TAPENADE FOR TWO PLEASE

"Beer, I need a Beer"

"Righto, usual spot?"

"Yep"

So with that Macca and I set off for a few quiet and refreshing ales at our usual haunt, the Queens Hotel. Saturday afternoons in the street front beer garden is always a great spot to people watch, a perfect spot actually.

As we turned the corner from my street we saw the first of what would be about 50 of these...

... every one of them pulling up in front of the hotel and spewing out on average two dozen drunken and loudly dressed people, there were nurses, geishas, mexicans, it was like the biggest fancy dress party ever. As the bus pulled away we saw the line to get in...

... It really didn't look like we were gonna get a quiet beer there today. So we kicked on up the street to the Flying Scotsman only to realise that today was the first day of the Spring In The Valley festival, that's where all of these hoards were coming from. So we were pretty sure every hotel along Beaufort street would be in the same way.

"To Must?"

"Looks like it, at least until the crowds die down and we can get in"

So the Must wine bar it was, we grabbed a table out on the footpath in a desperate attempt to recreate in some way the afternoon we had planned. $10 for a bottle of beer put paid to any real recreation though. But hey the economy is in free fall, we'll all be in a depression soon enough and we'll probably be paying $1500 for a loaf of bread just like they are in Zimbabwe, so what the hey, lets drink over priced beers and eat some tapenade on baguettes and watch all of the inevitable fights break out across the street.

I think it took about 30 minutes or so before the first guy charged at one of the bouncers, he came flying out the front door with his shirt torn, girl friend desperately trying to control him, other bouncers screaming in from every direction.

"Some more baguette Macca"

"Don't mind if I do"

"It goes well with Asahi beer don't you think"

"Indeed it does"

Amongst the carnage we noticed four very neatly dressed people standing at the front of the Queens, they all had that startled "deer in the headlights" look about them...

...I can well imagine the conversation that had preceded them arriving at the pub.

"Well that's the wedding done, what shall we do till the reception?"

"The Queens is always nice on a Saturday afternoon, what say we pop down there for a few drinks to kill some time"

"Great idea let's go"

Not today my friends, not today........look out FRISBEE!!!!!!!