Autumn is in the air. It is indefinable, but we know it is there; we can sense it, feel it, see it, smell it. All told we haven’t had a bad summer this year – one that started early, and whilst it hasn’t been overly hot (though I maintain that 25 degrees in Wellington is hotter than 25 degrees anywhere else), warm days have continued into March, and we’re hopeful they will continue on into April. That said, we know the end is nigh. The temperatures have dipped a few degrees – and in Wellington, that can be the difference between basking outside, and feeling a slight chill in the air. And so, on a warm day like today, with sun, blue sky, and a gentle breeze, I want to make the most of the remaining good weather. I know my elderly neighbour, a former Symphony Orchestra cellist, is doing so – I can hear the strains of Bach drifting down through my open window, along with the happy sounds of his laughter with a friend.
I of course want to toast the good weather and enjoy a drink on the deck with my husband when he gets home from work. Strictly speaking though, we shouldn’t. It is Monday, and – in an effort to avoid becoming alcoholics, and to lose a bit of weight – we try not to drink on Monday nights. But how many more Monday nights on the deck will we have left this summer? Who knows how many months it will be before we can sit outside and enjoy a glass of summer wine again? It could indeed be the last of the summer wine. We shouldn’t let that pass us by.
A friend of a friend was going through a period of unemployment and used to get a six pack of lager to watch a crappy afternoon quiz show. Compared to that, I think a sunny day with a deck is a very reasonable excuse for a drink!
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My husband and I often find that Monday night is the night we need a drink the most. Perhaps we are well on our way.
Yesterday he played recorder and my neighbor played flute at an afternoon Bach festival, and we hosted a small afterafterparty last night.
Happy birthday to Bach! No doubt your cellist neighbor is aware…
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I have a friend who, for lent one year, gave up drinking “one night a week” although she allowed herself to choose which night that week as it came to her.
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Bridgett: LOL! Now THAT’S sacrifice.
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Carpe vinum! I can’t wrap my mind around the thought of you heading into fall.
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Hmmm. We over-indulged on a bottle of very delicious pinot noir, turkish bread and olive oil and dukkah on the deck, before over-indulging some more inside.
Bridgett – I like the sound of your friend. Strictly speaking, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are supposed to be wine free, but I’m going to take Lali’s advice, and carpe vinum! (I love that Lali.)
IB. No. Didn’t realise it was Bach’s birthday. I like Bach, so would have enjoyed the festival. I can even play the flute. (Or could play it, once upon a time).
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Mali: Tim would MAKE you play your flute. Wouldn’t he, Lali?
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GET DRUNK (by Charles Baudelaire)
One should always be drunk. That’s the great thing; the only question. Not to feel the horrible burden of Time weighing on your shoulders and bowing you to the earth, you should be drunk without respite.
Drunk with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you please. But get drunk.
And if sometimes you should happen to awake, on the stairs of a palace, on the green grass of a ditch, in the dreary solitude of your own room, and find that your drunkenness is ebbing or has vanished, ask the wind and the wave, ask star, bird, or clock, ask everything that flies, everything that moans, everything that flows, everything that sings, everything that speaks, ask them the time; and the wind, the wave, the star, the bird and the clock will all reply: “It is Time to get drunk! If you are not to be the martyred slaves of Time, be perpetually drunk! With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you please.”
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Deloney, what a gem. I am/was prescient … here …
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Deloney: Yum.
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