A celebration of "Decade-nce"

Congrats to Jo and Derek who are celebrating their 10th anniversary with a luncheon at The Wine Company. This rather unflattering pix shows one table of us colleagues all busy stuffing our faces.

The menu was pretty decent, starting with a seafood bisque that was rich in crabby flavour. The pix shows us chowing down on the Caesar salad topped with crabmeat. The main course was a thick slab of fillet mignon which I was looking forward to. I ordered rare but it was served done on the more... conservative interpretation of the word, shall we say? Dessert was a baked Camembert which was nothing I'd expected in generosity -- a whole wheel of Camembert baked over apple slices in a caramel sauce. The whole thing was thick and melty, and so good. But there was no way I could eat another. One serving was quite enough.

It was fortuitous to be at this particular table as we were short of one diner, which meant more food for the rest of us since the number had already been catered for and we didn't want be responsible for any wastage.

The event itself was quite an easy-going affair. Jo renewed her vows in the style of "Green Eggs and Ham" while Derek's was more conventional but culminated in  a surprise presentation of a huge bouquet of flowers. Otherwise, the guests were left to their own devices and entertainment... mostly. The finale involved a lucky draw, prize winners having to dance "Gangnam Style" or shuffle with "Party Rock Anthem" in order to claim their gifts. Fortunately, there weren't too many gifts and our table wasn't particularly lucky. Wait, does that mean we were lucky or unlucky?

Anyway, Mr and Mrs Lee, 10 years under the belt and many more to come!

Lazy day

I can (almost) has cheezeburger...

Finally, someone (besides our regular houseguest) is making use of the kitty shelves.

Looks good on paper

Staff bonding exercise bringing today's big meeting to a close. As delicious as the pix look, that's just colour paper made to resemble food. These were the exemplars.

And this is my table's creation. No prizes for guessing what it's supposed to be. An entertaining, mindless table game it turned out to be... despite us having to make fake food while the real food awaited us at the back of the hall.

A tangled mess

We found this poor fellow hobbling around in our void deck. He had got himself tangled up in a length of yellow string which bound both of his feet together. It must have hurt quite bad as he was incapable of escaping June's hands as she picked him up for a closer inspection. The string had cut deep into his feet. If we didn't do something quickly the lack of blood circulation would have rendered his extremities necrotic... and then it would only be a matter of time.

June left me holding the pigeon while she dashed upstairs for scissors. Good thing she went up and not me because I would have brought down the biggest pair I could find, but she cleverly dug out her pedicure scissors with the tiny, pointy blades that were just the thing for the delicate operation we were about to undertake. June slipped the tips of the scissors under the tight knots and gently snipped away. Passers-by were curious, but not enough to bother asking us what was going on.

I suppose we could have been gentler, but we did eventually free the pigeon from his bonds. The pix above is the 'after' and he seems visibly relieved from his ordeal.

My biggest worry now is that he is so relieved that he loses awareness of traffic and becomes immediate roadkill. But so far, that hasn't happened. We're still keeping an eye out for him, June feeding him some bread this morning. He is still quite identifiable due to his pronounced limp. Hopefully, that will heal in time.