Okra

The café. Not the vegetable. 

The new venue for the annual gathering of those few remaining volunteers who, at the turn of the century, formed the Newsline reading group for Vision Australia.

Last year I handed over the organisational reins for the annual get-together to Jane Strode of Strode Villa. She is more than well equipped to take on the task.  Jane is a can-do person.  

As a result, our small group arrived at the restaurant yesterday at midday, sat around the table where we talked, ate, drank and generally had a fine old time.  In order to accommodate my current unwillingness to use stairs, a downstairs table had been booked. Upstairs is sometimes quieter but if there was a problem with quiet in the restaurant this year, it might have originated at our table.

We were welcomed with big smiles; the Okra staff know how to look after their customers and the food is excellent.  It was a hawker’s lunch and we chose to share dishes with two or three people making their choice; the rest of us agreed and the food appeared on the table. I made a poor choice, steamed chicken - bland - it wasn’t as good as I anticipated.  We ate it. 

When you don’t see people for a year there is always plenty to talk about and the talk ranged over the usual topics: sport, travel and health – we are mostly Older People these days. Occasionally controversial matters arise and heated discussions follow; nothing too controversial this year and when the discussion centred around roast vegetables we were all in furious agreement.   We were as one voice; you can never bake too many vegetables with the roast. Everyone had their own idea about how the left-overs could be used. Much laughter greeted one observation, that in their house there were never any left-overs.

A good time was had by all and we were all pleased to have made the move to a new venue.