A quiet morning repairing and reading. I then managed to phone home and tell my Mum what day I was due back in the UK, and apologise for not keeping in touch. It was a short call since in those days the cost of an expensive transatlantic call was priced by the minute, and Régine would not contemplate allowing me to pay. Then it sounds like I had a little joint to recover from my guilt about not keeping in touch, oh dear, bad boy.
In the afternoon everyone came back early since there was a party arranged for later that evening. We played some frisbee out in the road, there was no traffic. Then we went into Brunswick to get some supplies for the party, including several huge bags of ice. I had never realised you could buy ice, so this was a novelty for me. I mean I thought we had freezers to make ice and that was it, but I was wrong, we needed enough ice to fill a bath apparently. After the shopping we popped into another pub, The Ruffled Grouse, to get in the mood for later on. This was quieter than The Bowdoin, but still presented music in the singer songwriter vein, and not having eaten I was soon getting rather merry and enjoying myself.
We rolled up to The Workers Moonlight Party, which was being held outside in semi darkness, to celebrate the building of a barn. The ice was poured into an old bath and filled with champagne bottles, while hot dogs were served with lashings of squirty mustard, so I tucked in. Everyone was friendly and I was the centre of some attention as the UK visitor because they all loved English people and my accent. By now, full of beer and champagne, I was in garrulous form, but managed not to disgrace either myself or my country. Happy Days…
