Groundhog Day

Even with summer fast approaching it still felt like groundhog day. Yes the Melburnian's had short memory’s and had forgiven the city for its 3 month winter. All was forgiven the sun had arrived! Even though people still wore their coats, the sunglasses were out! Excluding those people who wore their sunglasses when it was 8 degrees and raining – Kate thought. Then admitted to herself she was one of those people on more than one occasion.

But summer would come in this great city – the Spring racing carnival was just around the corner and ladies were buying their dresses and fascinators. Soon these lovely ladies, who left the house at 8am after a chicken and champagne breakfast, would be walking through the city with their shoes in their hands and swigging from a fleur de lys bottle. Fascinators lost and their dignity just around the corner.

Then would come Christmas and would allow everyone the summer holidays to recuperate from the year. Many Melburnian's who were lucky enough to have holiday houses would probably take January off too. Kate made a mental note of the months to follow – January would be filled with the Australian Open vibe, a day off to enjoy for Australia Day at the end of the month. February would be so hot everyone would be hitting the beaches, March, The Grand Prix, April would be a short month with the Easter holiday. There was no doubt that from November until April, Melbourne was the place to be.

Yes Kate’s life would be full of her wonderful friends, BBQ’s, dinners out, dinners in and no doubt a few Sunday sessions. Then what? She thought guiltily of people in 3rd world Countries who might not be able to feed themselves and she was in Australia for God’s sake – the greatest Country she had ever been too. But, the big BUT – something had to change.

She pottered around her great apartment, not in a designer area or one of those Melrose Place apartment blocks her fiends lived in, with gyms and swimming pools, but great nonetheless, her space. All hers. She lived close to her friends, the beach, more restaurants and bars that she could frequent. She knew Melbourne was a great city for someone in their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s 50’s and beyond, an ever changing, highly cultured city.

She was well aware of her single status – but boys had come and gone, heartbreaks had been fixed and she was confident she would need a strong mind to fix many more. She didn’t want the AFL husband, house in Toorak and oversized 4WD to ferry the kids to little athletics. Was that the definition of a “Soccer Mom”? She didn’t know, she didn’t care. She needed something more.

She approached the subject with 3 of her closest friends at their monthly “Gourmet Sunday” afternoon. Gourmet Sunday had started earlier in the year to celebrate the idea that were all now responsible adults that knew how to enjoy fine cheese and fine wine, and drink responsibly – like all the adverts told them to. Gourmet Sunday was 3pm til 6pm, no potty mouth and no over indulging in the unusual named wines. Of course they usually ended up with someone tripping over and breaking the gourmet cheese platter and invarioably someone had to take Monday off work.

This Gourmet Sunday was no different and as Kate approached her friends, nearly slipping into the paddling pool where the toddlers were squirting water at eachother – whose children to they belong too, Kate thought as she steadied herself.

"I need more!" Kate said
"More wine?" Damo asked
"No!" Kate hicced.
"More cheese?" asked Natalie
"No!"
"More nap time on the couch?" chimed in Marie
"No!" Kate giggled as she remembered she had had to have a nanna nap in between the sweet German wine and the gross fortified wine that Carolyn had bought (even though she knew no one liked it!)
"No" Kate said soberly, "More than this!"

They knew, of course they knew. She had spoken of little else for the last few weeks, but they liked to humour her. They were humorous, that’s why they were her friends…

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