Wangaratta Weekend

Molly's house finally sold and the three good sisters and spouses had to remove all furniture prior to settlement which was today, so last weekend we, Lib, Gord and me, tripped north with trailer in tow behind the carryvan, and the old Subaru. The trip up was eventful. A highway patrol car passed me near Bonnie Doon going the other way and promptly did a U turn and pulled me up, issuing an infringement notice to cost me $141 for not having the trailer registration sticker attached to the trailer.

Dinner at 'Rinaldo's' on Friday night wasn't bad, fortunately the tab was picked up by the estate. Saturday morning saw me tracking down Gerard O'Brien to borrow paint and brush to touch up trailer number plate, the obscure condition of which had been the attractant for the brave defender of justice and law and order who pursued me the previous day.

Saturday arvo, a typical warm sunny north east spring day where you could get sunburned if you didn't have a Fiji tan, saw us at the O+K grand final at the Rover's ground between Whorouly and Nth Wang. After a nervous and scrappy first half they settled down and played some good footy after half time, Whorouly coming from 4 goals down to level the scores at 3/4 time. Nth Wang ran away with it in the final term. Greta FC was doing the catering and I bumped into a few I knew- Squeak Dinning, Johnny McCarthy, and Franny O'Brien. Franny was well recovered from a recent stroke and was on duty in the bar. I was amazed at the amount of cans consumed on our half time walk round the ground. Wangaratta is a boozy town. Someone said Greta would have pulled $50K profit on the catering. They borrowed one of Bushy Dinning's refrigerated dairy trucks and had it chock full of pallets of cans out the back and sold nearly all of it.

Sadly I learned of the passing of Andrew (Max) George, CHF in our 1980 premiership team, claimed by bowel cancer. I met Max in 2010 at a reunion for the first time in 30 years after he left for WA where he became a successful businessman. He was then in remission.

Saturday night saw us at Dianne Murray's 70th birthday party, a gala event where we renewed aquaintance with many old friends. Catering was by the chef at Rinaldo's who came in with his equipment and cooked on site a succession of superb apperatifs or entrees continuing through the evening.

Trip home fully laden on Sunday with furniture and Molly memorabillia was uneventful. Little Suzy van handled the big load over the mountains easily and there was no repeat copper heroism.

The end of an era. Lib has been melancholy since, finding place for Molly stuff, including paintings posters, crockery and nic nacs. It's all very sad really.