I emerged from my comatose slumber late Saturday morning. I was not in good shape.
A couple of people had recommenced drinking, sipping on beers as their legs dangled in the pool. While joining them would usually appeal to me – this thought was not an option for Post-Party Cossie!
We ate some leftover roast rolls from the party – prepared delightfully by Miss Rachael.
There was a bit of a stock-take and general clean-up, with plenty of beer and wine being left over – though a powerful load had been ploughed through the night before!
James had received quite a distinguished collection of bottles for his birthday – many hand delivered in those special little bottle-bags, that make perfect gift wrapping for the lazy, such as myself.
Most were dutifully thrown out – into the rubbish-trailer, ready for a tip run later that day.
Being an environmentally conscious kind of a bloke, Jimmy decided to do some recycling – and so went out front and retrieved a few of these bags.
This community-mindedness sure paid off on this occasion because one of the thrown-out bottle-bags contained some four-hundred and sixty bucks worth of gift vouchers – mainly RM Williams I believe!
Nobody is quite sure who tossed the bag – obviously with honourable intent in their heart, but I can divulge that Catie Brooks is on a rather short list of suspects….
We forgot to return the chairs and such to the Turf Club – until Old-Mate who organised it, turned up in his ute to collect them. That was a bit embarrassing as he shouted out from behind the locked gate.
It was an uneventful day for me that day – and finally one where I got to have a dry day!
No alcohol was consumed by me – but plenty of fluids went down my throat as I tried in vain to restore my hydration levels.
I believe I crashed at around nine pm that night – once again glad to hit the horizontal.
Sunday was State of Origin day – the decider, with the Mighty Blues already one-up in the series. We had an appointment at the Pickers for dinner, drinks and some rowdy cheering of the footy!
(It also happened to be Side-Boob-Sunday again – so Monsoons was also on the list of must-visits!).
Catie Brooks had slept over at Rachael’s place after the party – and helped with the clean-up next day. When her husband Cory, came around to fetch her, he naturally brought the young fella Quinny with him. Quinny is a pretty cool, respectful little kid – but was unfortunately feeling a bit crook on this occasion and not really interested in getting into any mischief. They were scheduled to fly back to Brisbane the next day and said their good byes to us at Rachael’s front gate.
Anyway, back to Sunday – I suspect we indulged in further left-over roast meat rolls for breaky, they were still a pretty popular number, and we were sitting around doing nothing of consequence when Jimbo’s phone rang.
It was Cory – they were at the airport.
Apparently, they had called Qantas before leaving the motel and advised they had a sick child and asked for advice regarding the flight – Qantas suggested it wouldn’t be a significant issue and to proceed to the airport.
Turns out it was indeed a significant issue after all – and they were banned from their flight home!
Hence Cory’s current call ‘James – any chance we can crash at Rachael’s place for a few days, Qantas won’t let us fly home?’
The Pickers being the Pickers said that would be fine – come on over.
Not being one to dwell on misfortune, Brooksy joined the boys as we headed for a few quiet beers at Monsoons, while Catie stayed home and watched over Quinn.
Cory is a fairly big bastard, softly spoken, friendly and willing to do anything to help a bloke out. (I am also assured by his wife, that he is a multi-dan blackbelt kick-arse champion in some kind of Asian martial arts discipline – and so can quite easily tear you a new one if the fancy should strike him!).
While all this makes Cory sound like an all-round great bloke – unfortunately Mr Brooks is also a Queensland supporter.
He was the only Queenslander at the Senior Picker State of Origin gathering – which was great, it added some colour and gave the rest of us a legitimate target!
The Blues won convincingly – to the great delight of the masses, and we all celebrated with love and laughs and friendly banter, a good feed and all washed down with plenty of nice cold drinks.
As the night got late, we once again retired to Rachael’s place. Jimbo dragged out his laptop and we showed a few interesting you-tube clips and various funny song videos.
It’s safe to say we were all pretty high on the turps and lack of sleep – and ‘The Sillie’s’ kicked in.
