It’s January and I’m a sucker for Max's summer slamming marguerita’s … they are so sly and deceptively refreshing, because refreshed you’re not, the morning after those south-of-the-border wonders.
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Another January it was Cointreau on ice…
When I broke my ankle, eight or nine summers ago, it was widely assumed no idiot could have possibly snapped an ankle so cleanly without being drunk.
I was merry all right; happily picking roses during a storm, after a cut and colour, without a drink and two weeks before Christmas.
“That's one of the best realignments I've ever seen”, Prof. Einoder said of the plates and pins his orthopaedic registrar had used to engineer my ankle back together.
Back to booze. On my birthday, last year, my friend Kim invited me to help her test a new family enterprise.
It wasn't one of those good birthdays, it was a shocker.
I spent half the day feeling sorry for myself and wishing for the days when my daughters would secretly bake a giant pink cake and we would have a cup of tea in the sunshine, on our front verandah. Thankyou.
It wasn't a bad birthday either.
All right, frankly it was shit, so, when Kim suggested we test her gin enterprise, I was up the road in five minutes.
Some people are clever and Kim, her husband Rod and winemaker Natalie Fryar are such people.
Their gin worked its magic.
I stopped crying and two hours later walked back down the hill with a lunch box of pasta bake and into bed before you could say “hangover”.
There was none.
I don't drink a lot, most weeks nothing, usually occasions or happen chance with Max or Kim or suchlike.
Be patient.
I'm setting the scene for a complete reversal of opinion.
Yes folks, I'm admitting I was wrong.
How? I initially didn't want to hold a 21st for our son because I presumed it would be piss-up and.
I felt like the only wowser in the village.
How wrong I was.
One afternoon this week I went back to the venue, to thank the team for their flexibility and just the easy way they made the evening ‘happen’.
“They were a nice group. They stayed till closing and left quietly (to go skinny dipping in the Gorge),” the bearded barman said.
Like the beautiful pink cake of my birthdays past, our son's 21st will occupy a sweet spot.
They were all there, mates from primary and high schools, new mates from uni and sisters, aunties, uncles, nieces, God mothers and the friends who've filled our lives for most of these past 21 years.
Us, his parents intact. Husband: "the proudest day of my life" and me, foot in mouth, our best ever “mistake”.
Stephen spoke of festivals, parties, work experience, secrets and not-so secrets.
Kim of underpants wars with the Gunn girls at Bell Buoy, blueberry summers and her pride in watching our sons grow to men.
Maree of dinosaurs and yoda, his two gorgeous sisters and the making of the legend of Harry Vegas.
It wasn't a piss-up.
It was a good, old-fashioned love in.
I'm starting a one-woman movement to bring back the 21st, or, #buggerthe18th
Finally, did I tell you about the cake? OMG as they say in the classics... Ruth Reichl Big Chocolate Cake That Saved My Life (google it).
A cake and a birthday to remember.
It wasn't a piss-up. It was a good, old-fashioned love in.