December 07 – Beading & Lunch

Our very first Ladies Day ! Hurray ! A fabulous day beading at Red Poles, followed by lunch at the wonderful Oscars in McLaren Vale. After a bit of a drive, all started well with being able to easily find Red Poles by locating out the front, well, red poles. Knowing we were in the right place, we took our positions up outside, under a beautiful shady nook, sheltered by a marvellous big peppercorn tree. All of this would have been very useful had there actually been any sun. It did, however, partially obscure the rain clouds which, by the good graces, did not open up completely while we were there. We shared a lovely morning tea and settled in to driving our teacher completely round the bend with the question of the day “ Is this right? “. Our one hour of beading was meant to provide us with a completed pair of earrings, but with laughter, gossip and the eventual handing over of our projects to the teacher, we watched as she tried her best and presented each of us with our very own $ 25 half circle of beads on felt.

I, myself, felt very proud for having successfully drunk tea and supervised the construction of the beginnings of a pair of earrings – lesson # 12 in How to be a Lady – Learn how to delegate. I would like to add that I felt the teacher did her best, even though none of us walked away with earrings – it's hard for anyone outside of a third world sweatshop to make by hand, 10 pairs of earrings, in the rain and under an hour, whilst being deafened from a group of Ladies hell bent on talking to the person furthest away from them on the other side of the table..... apparently she doesn't work there anymore. Hmmm.....

Lunch was delicious, as Oscars always is. If you haven't been but have the chance to go, definitely drop in. And I recommend, well, everything on the menu actually. But if you press me, I'll say the pizza. Or pasta. Okay, anything. It was nice and snug and what with a hard morning delegating behind us, we were all famished and enjoyed our meals and coffees (and numerous bottles of wine for some) and all to soon, Ladies Day number 1 had slipped away and we were left counting down the days til the first Sunday in January. A success, a triumph and Ladies Day has arrived !