The bruise on my shoulder is starting to show. Right now it looks like a Starfleet emblem - and tomorrow it will look different again.
I'm a trippy person. There is hardly an outing goes by without at least one "Pick your feet up, Michelle." This time, due to many beers and dicky ankles, there were no comments - only laughter. Because that's what family is about, right? Friends'll wonder how you are, lend you there Berkenstocks and drive you to the hospital. But not family. No, they just laugh. That's what family do.
Not that I'm complaining about my family - they know a good laugh when they see one. And when their cousin loses it on a 2.5 inch step into gravel and a bar-b-que table - that's pretty funny.
I'm not taking full responsibility though. Sure, I'd had a number of beers: albeit low-alcohol beers. But don't underestimate the role my dicky ankles played in this particular spill. One of them is still aching for the contortion it managed as it threw me to the merciless nature of gravity.
I fell. That was fine - it was realising that I was still falling after an unseemly amount of time, long after I should have stopped falling, that bothered me. So it wasn't just a fall: twist ankle, knee, thigh, hip. No, it was a twisted ankle, knee, thigh, hip, rib cage (yes, I do have one) shoulder (bruise), elbow, hand (skinned), neck (jaw clicked, teeth hurt), chin, oh fuck, head plant (bbq table) face (please God don't let my glasses break) and.. scene.
Now THAT'S a Taste of Rutherglen - gravel in my mouth n' all.
Family - can't see enough of them
I had such a lovely time up in Rutherglen this weekend.
Megan emailed me on Thursday proposing the trip and I jumped on a train to be there. Well: a tram, a train, then a bus. No hardship these days.
The clicky clack of the train had me wondering how long and arduous the journey might have been a hundred years earlier. Not something I'dve decided to do on the whim of an invitation and certainly not a trip to be made for 2.5 days stopover.
Ah Today - you are awesome.
Megan is my cousin. Despite appearances that I've never seen but offered by people along the way, I am not her mother. She, in fact, was my bridesmaid at my (first) wedding. I married on her birthday thereby ruining it. She's always been a kind, old soul though and I think she might forgive me though I dare not ask.
Another of my cousins who is working in Victoria also came to Megan's for the weekend. My youngest uncle, Brian's son, Ryan. He's a good egg too - full of stories and not too short of ears - which is handy AND he pays attention.
Isn't Rutherglen known for it's vineyards rather than it's tripping hazards?
Tastes of Rutherglen is a two weekend fiesta of food and vino. Vineyards around the fertile region put on delicious food, and offer glasses of their finest. It sure isn't the worst way to spend a beautiful weekend in Victoria, Austraila. Last weekend was the first, and next weekend is the second and final weekend - so there is still time for you to get to it!
Luckily for Ryan and myself, Megan is a driver who doesn't drink very much (if anything). We stayed a notch or two ahead of the buses that take those not as chauffeurially blessed as we were - so got stuck into the beef medallions, bbq lamb and tiger prawns well before the publicly transported crowds.
The wines were really lovely - my highlight being Scion vineyard. It was our last stop and showcased the grape that the region is known for. Durif.
I don't know a lot about wines, or grapes, and sure hadn't heard of the durif variety before. The wine was beautiful though - filled my mouth with berry flavoured sweetness. I like my red wine with very rounded corners and this ball of flavour suited me very much.
Rutherglen is also known for it's fortified wines, and late harvest dessert wine is so delicious - not just with desserts - but with the cheeses we accumulated and took as our supper after a long, heated day of wine and Neil Diamond tributes.
To be fair, only one vineyard offered the Neil Diamond experience. In fact, each of the vineyards was very different. Some catering to families with smaller children by furnishing bouncy castles, while others distracted guests with a $1,000 prize for hitting a hole in one - the hole being on a floating pontoon in Lake Moodemere.
Are you a town mouse or a country mouse, Mouse?
And today I missed my weekend. I missed the blue sky, the real people, and most of all - my family.
I was blue all day about how simple a life outside the city might be. My cousin Megan is very creative. She accuses me of such things too - and when she says I ought to be doing something that is more fun; more adventurous; more in line with the things I'm good at - I have no argument. She's figured out what I ought to be doing with my life - or at least in the short-term future and it has nothing to do with what I'm doing now. She's right on the money too - it's stuff I'd love to do, and there's a market for it.
Today I was blue all day wondering why the jolly heck I'm not just doing it.
Webstock was all about "doing it" - getting on with what you're really keen on - getting on with what you're really good at. Getting on.
I was blue all day today about the weave and the weft of what the heck I am doing. Not that it's not a good job, or a good life - but really, it could be so. much. better.