Yesterday (my time) was Melbourne Cup Day (first Tuesday in November) and the first time in nearly twenty years that I have spent that day without my darling girl.
In all the years since we had both (effectively) finished our working lives we would get together a little booze, some nibbles, contact our son to see what he thought was a good bet, make a few wagers at the TAB and settle in to watch the day's proceedings at Flemington Racecourse on the box. It was a generally happy day for us for those many years.
The only variation was in 1991 when we were in Melbourne itself because I had sung at the Homegrown Blues Festival on the previous Sunday. On that occasion we still bought a few nibbles, had a few wagers, etcetera but were watching the proceedings on a TV set in our motel room at the Carlisle in St. Kilda before I once again sang with my band, The Blues Whalers on cup night at a pub in South Melbourne.
My dad was also in Melbourne that weekend, having driven down from his home on the Gold Coast in Queensland to visit with my long-lost sister and her family. He stayed for the better part of a month and visited with us at Katoomba on his way back home. He died the following May after an operation on his hip.
Yesterday was also the first, apart from the Melbourne sojourn in 1991, that we had not backed the winner. For our last Cup together in 2006 we had picked both first and second place getters.
This time around I spent most of the day in tears for not having my darling to share the day with. In fact, I almost forgot that it was Cup Day and, although I only outlaid $6.00 in the end, would have got nothing back at the end of the day had it not been for the fact that one of my horses was scratched not long before race time. In the end I only lost $2.00 because I received the full $3.00 for my trifecta and the $0.50 each way on the scratching.
It was also a cold and miserable day, as today is thus far.
I wanted to ring and talk with someone, but who?
In the end I spent the day (and the night) alone with myself and my animals who, on this occasion at least, were of little comfort for hurt I was feeling.
