Now Voyager: Day one of 'The Visit'

This morning was bike ride day and Mike's three mates arrived arrived with bushy tails for their regular twenty kilometre ride. Harry, Ray and Michael joined bro to keep their bodies fit and well, combined with a lot of man-chat...

Harry, the professional bike rider

Ray, the keen follower...

Smiling sister...

My brother's life is in start contrast to mine, but equally full and rich in his chosen way. Always the crusty bachelor, he has inherited from his wife, who was the original networker, a varied group of thinking people who have made it their agenda to age as disgracefully as possible. They have great lives being very active in a number of facets, not the least in my brother's case, being his recently formed love-affair with the ukelele and song. In doing so they succeed in returning to society some of the riches they have been given during their quite long and very diverse lives.

Returned from the ride...

On the schedule today was a visit to the Art Gallery of NSW to see the Archibald Prize finalists and winners. Sis and I were ready earlier than tired bro who came later to meet us there. The exhibition was exceedingly talented and interesting, and afterwards we sauntered through the Botanical Gardens to walk by the Opera House and them catch a bus directly home.

It was enough for me to say for tomorrow I need to have a lay-day and as Sunday is a very big day with the unknown quotient of big bro arriving from the US and some sort of 80th Birthday luncheon to be prepared. It looks like it will be a takeaway now, as Michael feels we don't know how well he’ll be, jet-lagged and all that, not that this has much to do with his birthday lunch.

It seems we are just playing it by ear. Peter is not a party person anyway, so mainly it is a birthday cake, of course having been prepared by sis and brought over in secret packaging from Perth.

I will really be happy when I eventually arrive safe and sound in Wellington on Sunday night, as things aren't particularly easy here with three individual histories coming to the fore and the pecking order of family being much in evidence. I am now staying quiet but not giving in.

A portrait I liked a lot...