Social climbers

Today we went to a party to celebrate the 65th birthdays of Irmie's mum, her mum's twin sister and the wife of one of Irmie's father's sisters.

Irmie ordered me to talk to a minimum of six people, as I have a habit of fading into the wallpaper at these events if I can. Years of high volume iPod listening have turned me half deaf and Irmie's enormous extended family mostly speak Dutch with a very pleasant but for a semi-deaf Englishman/Australian mostly unintelligable accent.

While I was tucking into a fine lunch and striking up conversations with people who probably wondered who on earth I was, Esther and Julia along with the other kids got to have a go at climbing. They were naturals, both reaching heights that made my knees shake just watching them and only stopping when the next handhold was physically impossible to reach.