This is the big day at any of our reunions. A day spent dressed to the nines, comparatively speaking. Out come the medals and the black ties. In my case, I had been carting my Mess Dress all around Australia just for this occasion. It was going to get a run no matter what.
But first things first. My initial challenge for the day was to remember how to tie my tie. It had been a very long time since I had last had to achieve this degree of sartorial elegance. And let's not even mention the challenge to make sure the medal bars were squared off and aligned! Finally it all came together and we all made our way to Henderson Mall where we engaged in that time honoured military pastime of 'hurry up and wait'! But it did allow for a pre-march picture or two.
Our relatively short march to the nearby Fremantle Anglican Church was led by the WA Police Pipe and Drums. I am convinced that these bands march to a different number of steps per minute than that with which I grew up and trained through my three longs years as a Fort Largs Police Cadet, but in any event we managed
to toddle along is some semblance of good order on the route through Freo to the magnificent church precinct where a brief but most fitting ecumenical service was led by the WA Police Chaplin. (and for those who care, your correspondent is directly below the joint in the two shop front signs...light trousers)
After the service we posed for the obligatory group shots behind the UN flag, and later
the three Musketeers briefly closed ranks (we made Gary dump his sticks)
before Casey and I decided an injection of glamour was needed.
After all this hard work it was off to the Town Hall where the newly re-elected, and surprisingly young Lord Mayor made us feel more than welcome both in what he said during his address and with what his staff provided by way of a magnificent finger-food luncheon. We were presented with something of a challenge here. Do we do justice to the fine array of drinks on offer, or do we reflect with wisdom on the need to be relatively on deck for the forthcoming AGM and even more so for the formal dinner. I know, you are all awaiting a grovelling, unsustainable explanation as to why the bar was attacked....well I am here to tell you good sense prevailed. The Lord Mayoral budget was saved!
The AGM came and went, the clever amongst us managed a short preparatory Nanna nap, and then it was off to the ball in all our finery. Liz did have a lovely black number on beneath her pashmina, but she was cold at this point!
The Esplanade did us proud with the setting, the food and wine and the service. The 1st/8th was well represented in the festive throng and at this point we were all reasonably tidy.
But the influence of good music can do strange things to otherwise staid and upright officers and other ladies and gentlemen. The band for the evening included two WAPOL members who, with their mates, did really turn it on. They were great, but perhaps silly enough to include familiar numbers in their repertoire. At one stage Julie Walker, who with her husband 'Whiskey', had hosted Liz and me at a delightful BBQ in their Caloundra home last year, felt the need to give the band some female balance.
Things were going a little downhill by this stage, but not to the extent that we lads felt unable to make our vocal contribution to the evening!
The rest of the festivities shall remain pictorially unrecorded for reasons which I am sure will be obvious! What a cracker of a night and what a fitting end to a wonderful few days. And just in time. We were all starting to flag somewhat. Ah, for the stamina of youth!
Friday was a day of rest, recovery, rejuvenation and reflection, and you can read into that anything you like! Liz and I had previously decided we would love to host Deb and Greg to a post reunion BBQ chez Marshies. With all Greg's official duties we had only had a limited time to catch up.
At this point I have to again mention the wind. It had been blowing with such consistent ferocity that I had pulled in our previously set awning and shade cloth, but this was all necessary to appropriately entertain guests. So up it all went again and out come the Baby Q from under the bed. And we did have a fine night of it.
Poor old Deb and Greg were understandably buggered and our revelry was muted, but we fully intend seeing much more of each other before Liz and I head east again. We are looking forward to it.
Sunday, our last in Freo for the immediate future. What to do with our last cat free day for a while? Little Creatures beckoned, followed by that very touristy thing, fish and chips on the Freo boat harbour wharf.
Ah, what a fortnight it has been. Oh, did I forget to mention Little Creatures is one of Perth's better boutique breweries? I am particularly partial to their Pale Ale and what better place to indulge than in a swivel chair on the upper deck of their dockside brewery listing to a particularly good jazz band.
Today had been the Blessing of the Fleet and many of the charter boats of the Freo basin had dressed for the occasion.
In fact the entire boat harbour was buzzing as we made our way from the nearby Little Creatures to one of the two renowned seafood establishments of the area, that of the Kallis family.
Interestingly, the real work horses of the fishing fleet (at whom the Blessing is primarily directed, or, more correctly, for the benefit of the crews of these boats) lay rafted up, bare of any ornamentation other than the booms, radar heads and winches of their trade. I had the fleeting (sorry, unitentional but I'll leave it there) thought they were all rather looking down their noses at the flighty, fancy, footloose flotilla of pleasure craft which had adopted the pretence that this was their home as well.
The Kallis fish and chippo is one of two on this part of the harbour. It was busy. At 1800 hours on a fine Sunday afternoon in Freo, on the day of the Blessing of the Fleet, any other expectation would have been fanciful. But Liz threw herself into the fray, returned shortly with one of those restaurant hand grenade beepers and had no sooner sat down it seemed when its screech jolted her into more action.
She was back in no time bearing gifts from the sea. $14 fish and chips packs. A steal at Freo's prices, and wonderfully fresh and well cooked (and when it comes to fish and chips I'm a fussy expert!) With a glass of crisp white and this fine Freo munch before us, the lights of the harbour glowing in the twilight and the sights and sounds of people having fun all around us, we decided that we had indeed picked an ideal way in which to end our jaunt in this marvellous corner of Perth.
Tomorrow it was off to Canningvale to retrieve the Black Panther and thence north-east out of the city into the hills of the Darling Range and beyond to the historic town of Toodyay where adventures of a vastly different type awaited. As we packed the next morning, I was reminded of the saying I had seen written on a Freo establishment, which I paraphrase..."don't lament the end of the experience, rejoice in the fact it happened". How wonderfully apt.
Interestingly, the real work horses of the fishing fleet (at whom the Blessing is primarily directed, or, more correctly, for the benefit of the crews of these boats) lay rafted up, bare of any ornamentation other than the booms, radar heads and winches of their trade. I had the fleeting (sorry, unitentional but I'll leave it there) thought they were all rather looking down their noses at the flighty, fancy, footloose flotilla of pleasure craft which had adopted the pretence that this was their home as well. The Kallis fish and chippo is one of two on this part of the harbour. It was busy. At 1800 hours on a fine Sunday afternoon in Freo, on the day of the Blessing of the Fleet, any other expectation would have been fanciful. But Liz threw herself into the fray, returned shortly with one of those restaurant hand grenade beepers and had no sooner sat down it seemed when its screech jolted her into more action.
She was back in no time bearing gifts from the sea. $14 fish and chips packs. A steal at Freo's prices, and wonderfully fresh and well cooked (and when it comes to fish and chips I'm a fussy expert!) With a glass of crisp white and this fine Freo munch before us, the lights of the harbour glowing in the twilight and the sights and sounds of people having fun all around us, we decided that we had indeed picked an ideal way in which to end our jaunt in this marvellous corner of Perth.
Tomorrow it was off to Canningvale to retrieve the Black Panther and thence north-east out of the city into the hills of the Darling Range and beyond to the historic town of Toodyay where adventures of a vastly different type awaited. As we packed the next morning, I was reminded of the saying I had seen written on a Freo establishment, which I paraphrase..."don't lament the end of the experience, rejoice in the fact it happened". How wonderfully apt.
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