The fourth Monday in October is traditionally Labour Day, to celebrate the introduction of the 40 hour working week. It was first celebrated in 1900 after an Act of Parliament in 1899. At first it was on the second Wednesday of October and Monday-ised (how sensible!) in 1910 - isn't the internet wonderful for finding out this sort of trivial pursuits type stuff?
So anyway, Monday 26th was Labour Day, a public holiday, so an extra day to spend with friends who are usually working. So it was off down to Raumati to see Luke and Diane at their new/older house. It's a doer-upper and who better? Luke is a carpenter by trade and our DIY man of choice. He has featured in this blog several times with the arborist work he has done for us as well as carpentry things - getting the outside shed level, building the front fence and the trellis by the dining room, for instance. Diane is a supreme project manager of doer-upper initiatives, and a champion painter. So it will all end up looking fabulous. The garden is the biggest they have had and just wonderful for their son to be able to play outside.
But once again, I get ahead of myself!
On the Saturday, after coming back from the fruit and veg market where I bought 4 kilos of tamarillos, one of my two favourite fruits (the other is feijoas), we got the outside table and chairs, and our fabulous cantilevered umbrella out from the garage where they had been stored over the winter. The umbrella was positioned, a small twiglet trimmed off from Joy and Grahame's magnolia overhanging our place (beautiful tree and we love it), paving stone weights restored, and then the table was set up again and was carried around from the garage and positioned on top. It is scary how glass bends ... Carrying it vertically was fine, but having to hold it at each end while it was horizontal was freaky!
The return of the summer social centre was complete, the weather was great and all we needed was some visitors to complete the picture. That was easily achieved - on Sunday we had John and Jenny over from next door, and Michelle and Taffy came up from Churton Park. Michelle has been my friend and my hairdresser for years - wherever she has worked I have followed. She even came and cut my hair while we were on the boat last year. Such dedication. Taffy and John and Jenny have known each other for a long time from when Taffy lived in Waikanae. So it was a reunion for the three of them, and a reunion for Michelle, David and me.
I know I drank far too much wine, but I blame the sunshine, your honour. Before I drank too much, we did have a nice lunch: Thai Chicken Noodle Salad, followed by Orange Syrup Cake and cream - both recipes are from Alison and Simon Holst, although the chicken one was originally a salmon recipe.
I think I redeemed myself by making Ministry of Food cheese scones for Monday's lunch at Luke and Di's - I had intended to make cheese tart, but my pastry cutter here had gone missing - I may have taken it to the boat, but can't remember. So the two cups of flour in the bowl became three with a seamless (almost) transition to becoming cheese scones. I don't think Di and Luke minded ...
For two nights in a row I didn't needed any dinner after substantial lunches and made sure that the Tuesday and the following Thursday were fasting days. They were a relief frankly, after all that food ...
And we had to be prepared for another social weekend coming hard on the heels of Labour Weekend, dinner at Bruce and Gary's on Friday, a party at Rachel's on Saturday, breakfast at Bruce and Gary's on Sunday - we accepted the invitation when we knew it was scheduled to start after the rugby would be finished ...
David had watched, Rachel had watched, Gary had seen the last 10
minutes, and wuss that I am, I had stayed in bed and slept through it.
But I had got up to make a cup of tea after full-time and went into the
office where David was watching the ITV3 after-match coverage
(apparently their analysis is very good) and saw the Australians getting
their medals. Shock Horror !! 'Did we *^#@#* lose?' I shrieked. 'No'
replied David calmly, 'those are the losers' medals.'
So
I found my black jersey and wore it with bright pink trousers and off
we went to invade a non-rugby sanctuary with our euphoria - I would have
to say the guys coped very well ...
The breakfast was lovely and strangely, given that most of the men around the table are supremely uninterested in rugby, the conversation was mostly about the All Blacks' win in the Rugby World Cup. However David, Rachel and I were so excited about it, that the guys dredged up their recessive rugby/kiwi bloke genes and participated. As the RWC has been the lead on the news now for weeks, well ever since the quarter finals, I guess, it has been hard to avoid gaining some knowledge about the goings on, even if by osmosis.
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