Aah, Sunday lunch. Good food, good company, good wine. Conversation, wit, comedy, relaxation. It’s a great tradition.
But not one we followed last Sunday.
The Waratahs were playing a Sunday afternoon game. AND there was an international 7s game on first. What could we do? A late lunch at the Sydney Football Stadium watching the rugby. I felt like a teenager again – well, except it was a different code (I used to follow league), and it wasn’t Redfern Oval, and I no longer eat meat pies with sauce!
Normally when H and I go to the rugby we have dinner first at a small Indian place in Kensington. We park the car near the restaurant, have a quick dinner, then walk to the rugby. It’s one of our ‘bonding times’ and I love it. It also gives us (well … me – he doesn’t need it) some exercise as we walk from Kensington to Moore Park and back. A win for everybody.
But this time, for some reason we decided we’d have lunch at the stadium. When I say “we” decided, it was probably me. H was hungry, it was an afternoon game, and I got carried away – despite his protestations.
“No. Really. There’s decent take away places there now.” I said “And we still haven’t ever tried the bar. They might have something to eat.”
As I’m paying my arguments carry more weight than his, so of course “we” agreed to have lunch at the game.
Off we went. As we weren’t going for Indian first, we parked closer to the ground, but still far enough away to have a decent walk. So far, so good. We walked in through our gate and decided to go to the bar first. H was hungry, so I sent him up to order (it is soooo good having children who can go to the bar for you!). He came back with my glass of bubbly (in plastic) and a meat pie with sauce for him. “It’s all they had” he said. So much for moving on from meat pies at the footie!!!
So we stood there, in the bar, with a drink and a meat pie, watching the 7s. Who would have believed you could score so many tries in a rugby game? One every 70 seconds apparently. While I am one of the first to complain about too much kicking and not enough try scoring in the real game, that was ridiculous. I never thought I’d say it, but scoring tries became boring. I was hanging out for a good pick & go, pick & go, pick & go! I love rugby forwards!!!!
So after what seemed like only 7 minutes but was in fact 7 minutes, the game finished. They don’t play for very long in the 7s – possibly because they never stop running to score tries or running to stop the other team scoring tries so 7 minutes is enough.
So the game ended, we finished our drinks and went and found our seats for the real game. Both teams were on the field warming up (and I’m far too old to react like that to the sight of Richie McCaw in the flesh so I won’t even mention that), and we carried on the mother/son bonding over rugby. At half time the scores were close and we were playing well. All was good.
Until I had to go to the toilet. As always there was a huge queue outside the ladies, but when I looked at the men’s the queue was even bigger. “Huh! There’s a benefit of being somewhere with fewer women” I thought “shouldn’t take so long to get to the toilet.”
But while standing in the queue for the women’s, and standing, and standing, and not moving anywhere, I looked across to the queue for the mens. Those blokes didn’t stand still for a second – it was a continuous movement in the door and out again.
What do you blokes do to move like that? Do you whip it out when you get to the beginning of the trough and keep walking along while you pee? What happens if somebody’s had that one beer too many and isn’t finished by the time they get to the end? Do you all walk all over him? Pee on his shoes? I hate to think!
Eventually I got out of the ladies so I could stand in another queue to get a drink and something to eat. Oops – another meat pie, but this time with chips! And I missed a try while standing there waiting – one of ours!!!
Unfortunately that was the last high point of the game. The Crusaders hit back and then smelt blood. Richie McCaw took the field to wild cheers from the crowd and the Crusaders lifted even more. We didn’t stand a chance. Yet we only lost by 4 points.
All in all, despite the food and the loss, a good afternoon!
