The invite had disappeared in the massive pile of paperwork that occupies a significant portion of my desk. Regardless, I was aware that Tye was turning 27 and that there was a party to be held in celebration of that event somewhere in Sydney. Robbie, running on a program of his own, had already booked a hotel in Glebe and was planning to drive up. It made sense to join forces. I’d been briefed a few days earlier about the condition of the vehicle we were going to be using – booked in for it’s major service and two new rear tyres in the coming week, we left a lot of the journey to faith. The Deathcab made it though despite at stages shaking and rattling as though it would come apart, adding yet another interesting car ride between the two cities. Our navigational skills are widely known and often described as “pants”. With no GPS and iPhone on low batteries and a Google map we deviated from almost immediately upon entering the city we once again left ourselves to fate and poor street signage. After driving blindly into the sun down a busy saturday-afternoon road in what may have been Newtown we then somehow we made a crossing of the harbour bridge (quite scenic at that time of day!) we actually made it to our hotel.
The party was a classic with what seemed to be more Canberrans than Sydneysiders. Sometimes things come together in space and time just how you’d like them to. “Everyone is on the same level.” described Owen who then ate a pickle dipped in gin. A large collection of (clean) jam jars were on hand to fill drinks with and the drinks were plentiful. A lot of old and familiar faces made an appearance, long lasting relationships were reaffirmed, a tree was climbed and at some stage my phone/wallet managed to end up down a storm water drain. As the night wore on, options ended up quite limited and the floor was used as a bed. The next morning Robbie’s insistence that council equipment could rightly be moved for good reasons saw the recovery of my wallet and iPhone.
Obviously at some stage I managed to find a beanie.
Low on energy and battery power, without a map and with a significant hangover to manage, we took to the streets of the big smoke on a prayer and a chance. We did actually make it out alive despite the detour through Port Botany and the airport. The outcome was a significant celebration we were pleased to be a part of, even if we didn’t use the hotel we booked and forgot to bring the rather expensive bottle of Moet to the party. I have it from reliable sources that said bottle will remained unopened until our return.
