Today has been deliciously lazy. The promised delivery of the luggage at between 11am and 2pm didn’t happen until getting on for 5pm. As a result we ended up spending the day lounging around the house, which after the last few weeks’ frenetic activity, was exactly what the doctor ordered.
Andy, Brett’s niece’s husband, called around at about ten, just as we were getting ready for breakfast and we all sat out on the deck at the back of the house, passing the time of day until breakfast was ready. I’ve discovered that biscuit and gravy (which is a breakfast dish) is not biscuit or gravy as we would know them. The biscuit is a kind of light scone and the gravy is a sauce which I think is made of flour, water and the fats left from cooking the bacon (Americans fry bacon to a crisp – literally!) What we would call gravy is called ‘Brown Gravy’ over here.
With most of the day spent watching TV, chatting or catching up with things online, we decided a brief walk was in order to get us out of the house around 4pm. The day has been unseasonably cool (mid-twenties, as opposed to the more normal mid- to high-thirties) but even so the sun was hot on my neck and I wished for my luggage and the sunblock it contained. We essentially just walked around the block, albeit a typically BIG block. We cut along the edge of a local park, which was immaculately kept and around the back of the local primary school. The area is very much how one expects suburban America to be. At the curbside along every street there is a progression of numbered mailboxes with their little red flags. Apparently if you have outgoing mail, you put it in your mailbox and raise the flag and the postman collects it the next time he comes to deliver to your area. They don’t have post-boxes (in the UK sense) except in the city centres.
Around 6:30pm the family started arriving for the family gathering. First were Sarah (Brett’s niece) and Andy and their children, then Susan (Sarah’s mum) and her other children then her husband Ali. Finally Kevin (Brett’s younger brother) and his partner, Chris, arrived with the star of the evening: Carter, their recently adopted baby son. We ate Spaghetti Bolognese, which is apparently a favourite of Brett’s, with Salad and beer, followed by Strawberry Shortcake which is delicious. All very tasty (I had seconds of both courses – just to be polite, you understand... ) There was a lovely relaxed atmosphere throughout. Sometimes when you see families together it can be very tense and formal, but this was quite the opposite: very intimate and cosy. There is a certain ‘sparring’ sense of humour within the family which is enjoyable and somewhat familiar.
Ali, Brett’s brother-in-law, tackled me on the subject of Monarchy and we had a lively discussion about what makes a democracy and the pros and cons of having a non-elected head of state. Over the course of the evening it emerged that he was comparing the UK situation with the situation in Iran at the moment, where the religious leader decided who was and who wasn’t allowed to stand in elections, depending on how devout they were. In principle the two situations (Britain and Iran) sound fairly similar (the head of the state religion can wield absolute power), but in practice they are not, which I tried to convey. It was an interesting debate.
Kevin and Chris were two devoted fathers. Kevin is more like Brett than his other brother Stephen (who wasn’t here tonight.) Chris reminds me strongly of a Chilean colleague at work, Mauricio, both in his appearance and his dry sense of humour. I didn’t get much of chance to talk to either of them in the family environment, but I gather we are spending an evening with them later in the week. Carter was an ideal baby – he laughed and gurgled and didn’t mind being passed around. He didn’t cry once and then as soon as he’d been fed, dropped off to sleep on Kevin’s shoulder.
After people started moving off, we joined Susan and Ali for cards at their house a mile or so down the road. Apparently card games are a regular McHargue pastime and we are playing poker with his brothers one night this week. After a brief reminder of the rules, though, I was able to acquit myself well at Spades and we played a few trial hands of their variation of Poker. I need to get the ranking of the hands back into my head after a couple of decades’ absence, but apart from that it all came back fairly easily.
We got home around midnight and went straight to bed.
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