Step away from the buffet

I hate buffet meals. No I don't mean I dislike them a bit I really really hate them. The children and DOD (Dear Old Dad) however love a buffet so in a moment of good hearted weakness I joined the ultimate buffet club - our local football club, the Broncos Leagues club. I also joined up DOD - $7.50 For pensioners. Don't judge me. In order to escape from my neighbour's 80th birthday hell - I mean party, and I use that term loosely - I invented a family occasion today and suggested to DOD that we go to lunch at the Broncos. He was thrilled. I made the booking at midday in order to still get that afternoon rest in. For DOD of course. *coughs. It was packed. Full of people lining up to eat very average overpriced and reheated meals. DOD packed it in - soup, roast main and two desserts. I managed two glasses of wine ( so much for dry July), a plate of hideous Chinese like food, and a chocolate ice cream cone. Plus a few chocolate freckles. And chocolate bullets loathing myslf the whoie time The only good thing about this sort of lunch for DOD is that he can make himself a boiled egg for dinner and I can relax in the late afternoons But the place was packed. Not a table to be had. And as i lined up to get my overpriced overheated and average food there were many times I wanted to shout 'step away from the buffet' to those who clearly should not eat at this sort of 'all the crap you can eat' establishments. I could understand it if the food was priced for what it was but it wasn't. I watched one woman hold a large dinner plate with a selection of each of 10 different desserts. The confusion on her face when she came to the custard and ice cream was classic. Where would they both go? On the side, all over the top, or was a separate plate required? She finally settled on the separate plate. Delicious! As we were leaving we passed a table with an elderly lady in a wheel chair sporting a helium balloon with 90 in large numerals on it just to make sure everyone there knew she was 90. 'happy birthday' I said as I walked past. She gave me a look which said to me she would rather be dead than celebrating where she was Ugh AMFYOYO

Men and their hobbies

So far this weekend The Lawyer has spent a total of four hours attending to his little racing car which included washing it BEFORE he takes it o the track for a race day on Thursday. Only my spouse would wash a car before taking it to Lakeside raceway? Then today he spent another three hours collecting the boat from the dry dock it has been sitting in since September last year, in the vain hope that having it at a boat marina at some large rental fee might make him use it more. He's used it twice since Christmas. Now the large white elephant, I mean boat, is back on its trailer at the end of our driveway. I'm grateful there is no room for the racing car here - we could officially call ourselves trailer park trash. All I want him to do this weekend is change one bleeding light bulb but I'm guessing that will be forgotten. The thing is, I don't mind him having a hobby. Or even two. Actually he is one of those Lycra wearing Sunday morning bike riders as well, so that makes three. He works very hard. And his mother keeps reminding me that it's good for a man to have a hobby. Or in my case, three hobbies. I should have known of course given that when we were manacled together 26 years ago, he raced off shore power boats. My question is why do men's hobbies have to involve so much coin? I mean we have the boat, the car and an expensive road bike. Add to that the three cars the family has, three trailers that's an awful lot of registration fees. Then there's the fuel, the warehousing fees, tyres, servicing. It's a huge sum of money leaving aside the time involved in taking part in these hobbies. My needs are simple, mainly because I don't have time to have a hobby. I go to the gym a few times a week and have been known to collect a vast shoe collection. That's about it. The thing about cars and boats though is that once acquired (sweeping generalisation alert) men are on the lookout for the NEXT bigger or better car and or boat. I regularly catch The Lawyer on the Internet looking at what I call 'boat porn'. Meanwhile, I'm off to change a lightbulb. One day it will be my turn AMFYOYO

Saturday mornings and the selfish mother

I vaguely remember the days before children when one could lie in bed til whenever. Vaguely. I can't remember the last time I had a sleep in. Given that my eldest is now 19 it is probably 19 years... Anyhow in Brisbane it has been raining for a couple of days. I am a bad mother. This always gives me hope that Saturday morning sport will be cancelled. The forecast for today was patchy rain. NOT GOOD ENOUGH. My under 12 soccer playing son had to be at upper woop woop at 9.15 for a 10am kick off. Seriously, at 12 they need 45 minutes of warm up? At 7.30 this morning it was raining, just a little. I waited in vain for the text from the team manager to tell me that soccer was cancelled. My phone text alert went off at 8am telling me that while some fields were closed, there had not been much rain overnight at upper woop woop so the game was still on. Bugger Does that make me a bad and selfish mother? On another note my son is goalkeeper. I don't know about him but being the goalie's mother is VERY stressful. The team the played against today ( please note they were not 'versing' that team) was actually a team of one with a few other boys whose main task seemed to be to make sure No 10 had possession of the ball at all times. No 10 was taller than me, very thin and agile, could sprint the length of the field like nothing I've ever seen, and scored 2 goals. The final score was 2-nil. Sucks to be goalie and the goalie's mother.