The weekend got off to a fine start – NOT. It’s been as dry as a bone here in South Australia and much of Australia until last Friday. I’d heard somewhere there was going to be a storm but I don’t usually take that much notice of the weather forecast as it is quite often untrue.
My friends and I had organised a singing practise down south near Sellicks Beach so I made my way down there to a friends house about 4.30pm so I wouldn’t have to contend with even more dickhead drivers on the Southern Expressway. This stupid excuse for a road is one way at any given time and it caters for traffic going to and from the city, eg commuters during the week and holidayers on the weekend. Because it is one way, the entrances and exits can either be on the right or the left. This means that drivers that might have to exit on the right 20 kilometres down the road stay in the right hand lane doing about 90kmh and our road rule here is keep left unless overtaking. Consequently I hate driving on this road.
I made it safely to my first stop before the final singing stop to hang out with a friend before we both made our way to our other friend’s place for singing. (It would be so much easier if I were using names in this blog.) About an hour after my arrival the storm arrived with rain, lightning and thunder. It was huge, the sound, the light, everything. It made me very happy I had made the drive earlier rather than later as it would have been horrendous and I imagine many peak hour commuters and people leaving to go away for the long weekend were caught in this weather. We turned off all the lights and opened the curtains to look out at the lightning.
Neither of us fancied driving in this weather so we sat to wait it out and the storm abated about half an hour later. I packed JJ into the car and said see you soon to my friend. One minute into the journey it started pouring with rain again and I could hardly see anything because of the rain and because it being the country there were no street lights. There also wasn’t really anywhere to pull over so I slowed right down, clenched my hands tighter on the wheel and thought, ‘I think I can, I think I can’. JJ said, ‘The rain’s really loud, I’m a bit scared, are you scared mummy?’ ‘No’, I squeaked back, lying through my scared teeth. It didn’t help that I saw a black object flying to the left of the car in front of me and my first thought was that they’d hit someone and flung them off into the side of the road. My common sense kicked in very quickly and I realised they just went through a puddle of water, so I slowed down even more and moved to the middle of the road so no huge puddles of water crept up on me to make me slide around the road.
We made it to our destination with the worst thing happening was getting wet while running from the car to inside the house.
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Last weekend was also the Sea and Vines wine and food festival at McLaren Vale. We’d arranged to go on the Monday after yet another singing practise. Monday is a quieter day at these types of festivals as all the people that want to get really pissed go on the Sunday so they have Monday to recover.
We started off at Woodstock winery and who should we see just after rocked up but cute boy and another friend (female). They have hooked up casually apparently. After we ate lunch we went inside the winery to watch the band – Lucifer’s Lounge – and cute boy and casual female friend came in a little later. Cute boy came over to talk to me. After all we did meet each other nearly 20 years ago. We tried to chat but casual female friend kept butting in the conversation with little asides to him. I felt like saying to her, ‘Butt out will you. I’m just trying to have a chat, not steal him.’ Although if I could steal him I probably would. But then he’s come out of a long-term relationship, hence the casualness with female friend.
We hung around there for a little while then went to Coriole winery where Calliente were playing. They’re a jazz outfit and were ok. Apparently Paul Kelly was there. I didn’t see him, but one of my friends did. I didn’t stay for that long as JJ was starting to get restless and it was starting to get a bit late in the afternoon and I wanted to head home before the multitudes did.
I’ve decided next year to get childcare and a driver so I can go and enjoy myself a bit better.
