Kevin, on his first foray into the real world in over 160
days (he counted), had his heart set on eating at the Hawker
Corner, so we took a taxi there (a tolerant and good-humored
Indian driver). Well, as soon as he got rid of us, we discovered
that the place is open for lunch only on Sundays. After shaking
off our disappointment and annoyance at our stupidity, Glen
quite cheerily said that there was a pub just down the street.
Which there was. Which would be true in most neighborhoods in
this hard-drinking town.

So we came upon the Prince Albert Hotel and its dining room
the Green Something, which had a handicap entrance out back,
so all was good. We got a convenient table, and all was good.

(It turns out later that Glen had just been bulling his way
through, and he'd had no idea there was a decent pub there but
was counting on that frequency that I just mentioned.)

I made the mistake of saying I'd treat.

Kevin accordingly ordered the most expensive on the menu by a
fair shot, the grilled Wagyu beef rumpsteak, which came with
mushroom sauce and chips. I told him that he had to cede me a
bite, which he did. It was medium rare as ordered, tender
but not flaccid, and delicious. Of course, he said it was
terrible, hard as a rock, and any Ozzie cow would be better
than this. He gobbled down half of it before saying this but
then played out by eating nothing but chips dipped in mushroom
sauce for the rest of the meal, saying that the rest of the
meat would go to the dog. Fearing for the dog's digestion, I
inspected the remains for surface fat and found a good 1/2"
rim, which I stole and ate - that was sublime, actually.

Glen wanted a battered flathead, which was on the specials
for $24, so I told him I could do it for cheaper and whacked
him on the crown with a menu, which apparently was not what he
meant. Turns out flathead is a native phenomenon, according
to Wikitruth "one of a number of small to medium fish species
with [surprise, M's note] notably flat heads." Anyhow, the dish
came impossibly large, four or five fillets over a mound of fries
that would have daunted Joey Chestnut. I had a substantial sample.
It was a tender flake with a clean almost monkfishy taste.

Duck pasta with prosciutto was a special of the day, and the
guy taking the orders was pushing it hard, which means that the
stuff is either quite good (they may be thinking of putting it
on the regular menu) or quite bad (getting rid of surplus). When
this came, it was a modest amount of spaghetti cooked just past
al dente, not yet at the mushy stage, in a thousand Calories'
worth of a quite decent creamy tomato sauce, The duck was plentiful
(all leg meat) but not super tasty (the fat had been trimmed off).
The dish was dominated by the ham, whose goodness had been given up
to the sauce. It wasn't at all what I'd expected but quite filling
and reasonably tasty.

As Kevin's winery back when had been in the Clare, I ordered a bottle
of George's Exile Shiraz 15 (Clare Valley), which was acidy and
acrid, not fruity enough, not complex enough, and, as Kevin admitted,
very much in the Clare style. He liked it; I didn't but didn't say
anything. I don't know whether Glen liked it; in any case it was better
than a lot of the stuff he's served me and presumably Kevin over the
years.

Toward the end of our meal, some guy tried to sell us on an MLM scheme
to sell wine a la Mary Kay, Amway, Shaklee, etc. They should shoot
these people.

We had a pretty good time, though, all round and eventually toddled
off to find the G10 stop to go back to Glen's. I learned how to unfold
a wheelchair ramp.

Kevin still is full of piss and vinegar, which is both good and bad:
good for his survival, sometimes grating on his friends and more
importantly his caretakers in the hospital. He described a number of
incidents with the staff where one could have predicted he wouldn't
get his way, because he'd already antagonized the help.

It was not fun wheeling him around, with his leg, still not under
control, getting wedged between the wheelchair and the pavement
numerous times (in his eagerness to get out of stir, he left his
footrests in the room. Eventually he gave up and took it off
altogether. We left the bus in Blair Athol, where instead of
taking the half-mile uphill to Glen's house, Kevin was left in my
care while Glen went to fetch the Mazda. I took him to the Long
Life grocery, where he is well known and where the people hadn't
seen him in months; they were appropriately interested and
appropriately sympathetic about his plight. Kevin bought an
orange to add to the raw materials for his prison wine, which is
brewing secretly in his room. At 99c a kilo on special, I'd have
bought a lot more oranges if I were he.

Back at the house Glen broke out a celebratory bottle of, well, I
forget the name of it, it was so nasty. As Kevin had been dry for
so long, he did in the whole bottle (minus my taste of it) and then
demanded that Glen bring out the Berri box wine, which actually
couldn't have been worse.

Kevin, still grandiose, asked my advice on various travel topics
outside my expertise, including about wheelchair travel to places
I've never been in a wheelchair, or outside one for that matter;
for example, some friend has invited him to visit him in Sao Paulo,
which seems to be a foolhardy endeavor. Perhaps the friend made the
offer secure in the knowledge that Kevin can't take advantage of it.

Considerable alcohol was consumed (little if any by me). At long
length Kevin was persuaded to pack up and leave, but in one last
failed attempt to stall, he fell over on the way to the car. Kevin
is heavy, but by supreme effort Glen and I got him into the car
and on his way back to stir.
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