You know that state where you find every little silly thing hilariously funny and giggle over stupid things, like a little school-girl? I find tiredness is usually a major contributor to that state of elation – and its great fun while it lasts.
We were all telling stupid Dad-jokes and laughing way too much at the punchlines, with every person then trying to top the last.
I can’t remember the circumstance, but someone mentioned polar bears and Catie threw in a piece of trivia she’d picked up at who knows where ‘You know – though Polar Bears are white, they actually have black skin’.
Next thing – someone called her a Racist Bear Bitch! And we all burst out laughing again! It made no sense any way you look at it – but was so funny at the time, it was worthy of many repeats that never diminished in hilarity in the wee hours of that post Origin Monday morning!
By two-thirty I’d drunk myself to a standstill, bid adieu to Jimmy and Brooks couple and headed for the sack.
I’m told the others stayed up past five am.
I don’t know – nothing disturbed me till the sun was well and truly high in the sky.
Monday – this was my last full day in Darwin. I was scheduled to fly home to Brisbane on Tuesday night (well one thirty am Wednesday morning to be precise).
I actually have no idea what happened that day – I just recall chancing a beer at around four or five in the arvo. I thought I would raise myself up for one last stand – have a few beers in the afternoon, eat the tucker Jimmy had prepared for the barbecue, and then crash for an early night.
James offered me the first beer but didn’t have one himself and Brooksy was looking after a still-sick Quinn. Catie wandered out and felt obliged to join me with a beverage – she simply hates to see someone drinking on their lonesome.
We had quite a few beers and a great feed and by now we were looking for a change of drink – a bottle of red would be nice!
‘Hey Catie – are you up for a glass of red?’
Yes, she was.
The problem was that neither of us had any red.
We discussed the issue and decided to borrow a bottle from among Jimbo’s birthday haul.
‘I’ll buy him another bottle tomorrow to replace it – that’ll be fine. No worries.’
I fetched the bottle and returned to the backyard, a couple of wine glasses in hand.
Before I cracked the lid, I said ‘I think I might Google this shit first, to see if I can afford to replace it!’
So I Googled it and it turned out you could buy it a Dan Murphy’s – six-ninety-nine for a litre!
We both burst out laughing – I was pretty safe to cover that one (and also that some cheap bastard had given him a seven-buck bottle of plonk for a fortieth birthday pressy!).
[I was to find out later that it wasn’t a pressy after all – but a left over ‘table-red’ from the party catering].
Catie is a psychologist and holder of several degrees, I was reliably informed – and we spent some fascinating time discussing the psychology of serial killers and mass murderers (a subject that has long held my macabre interest). We also discussed dreams, odd people we knew, and old nicknames.
By this time, the litre of red was empty, and we switched back to beers – unfortunately we had the drunken whisper thing going, where you think you’re being secretive and speaking in hushed and inaudible tones, yet you can actually be heard by all and sundry three blocks away!
We got the ‘keep it down’ message from upstairs – so made a strategic shift of position, around the corner, away from windows and under the carport.
It was nice to have a captive audience who hadn’t yet heard all my stories.
I found it a rare privilege to be able to select the funniest and most bizarre tales and deliver them in their most humorous form as proven over many years of performing this material. The pause-for-applause, the dramatic build-up to a shocking punchline – all great fun!
Catie too had plenty of amusing and occasionally shocking stories of her own to tell – it was non-stop yakkety, yakkety, yak between the pair of us. No doubt things made more interesting and funny due to the continued exhaustion and subsequent silliness brought on by the extended stretch of hardcore partying over the previous days and nights.
It was after five am when we decided to call it a night and just as we had everything tidied up – Catie knocked over an empty Corona bottle.
The empty DING! DING! DING! echoed around the neighbourhood – as we both froze and looked at each other like two possums caught raiding a kitchen!
We cautiously tip toed off – like a pair of cartoon burglars leaving a crime scene.
By the time I made it inside to Jimmy’s pad – Rachael had descended the stairs fearing someone was breaking in! I lifted my hands and surrendered myself to the mercy of the court as Rachael inquired as to what the hell was going on?!
