365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 80 : Toasted, then Chilled and then Pickled With Fish and Friends

Today was not a busy day.

Which is entirely as it should be on a weekend day when you may want to have fun, but not feel like you're racing around like an ADHD chook with your ever-swivelling head chopped off.

There was a nice long sleep in, toast for breakfast before my beautiful guy left for an afternoon of kul-cha taking in a concert with the Australian Chamber Orchestra (he has a subscription and loves his orchestral music) and I indulged in some reading, napping, and general random slothful and indolent behaviour. We finished off this blissfully chilled day by meeting up with good friends Fahmi, Warren and Ingo for a very low key fish and chips and wine picnic at nearby Sydney Park.

When Warren and I devised this picnic rendezvous on a cool Autumn day a week before Picnic Day, the idea was that it would be a farewell to Summer, as well as a way of having the outdoor picnics we missed out on when we didn't go to Symphony or Jazz in the Domain this year. However Summer had other ideas, and came roaring back with temperatures in the early 30s Celsius, and at one point I wondered if we shouldn't just retreat to the air conditiioned loveliness of the Union Hotel and kiss our romantic notions of farewelling Summer goodbye.

But we persevered, and by 5.30 the searing temperatures of the day has subsided enough that sitting on a picnic out in public began to seem like a sane idea rather than the romantic delusions of crazy people. By the time we reached the fish and chips shop on King Street, and my gorgeous guy made it back from the ACO (or Aco Daco as I term it!) via train, there was a wind blowing and we pressed ahead with fish and chips buying, chit chat on the way to the park (with a brief stop over for Steve to get changed into tshirt and shorts next to his car at the side of the road!) and the spreading of the picnic blanket on what we either the Hill of Death or the Hill of Twinks, depending on our frame of mind at the time!

The picnic was glorious. Cooling breezes, wonderful company, delicious fish & chips (sadly not low fat, which was tad guilt-inducing when wave after wave of joggers and dog walkers perambulated past our blanket), and near the end, one of the most insanely goregous sunsets I have ever seen in my life with the richest oranges, reds and yellows imaginable. What I expected to be 2-3 photos to use in the blog, became an orgy of photo taking that resulted in 30-40 photos.

The rest of the night was wonderfully relaxed as Steve & I went back to his place, and I stayed the night before a mad dash back to my place the next morning to catch the train....