Search This Blog

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

The Tale of the Turtle and the Tree

Christin and I celebrated our collective 160th birthday
and I believe the question is legitimate: How many do you know who have reached the ripe old age of 160 ?
Maybe a Turtle, or a Tree.... But since Christin and I have reached this age, we invited 55 friends to a party at a wonderful restaurant on the shores of  Lake Klopein in Carinthia. About 20 minutes by car from our home.
Since I hate it when music is played and everybody sits with a drink in their fist, chatting with their table neighbour, calling the waiter for another bottle of bier or glass of wine... Dishes and cutlery clatter and the Band plays and nobody pays attention. When this happens, I could scream with anger.
So, I promised myself: This will not happen at my party.
The above mentioned Restaurant Seerose has a number of great things going for itself:
A fabulous Chef, great, well schooled staff, a knowledgeable Maitre d'...
Great location on the shores of a lovely lake
Two parallel running rooms, large enough for our purpose.
In the room to the right, we asked for a set up "Theatre Style"  with about 60 chairs.
In the room to the left, a U-shaped table, accommodating the same number of people for dinner.
From 5PM to 6PM there was a concert given by three musicians of my choosing.
You must hear Tonc Feinig play the piano....  he is simply "THE BEST"
To understand the playing of the String Bass, one must hear Stefan Gfrerer.
Now, in my youth I played the Bass in the "Melodies"... Believe me I did not even dream about being just one tenth the player Stefan is.He is fantastic ... he makes the Bass sing....
My old friend, Charly Reicheneder drove on my invitation 4 hours from Braunau to near Bleiburg.
When Charly caresses his Tenor Sax, I have cold shivers running down my spine.
The people LISTENED !!!!! The room was so quiet, you could hear the proverbial pin drop. Everybody was almost mesmerized listening to those three musicians.
When the concert was over, after an hour... much too short to satisfy me... we all moved over to the other part and there, as if by magic, there was a meal on the table about which Christin negotiated with the Chef and the Maitre d' ... Everything had to be "Just so".... and it was.... The best food, accompanied by the best wines.... The last of our friends left at 11.30PM.....
This was on Saturday, the 22nd September... on Sunday, starting about 10AM one friend handed the door handle to the next.... they came in numbers, saying "Thank You for this party... It was an unforgettable event"
Clearly, the Turtle and the Tree were very happy.

We'll do this again when we are 180....
Bertstravels.

2 comments:

Lianne said...

So - you get one birthday celebration just for you and your family and friends as well as a shared birthday bash but Christine only gets the shared celebration? Sounds to me like another party is in order just to celebrate Christine turning 80.

Bert said...

Hey... remember, Christin also was a the birthday party in Unionville... so she got two parties as well...
But, to have another party is not a bad idea...