Sorry Rach.
That was to be my last drink for some ten or so days – and while I really enjoyed each one of them, I sure was looking forward to the break!
It was Tuesday – I was leaving Darwin that night.
Cory, Catie and Quinny finally got the all-clear to fly home and headed that way.
It was really nice to get to know these genuine good guys over the last few days – and we have some local fishing trips planned together in the near future.
(Sadly though, I haven’t taken my boat out since before my Darwin trip – I’ve been installing a new bow-mounted Minn Kota electric motor in her, and she’s all ready to go now. But that’s a different story).
We visited the Senior Pickers and Sumo one last time in the arvo – also said goodbye to Greg and Carol.
Jimbo tried out the new laser-wash car was on the way over – it scared the bejesus outta me on several occasions, much to his delight!
We had a beautiful meal of spaghetti Bolognese and garlic bread with the Pickers, before heading home to wait for the dreaded Airport time.
Lounging around Rachael’s, half asleep, with a four-hour jet trip ahead of me – I just wanted to be home. It was sad and depressing – my brilliant holiday had come to an end, and the nasty flight home was all that beckoned me.
‘Fuck it Jimbo – let’s go mate!’
It was around ten-ish and hours before my flight – but holding out was tortuous and James was clearly tired. So we jumped into the car one last time and he dumped me at Darwin airport.
I read a bit, checked in, stewed in my own depression and exhaustion a bit and then boarded the big bird.
I was blessed to have a row of seats to myself, so I sat in the middle chair.
The rooster in front of me immediately reclined his seat – so I simply spread my out-stretched legs a bit, made sure nothing was protruding into the aisle, put my head back and closed my eyes.
I woke up about twenty minutes out of Brisbane, with the sun rising.
It was freezing when I got out in my shorts and t-shirt, but soon enough the Oldies appeared, and I hopped into the car and we headed for my house.
I was spent.
It was a brilliant holiday, though I ran myself ragged with late nights and alcohol abuse.
I’ll be back in Darwin within twelve months for sure – after all, I’ve still got a lot of people to catch up with and places to revisit – besides, I can hear those distant Side-Titty-Temptresses whispering my name from Monsoons each Sunday afternoon as the sun sets….
It took about ten days of sobriety before I could once again face a beer, and my Facebook post from the time sums it up pretty accurately:
Well – we’re having a celebratory drink tonight.
The first since a major falling out over physical abuse at Darwin last week.
My internal organs and I have decided to work as a team once again.
I had my brain complaining of not enough rest – when it was clearly his idea to stay up till 5am shootin’ the shit with fine company, and drinking anything within reach! Yes, it was the best of times – but he needs to consider his work mates!
The liver was on overtime from the minute I hit Brisbane airport and started drinking $11.50 Crownies – and the poor bastard didn’t stop for ten days straight.
My stomach was in all sorts of confusion. Constantly full of grog and randomly joined by – a slap-up, steaming bacon and egg breakfast at 1pm, skip lunch then tuck into chili-meatballs at around midnight. Gourmet lamb cutlets and vegetables, spicy chicken breasts, world class omelettes, Spaghetti Bolognese, all intermittently spaced by left-over-party roast meat dinner rolls. So many roast meat dinner rolls. At any time of the day or night. Washed down with beer, bourbon, rum, red, assorted jelly-shots, Jagermeister , butterscotch Schnapps, Snickers shots and some potent Fairchild concoction involving vodka, Redbull and Jager!
My eyes felt like someone had thrown a fist-full of chicken salt at them.
My bowel was about to throw in the towel and refused to process anything solid for the final two days – and this gave me quite a scare while descending the airline steps to the tarmac back in Brisbane!
But I finally made it home in one piece and we’ve been in negotiations ever since.
I think my conceding a full week off duty, with the occasional fruity treat thrown in has gone a long way to pacifying the various factions.
So, on behalf of the Organ-team and myself, I am now proud to say – ‘Cheers Ladies and Gentlemen – drink up!’
