No guest of honour

I ducked up to Newcastle yesterday to celebrate my dad’s birthday. We took him a goodie box with a crossword scratchie, a bottle of wine with a dog on it, some rocky road and a copy of my cocktail book.

Men in their 80s aren’t the easiest people to buy for, but he seemed pleased.

Mum booked a table for four at a local Italian place called Emilio’s, but Dad started feeling unwell a few minutes after we arrived, so it ended up just being the girls raising a glass in his honour.

The wine list looked pretty delicious so we celebrated with a Montepulciano red. I have such lovely memories of having dinner with DD in Montepulciano many years ago. Fingers crossed we get back to Italy again one day.

But I find myself oddly daunted by the thought of spending 24 hours on a plane to Europe. So long and claustrophobic.

Back in Newcastle, Dad missed out on having his favourite cannelloni at Emilio’s, he even refused our offer to bring him back a serve. We tucked into hearty bowls of spaghetti marinara and fettucine gamberi.

The restaurant was across the road from ALDI so we went ducked over there afterwards to explore the specials aisle. It was pet week and I went NUTS. Charlie got a new medium snuggle bed because his last ALDI snuggle bed was a large and causes an error message in the washing machine when I try to clean it.

Bilbo takes any opportunity to sneak into the eldest’s bedroom to curl on his sheepskin, so I bought him one for his 11-year-old bones to rest on when he’s sleeping in the laundry at night, plus some teeny weeny tennis balls for Charlie to chase.

Score!

Speaking of scoring, I left mum and dad’s place laden with loot, including one of her Mimco handbags, a Dinosaur Designs bangle and a sloppy joe with a big gold X on it that someone had given her when their shop was closing down. Happy days. We gave dad a hug and said we hoped he felt heaps better soon.

When I got back to Sydney, the garlic fumes my body was exuding literally made DD’s eyes sting before he even smelled my actual garlic breath. Ooops.

And now it’s Monday. Again. With a rainy week forecast. AGAIN.

Working for the weekend … How about you?

Song of the day: Diana Ross “I’m coming out”