Good Times with Friends

Ian and George in awe of the metre long pizza!

Now that we're back, and George's foot injury is getting better, our weeks tend to be pretty sedate.  Being back home can, sometimes, feel like an anticlimax - more for George than me, I think - but it doesn't mean we're like that all the time.  The past two weekends have been jammed packed fun with 'good friends time' ... the BEST time!

On the 6th of December we went to the yacht club "First Friday" cruisers event.  It was the first time we had  been able to reconnect to many of the friends we met on the rendezvous cruise up to Cairns from Sydney.  We had a terrific night catching up with so many people we met and became friends with along the way North.  Also I had the first opportunity to talk to the RPAYC cruising people who followed this blog and emailed me through our sailing adventure and to thank them for their fantastic support.  It was a big night all round .. our first chance to see everyone since returning to Sydney. 

The club had organised very special speakers for the evening meaning the venue was packed.  The guest speakers were internationally renowned sailors Lin and Larry Pardley who have travelled over 200,000 nautical miles in very small boats.  Lin gave an amazing account of their early time together, the decision to build both of their world cruising boats themselves as well as the good, bad and challenging times they've experienced over all the oceans on this planet.

Lin and Larry. 
If you don't know much about them have a read of the articles via Google.
What an amazing life they built for themselves.

Our friend John let us stay on board his boat in the RPAYC marina that night (thank you John!).  The club is very handy to our boat mooring (when it's there), but miles away from our home, so having a place to bed down there meant we could enjoy the wine as well as the company.  We finished off around midnight with drinks aboard with friends Ian, Sharon, Peter and Sue promising to do it again soon.

Saturday night I cooked dinner for friends Keith and Jenny here at the house and another good - and late - night was enjoyed.  Keith had been on a fishing trip up to the reef in the last couple of months and they brought the main course - beautiful coral trout.  Lots of conversation and mighty fine wine was drunk but we all maintained enough sobriety (and surprising good sense) to have a great time without feeling bad the next day.  Perfect.

The next weekend was even more packed.  The chance to see our friends from the club again came up quickly when we managed to get a reservation for Friday the 13th at the wildly popular local pizza restaurant - Via Napoli.  This place is so popular its been almost impossible to get bookings since it opened.  Their popularity comes from the fantastic "streets of Italy" atmosphere and their metre long pizzas.

Me and Sue at the beginning of the massive pizza.  What a fun night!

The food wasn't exactly gourmet but we had a good time!

Saturday our friend Leona was up from Canberra.  She came over for lunch with her cousin for a good catch up.  We hadn't seen each other much since the beginning of the year so there was plenty to talk about, again over wine and food.  And Saturday night our next door neighbour had a drinks party for the neighbourhood and their friends.  Sunday we had a lovely time with Tim who, welcomed us in his house while we were in Cairns, came for dinner and stayed the night.

Two great weekends with friends.  I love socialising!!  Guess I'm happy we're pretty boring during the week or I'd be looking at alcoholism soon!

This weekend is quiet.  I don't mind.  Its a good chance to catch up on our walks around the harbour with Molly.  This morning we went to Tunks park so she could have a big run and swim in the harbour.  Tunks park is big and just below the lovely, and historic, stone bridge which gives this suburb its name - Northbridge.

Throwing the ball.

Christmas is coming on Wednesday.  How did this year go so fast!  We're keeping it very low key .. nothing like last year's extravaganza.  In fact I haven't put up one bit of decoration .. mainly because George can't get up the ladder to get the box out of the attic due to his tendon injury.  We're planning a seafood lunch with John which will be fun but I think Santa may pass us by ... after the 6-7 month adventure we've just had - can't blame him.