A quiet drink with friends

With us working every weekend, we don't get out much, but given the right opportunity we make the effort. This Saturday we had an invite to a gathering of expats. We were all to meet in one of the local Papamoa pubs. We managed to get away from the cafe around 9pm, got home, quick shower and off out. We dropped Georgia off at Marilyn's house. She was babysitting for the group. Georgia would have the company of Luke and Rebbecca. As we did not really know what the night would bring, we had a loose arrangement that Georgia might sleep over or we might pick her up as we walked home. This was a good arrangement as it allowed us the freedom to go home, stop at friends or pass out in a ditch.

We all met up in the"Rain Bar", which is the newest bar in Papamoa. It is the kind of bar where you get your Heineken served in a vase and they knock the froth off the top with a wooden spatula. Nice, but no atmosphere. After a couple of vases, a lot of chat and introductions (Am I the only one with the ability to immediately forget the name of the person I have just been introduced to). By the end of the night I had just about remembered every ones names apart from Frank, Liz's husband, his name isn't Frank, but he looks like a Frank I used to know, so he became Frank, if you follow me. After the Rain Bar we went to the Pap Tav which is a friendly locals bar with a real mix of people. More introductions, more instantly forgotten names, more merriment and good conversation. For the entertainment of everyone, they had one of those "Bucking Bronco" machines, where for $5.00 you could sit on it's back for about two seconds, before being jettisoned about 12ft into the air and landing on an inflatable mattress. About 1.30pm a nice young lady asked us if we wouldn't mind moving a long now as the pub closed about half hour ago. There did not seem to be a plan of how we were getting home, so we had a group hug in the car park. Fortunately Jeff had a better plan and rang his daughter. She arrived dressed in her PJ's having been summoned from her bed, her embarrassment was complete when we all started singing rugby songs. When we arrived at Jeff's house it was no surprise that she made a quick exit. Now if you were paying attention earlier you will remember that we dropped Georgia off at Marilyn's house, so it was a bit of a surprise to find her and Luke busy killing aliens at Jeff's house, there was an explanation but it seemed a little complicated (In fact talking was becoming a little complicated by now). Anyway a quick night cap and a bowl of chips later (2 hours later) and it was time to go home.

Now being a responsible father I tried to engage Georgia with sensible and thoughtful conversation to demonstrate that her Dad had not really had one beer too many. Little questions like "how long has no.42 had a giant pineapple in their garden?" were met with the answer "Dad you're a drunken idiot". She reminded me of that fact every 2 or 3 minutes. To avoid too much embarrassment she positioned herself about 20ft behind me and 20ft in front of her mother, who was in the middle of her famous cat impersonations: A cat stuck up a tree, meow, meow, meow. A cat asking for food, MEEEOW! A cat crossing the road, SCREEEECH.........THUMP. When Georgia found me laying on my back on the pavement, I pointed out that it was to get a better view of the beautiful clear night sky and "my goodness Venus is really bright and close at this time of year". "Dad it's a streetlight" and she kindly reminded me of the type of idiot I was. Straight to bed when we got in. I woke up a little later wondering how the owl got into my mouth and whether it was possible to actually die of thirst in your sleep. I took the risk and closed my eyes.

Now to be honest none of us felt that motivated to go to work, but to work we must go. Joyce managed to work a smile on her face with some judiciously applied lipstick, although the customers may have wondered why they were being served by Coco The Clown. (Joyce can juggle though). I was out back juggling ideas, to throw up now or to throw up later. We spent the day like the cast of Night of The Living Dead (whoops there goes my arm). I am definitely too old for this. Got to go now I have just seen my arm crawl under the fridge.