Let's get the food out of the way first: a cold chicken salad.
On a bed of rocket sat slices of chicken breast that had been poached in white wine and garlic. Over the chicken were slices of ripe avocado, leaves of basil, generous shavings of parmesan, a sprinkling of toasted pinenuts and a light dressing. Kind of an unconstructed pesto. Accompanying that were halved hardboiled eggs topped with mayonnaise, fresh buttered bread rolls with whole seeds, coffee from a thermos, fruit cake from the store and the Sunday newspaper.
*
We sat on a check blanket in the shade of, but not directly under, an ancient and sprawling gum tree at the top of a large, gently sloping paddock. About a hundred greyhounds were milling about and in an adjacent fenced-off paddock, some 'hounds were off-leash, flying around like mad things, remembering their racing days and trying to decide whether or not they still enjoyed it.
It was the annual greyhound adoption program Christmas picnic.
One man had five greyhounds of different heights on leashes. They stood there with their heads resting on each other. It was the cutest. The man fosters them and then can't give them back. Can't blame him. He's got six bedrooms and no kids, he told me. They get a bedroom each.
Goldie, the aging Brittany, had a great time. She's almost blind but enjoyed 'catching up' with her old friends.
They had all the usual events; the dressed-up greyhounds, the waggiest tale, the best wannabe greyhound (Goldie paraded a greyhound racing coat, but a Pomeranian won) and the raffle: Blue ticket A35! roared the announcer. I glanced down at my ticket and seconds later I found myself holding a bottle of very nice Mornington Peninsula pinot noir.
Then they launched the 2006 adopted greyhound calendar. I made it! April 2006! I'm just a lowly kitchen hand but you can call me Mr April! It's a photo that T. took of me with Huey, one of our foster greyhounds. In the photo, I'm feeding him an ice-cream in a cone.
There just had to be food in it.
On a bed of rocket sat slices of chicken breast that had been poached in white wine and garlic. Over the chicken were slices of ripe avocado, leaves of basil, generous shavings of parmesan, a sprinkling of toasted pinenuts and a light dressing. Kind of an unconstructed pesto. Accompanying that were halved hardboiled eggs topped with mayonnaise, fresh buttered bread rolls with whole seeds, coffee from a thermos, fruit cake from the store and the Sunday newspaper.
*
We sat on a check blanket in the shade of, but not directly under, an ancient and sprawling gum tree at the top of a large, gently sloping paddock. About a hundred greyhounds were milling about and in an adjacent fenced-off paddock, some 'hounds were off-leash, flying around like mad things, remembering their racing days and trying to decide whether or not they still enjoyed it.
It was the annual greyhound adoption program Christmas picnic.
One man had five greyhounds of different heights on leashes. They stood there with their heads resting on each other. It was the cutest. The man fosters them and then can't give them back. Can't blame him. He's got six bedrooms and no kids, he told me. They get a bedroom each.
Goldie, the aging Brittany, had a great time. She's almost blind but enjoyed 'catching up' with her old friends.
They had all the usual events; the dressed-up greyhounds, the waggiest tale, the best wannabe greyhound (Goldie paraded a greyhound racing coat, but a Pomeranian won) and the raffle: Blue ticket A35! roared the announcer. I glanced down at my ticket and seconds later I found myself holding a bottle of very nice Mornington Peninsula pinot noir.
Then they launched the 2006 adopted greyhound calendar. I made it! April 2006! I'm just a lowly kitchen hand but you can call me Mr April! It's a photo that T. took of me with Huey, one of our foster greyhounds. In the photo, I'm feeding him an ice-cream in a cone.
There just had to be food in it.
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