Free frisbees and generous goodbyes

Well, I won't see my family again for five months or so.

We said goodbye at about 5 this morning (it could have been 5 but, to be honest, I wasn't paying much attention), as they set off on holiday to France. In ten days I go to Japan. In between then I shall be packing my things, doing some last-minute brushing up on my Japanese, and wondering how to blow my inflated loan instalments (higher cost of living out there, don'cha know).

A rather more civilised parting from my mum, dad and my sister occured at 8 last night, before I set out to what has become a regular fixture in my social calendar: the pub quiz at The Boot every Thursday. Attended by a varying group of friends I know from secondary school, our fortunes in the quiz are equally flexible. The high point was getting second place a few weeks ago, and winning two bottles of terrible white wine for our troubles. I am in fact feeling the effect of the second bottle as I write ... classy!

After the quiz (our team name, which tries to reflect events in the news, was Bakri's Return Ticket) we went back to my friend Matt's house and polished off the last bottle of our winnings. Although we didn't win anything in the quiz, I won a frisbee in a Strongbow promotion, which led to the invention of what I like to call night-time Aussie rules street frisbee, with extra points for leaping garden fences to retrieve the thing. One of the better nights out you can have in my village.