Day +76: A Lovely Lunch with Friends

I loved today, and I really could have more days like today.

With the Queen's Birthday long weekend drawing to a close, we were happy to be spending the day relaxing with good friends David and Kirsty. At their little boy Lachlan's birthday party last weekend, Kirsty and I tentative arranged a get together with our families and Chuck and Kyung for today, since Chuck and Kyung thought Lachlan's party was this weekend. After finally getting in contact with Kyung, we found out they were both working this weekend, so Kirsty and I went ahead with our plans to catch up.

The weather was horrendous, so if we didn't have plans, we would have been staying home all day anyway. Kirsty and I were still finalising our plans for today over the last couple of days, so she was well aware of the Barney on Saturday. I was grateful we had somewhere to go today, as I didn't feel like a day at home. Besides their fun and friendly company, Kirsty was offering cocktails and her sympathetic ear, which sounded like a really nice way to spend a cold rainy afternoon.

We arrived at David and Kirsty's house at 11am, and Sean gravitated towards Socks the dog. Socks was one of the most gentle dogs I'd ever had the pleasure of meeting, and she was terrific with the kids, allowing Sean to pat her and play with her. Lachlan joined in the fun and played with Sean.

We went through to the upstairs lounge room where the fire made the area warm and inviting. We sat down to watch the kids play together, before Kirsty went to mix up some cocktails. Today, I was introduced to a most delicious cocktail called Tom Collins. This very simple gin-based cocktail had my taste buds tingling with pleasure, and hit all the right spots. Yum!

Before long, Sean was starting to droop, so we put him in the pram and rocked him to sleep. Lachlan was having so much fun playing, and really didn't want to go for his sleep, but eventually, he too had a snooze.

Kirsty and I left the men in the upstairs room to chat while we went to the kitchen to make more cocktails and to check on lunch. Kirsty was preparing tacos for lunch, which we were very much looking forward to. While we were making cocktails, I gave Kirsty the short version of what had happened over the past couple of days.

Kirsty is a language teacher (she teaches Japanese), and she gave me her honest opinion on the effectiveness of the German lessons M was attending - they were a waste of time and money. Even though she herself had run similar classes for kids around M's age, and this was an easy income earner for her, Kirsty said that the lessons were nothing more than a play session with arts and crafts and a few Japanese words thrown in here and there. The kids were there to have fun and not really to learn the language. At the age of 7, unless you spoke the foreign language at home every day, there was no point sending a child to language school, especially when the lessons were once a week, and the total time spent actually learn the foreign language was about 30 minutes of the duration of the lesson.

Kirsty emphasised that she wasn't just telling me this information as she was my friend. Teaching a foreign language was her livelihood, yet she was giving me her honest opinion on how effective it was to send a child of 7 to a weekly play session that had a few foreign language words spoken in the class, and expect her to actually learn and retain those words.

I felt a little vindicated about my stance against us wasting time and money continuing this charade of German school.

The little men didn't sleep very long, and with lunch ready, we all sat down to enjoy Kirsty's cooking. The meats were delicious and we all had seconds.

As planned, we brought our cake pops that we made yesterday / last night to share with everyone. These were very well received by everyone, and we thoroughly enjoyed the delicious red velvet cake and the sweet sugary coating of chocolate and sprinkles.

The afternoon flew by, and before long, it was time to head home. Sean really enjoyed seeing Lachlan and playing with Socks!

After Sean was put to bed, Jonathan made the momentous decision to write to the Dark Side to inform them that we will no longer be taking M to German school beyond this current term. He is going to draft the email either tomorrow or Tuesday and shoot it off to them once we were happy with the wording. We know this will likely set off fireworks, but we have to do it. I know Jonathan is not looking forward to the abuse and venom he will cop from the other side. I'm not looking forward to it either, but I'm glad Jonathan is finally standing up to them and putting an end to the rubbish from the Dark Side.