Arthur and Noel

My time in Bris Vegas has had a distinct touch of Regency England about it. By that I mean we have done an awful lot of visiting and entertaining. We have sat in people's parlours drinking tea and coffee. We have discussed people called Betty and Jim and Bernie who are mostly all dead. We have discussed at great length and on numerous occasions the school my grandmother went to across the river. Today we went for a trip to the hills to take the air and marvel at the view.

The culmination of all this was a visit from Arthur and Noel who came to tea. If Kim from Kath and Kim was a 65 year old gay man, she would be Arthur. If Dobbie (that skinny little creature from Harry Potter) and John Denver had a love child in the form of a 65 year old gay man, it would be Noel. Arthur and Noel went to the hairdresser together some time in about 1978 and got matching hairstyles, which they have chosen to retain ever since.

Arthur and Noel are lovely people but their main topic of conversation with my aunt and uncle seems to be real estate. They talked real estate all night long. By laws, pot plants, renovations, plumbing (apparently only 3 apartments in the whole complex have had a second bathroom put in!!!!!), double glazing... I know all about number 7 where Olive used to live. Olive is blind so there are no lights in her apartment but all the curtains and so on match and are in mint condition. Olive's apartment will be up for sale in a few months. I know all about Ray as well who lives on the 6th floor. He complains about his TV reception.

At one point I wondered why we were sticking to such a dull, dull, dull as dishwater topic. A few minutes later we started talking about ethnic taxi drivers. This was followed by Arthur's opinion on the Samoans who do nothing except smoke outside the Centrelink office all day long. Certainly not a topic I felt confortable contributing to, but since my Aunt has a PhD in South Sea Islander health issues I wasn't the only one at the table who felt that way. There was a weird spell where nobody concurred with anything Arthur said and in the time it takes you to say "Jack rabbit" we were back talking pot plants.

This continued until my mother almost literally fell asleep at the table (and for once I am not exaggerating) and we were released.