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But I digress: I had been wondering aloud about the hierarchy of Christmas lunch / dinner in various families [read: mine]. I meant about whose 'turn' it is / who brings what / family truces and the like. At that point travel was not an issue - we only had to get one brother here from Canberra - and we had Covid Normal...... we did. Since Christmas Day I have heard various tales of the venue and attendees changing at short SHORT notice, so I think I am not alone. There is also a bifurcation of opinion of 'short' versus 'E X T E N D E D' lunches, a term I use loosely. 'Bonhomie' taken to extremes. The Prize for the 'Best Lunch' indeed encompasses an event that unfolded over several months of arrangement and was not even decided until it happened. The Key Participants could have made a TV program from it. There are folks who you see blissfully sailing along and leaving a trail of carnage; these are called ‘guests’. [THREE alterations to firm plans in as many minutes I was told]. Yet, when I bowled up briefly, without notice, to deliver a gift at the hacienda of the hosts, Sherlock Holmes himself would not have detected anything out of the ordinary. After the sotto voce, ritual ‘Oh Bu**er, it’s him’, I was well received and offered a noggin. Did I mention that the said Couple had even had an external venue [RACV Healesville] scuttled? Only a flesh wound..... The heart of the matter is this; selfless folk willingly create their own nightmare. The same way that First Responders always run toward the threat, stoically resigned to the possibilities.  Epilog: Latterly it has been my pleasure to note that they survived. Well done you two. Happy New Year; what could possibly go wrong?  I’m inwardly pleased that I have plagiarised ‘precious little’ without accreditation. Nothing I have written in my columns has been proven false. Ghosts Appear and Fade Away. Colin James Hay. This is my last Column. Be in rude health. Ross guuguugarra [wiradjuri word] now sits in the sand bunker not now allowed in the gaiyanaiyung jarrah [noongar word] old gum tree Unless granted a permit by Council..... In researching this I discovered what has been in front of we transplants since Captain Cook; most Aboriginal languages do not assign gender; neither is the default him and its derivatives, if one used at all. They use ‘a’ and ‘the’ equivalents. Trivia.
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