Rocky Mountain High

The heat combined with gardening ( plus a few after-work bevvies ) have been making me pass out well before my regular bedtime. I've always been a night-owl, and especially before any big 'do', it allows me to do any quiet preparations ( like boiling potatoes for salad ), and cleaning windows ( I think they're dirty again ;) in peace.

So we had a few of my old workmates over yesterday.
In 42degree heat.
The deck was scorching, and I had to lay down beach towels so the virginal skin of the babes did not sear and stick to it. It was hot.
The wading pool was the place to be seen, in the only shade in my bare, open, dry and barren backyard. Hot.

So anyway, it wasn't like I had to put in a big effort .. prepare burgers ( check ! ), boil taties, eggs, and fry some bacon for potato salad ( check ! ), wrap corn parcels for the BBQ ( check ! ) and prepare a mixed garden salad, put out starters like hommus and turkish bread .. and finally, assemble a Pav ( ie: throw cream and fruit on top of a bakery-bought shell .. )

I was supposed to do the burgers and potato salad the night before, but I just *had* to watch "The John Denver Story", which was REALLY badly acted by Chad Lowe ( the not-so-good-looking brother of bad boy Rob ). Some Canadian model played his Australian ex-wife, and they portrayed them meeting in a typical ( ha! ) outback pub. I think she introduced herself by saying something like "G'day Cobber, howzabout a wazza-wazza, shing-ding, ding-dong ?!" .. or something equally as laughable. It was highly addictive, in a car-wreck kind of way. The songs were good though, despite Chad's miming. Anyway ... I passed out blissfully on the couch, somewhere in West Virginia ....

So cut to Sunday, and basically, I think I needed a P.A. to tell me things like "people need cutlery", and "why is there no green salad?", and finally "what, no Pav?" Sigh.

I said to AB afterwards that I think my hostessing skills get worse and worse with every wazza-wazza shing-ding. We never did serve the Pav, and he forgot to cook the corn parcels.
People seemed to survive on the sausages though, and we were saved by the thoughtful offerings OTHER people brought along. Ahhh ...

Today the cool change came through, and it was bizarre that yesterday the kids were all basically nude, and today we're in long-sleeved shirts...

So Daddy was home today - a surprise and welcome day off, and the first time we've seen him on consecutive days for a long time! We'd promised the Master a train ride to his Grandparent's house ( who happen to be only a few stops on the same line as us - although i'm sure the boy would have preferred they lived further away - a longer train ride would have been the big bonus ! :)

So that's what we did, and it was his first ride on a regular, commuter train.
He loved it.
We're going to take more train trips in future .. to any destination/thing to do that happens to be walking distance from a station.

Good cheap fun if you're not a regular commuter.