Hi all

So up we jumped and headed on down to catch up with the other two in Margaret River. Now the original idea had been to indulge ourselves in a bit of rock climbing and to try our hands at surfing, but with my ribs still playing up from my ill fated diving trip back in the Perhentians it simply wasn’t to be. So instead we decided to indulge our passion for wine. Well, our passion for getting drunk anyway.

As we left late from Dunsborough we decided to skip the Aboriginal experiences and caves at Yallingup and Ngilgi and we spent the first day just bimbling about the campsite in Margaret River, the evening was spent sitting round a roaring fire (compliments of Andy who by now was perfecting the art of a cone fire) and getting ourselves an early night in preparation for the long day’s drinking we had ahead of us the following day, .

Next morning found us waiting for the tour bus to come get us and it wasn’t long before we were picked up and making a nuisance of ourselves amongst the other passengers. The group was made up of a young Irish couple, two middle aged English women who were over visiting the ex-pat sister of one of them and her daughter who had an absolute foghorn of a voice. Seriously, she could have got a job on the QE2, loud and deafening being the only two volumes her voice had. There were also another couple, he was English and she was an Australian. Who grew up in Portsmouth. She went to City Of Portsmouth Girls’ School. Sometimes I really do believe this a small world. Anyhoo, within seconds of getting on, the two English women began a conversation about the relative merits of British tennis players. Now I’ve always said that there are only two English sports stars who I find it impossible to get behind. The first is David James. This has required a serious rethink as he signed for Pompey in the summer (and has since played out of his skin and kept us in several games virtually single handed) so this leaves all my vitriol reserved for the man that inspired Henmania (the mere mention of that word sends shivers of disgust up and down my spine). I mean really. Tim Henman? That gay little fist shaking thing he does when he wins a point (which isn’t that often) and that despite all the press hysteria that surrounds him at Wimbledon every year he really is pants, is enough to get me spitting nails. I can’t help it. I know he’s probably a really nice guy and all that, and he is Britain’s best player in years (I actually prefer Greg Rusedski, and he’s about as English as maple syrup) but I just can’t stand him. Maybe it’s his resemblance to Tony Blair or something. Either way it inspires in me a kind of Henman tourettes whenever I hear his name mentioned. So when I heard these two women discussing his merits I was trying really hard not to open my mouth for fear of offending them, but when they mentioned Andy Murray and his connection with the Dunblane massacre, before I knew it I was telling them I wished it had been Henman that was there and that he hadn’t survived. I know, not the nicest thing I’ve ever said, and as an endearing conversation opener (or indeed a conversation butter inner) it’s far from my best. What followed was a kind of thoughtful silence for a second from the two wifeys and a kind of collective intake of breath from the rest of the bus. The first wifey looks at me smiles and says ‘I don’t think I’d go that far, but he does get on my t***’. Her friend nodded sagely. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. These two were fantastic throughout the day. Neither of them cared about wine in the slightest (‘I don’t even like the stuff, I’d rather have a pint of lager any time’) and just did their best to get as drunk as possible. Fantastico.

The wineries were everything they promised and more. We hit six in the end (passing up a brewery tour in favour of hitting an extra one) and tasted about ten wines in each. Needless to say that after the second one everyone’s volume control had gotten lost and it started to feel like a slightly older Club 18 - 30 booze cruise.

We stopped in one of the wineries for a ‘Bush tucker’ lunch. Wichety grub pate, smoked kangaroo and some other stuff which I can’t actually remember. Foghorn girl jumped straight in and ate the whole wichety grub off the top off the pate without even asking if anyone else wanted a bit which slightly upset everyone, but the conversation roamed far and wide. Now foghorn girl gave me a real insight into the Australian psyche. We got chatting about television and this 21 year old girl suddenly started waxing lyrical about how great British comedy is. Can’t knock that. And then she dropped a bombshell. Her favourite show is ‘Some Mothers Do Ave Em’. This apparently is the height of comedy and nothing before or since can even come close. I s*** you not. Frank Spencer is the Daddy of laughter. We actually watched tv on a Saturday night a few weeks later and there he was. Prime time Saturday night tv. ‘Ooohh Betty’ and all that. I went into shock and still haven’t quite recovered. Added to this indignity, foghorn girl then had the gall to say that Little Britain is a pile of s***. ‘It’s just not funny’. Hmmmmm. Interesting. This started an almightily loud (and for the most part piss your pants funny) conversation on the merits of various tv personalities and musicians us and our Antipodean cousins have exchanged over the years. Can you believe nobody else at the entire table rated Rolf Harris as the greatest Australian ever? Or that Kevin Bloody Wilson should be declared a national hero? I couldn’t. Besides which, my hand on my heart, teary eyed version of Peter Andre’s ‘Mysterious Girl’ (complete with hip swivels) was met with derision from all sides. Some people....

The afternoon was just an absolute laughathon from start to finish except when I drunkenly tried to get a smile out of the two girls who served us at the chocolate factory - ‘Do you get to eat as much chocolate as you want then?’ A sarcastic ‘Yeah, of course we do’ ‘Then how come you’re not all like big fat twenty stoners’ Frosty silence. Then through the drunken haze that had descended I realised the girl I was talking to looked like the arse end of an elephant. Oops. Ten years ago I’d have probably tried to pull her :o) But why would you have a big fat girl working in a chocolate shop? Surely that’s just asking for trouble sales-wise. I mean, you wouldn’t have Gary Glitter advertising kids holidays would you?

We’d intended to buy maybe one bottle in each winery, but by the time we got back to the campsite we had eleven bottles of wine and a bottle of Port. The chocolates we bought were put somewhere safe and haven’t been seen since. In our defence though, all of the wine was absolutely gorgeous and the Tawny Port we had was nothing short of superlative. Never saw myself as a Port drinker before, but this stuff was truly amber nectar. Needless to say, the evening proved messier than the day by a long chalk and I don’t remember cooking, eating or indeed going to bed. Top drawer.

Laters all

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