Yesterday was our last at Margaret and Murray's home. They concluded the day with a party, which included many of their neighbors and friends from a garden club with which they are involved. M&M had wanted us to meet their friends, and their friends had wanted to meet the two Americans M&M often mention.
When we hosted M&M in 2012 during their U.S. trip, we got to talking at one point about the fun white elephant parties for which our friends David and Donna are famous. Margaret took this idea back to Australia with her in the form of a bad taste party, a major part of which is the exchange of tasteless gifts. Kathie and I had been asked to bring presents with us for this event. Everyone had been asked to bring local types of nibbles and to dress so as to honor Australia in some way. Here are the hosts of this party in their selection of regalia.
I tried to take a representative set of photos of the guests. Name tags helped Kathie and me keep track of everyone. They were all delightful and fun conversationalists.
Kathie's selected gift turned out to be a toy wombat.
The gift I carried to Australia was a T-shirt I had gotten at the Burger Jones restaurant in Minneapolis when we visited Sandy, Will and Anders last January. M&M's neighbor Adrian picked it and was thrilled with it. (More on Adrian below. We both just loved meeting this gentle giant of a man.)
Another guest, Val, I believe, got this wonderful device for mounting bottles of spirits for dispensing drinks. M&M have a rule that no gift can be recirculated for three years, and Val announced that the clock was already running.
Margaret got this swell "in case of emergency, break glass" framed bottle of Johnny Walker Red.
The laughing and fun kept the party going quite late. This morning, we were getting ready to leave for our last day together near Brisbane before M&M take us to the airport for our return flights home. However, Adrian (see above) had visited with me quite a lot about the cars he has been restoring, so I promised him I'd sneak over for a look shortly before we left. There are two Falcons that he has worked on, the first being this fully functional station wagon model. These cars are about 43 years old.
However, Adrian's pride and joy, and the car he is still refitting is this Falcon 351-GT.
I explained to him how I'd love to have it to drive to UI Hawkeye sporting events.
Adrian and his brother, Robin, who we also met at the party, are working on all of the electrical components this weekend. The V8 engine was beautiful, and they have incorporated some state-of-the-art features as upgrades.
The car has been enhanced with air conditioning, a modern digital sound system, and a two-way CB radio. Except for the air conditioning ports he had to expose in the dash area (though they are not very noticeable), everything is hidden, including the controls which are now inside the glove compartment. The car will mostly look like the original.
He had this poster hanging on the wall for motivation.
I'm sure my friend Dick will get a kick out of these pictures.
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