school of mathematics, the first two years being mainly involved in courses and reading, with the writing of his dissertation (using partial differential equations) left to the third year. So he should have plenty of time to enjoy the student life, which I am pleased about.

Update March 1

Joe had a relatively uneventful trip and arrived safe and sound in Canberra.

I forgot to mention something amusing about the dinner:

Suzy and Lena had a highchair and a pram to accomodate their babies at the dinner but Von had neither. Little Hannah was passed around like a parcel all night. She is a very placid baby so everyone who wanted a cuddle could get one. She was very popular.

Update 2

I hear that Joe has done a bit of quizzing of the many socialists at ANU. A bit unwise perhaps but it interested him to see how little thought many of them put into their beliefs.

Something that happened at his sendoff dinner was amusing. He said that he always orders the same thing at Indian restaurants. This was greeted with some surprise so he explained that when he found something he liked he couldn't see the point of ordering something that he might not like. Various people then said to him: "That's what John says", which is of course true. I doubt that he has ever heard me say that so it is another example of the power of genetics. He is not like me at all in appearance and personality but other similarities are numerous.

Update 3

Some pictures from the sendoff dinner:


Bottlescape: (champagne and water) with Jenny, Pam and Anne (L to R) in the background


A good photo of Russell and Sahara


Paul's Susan with Hannah and Timmy