Holy lasagne

I finally heard back from my old parish priest. Let me explain. Heath's challenge was set out thusly: Re-organise a meal with Father Harry Cotter (wherever he is) and have all the original people there that was at the first one, and cook the lasagne.

Back in my early high school days, I attended a small Catholic school. I'm not going to lie, it was a bit horrible. Not because of the school itself, I suppose, more to do with the fact there were only 14 kids in our graduating Year 10 class, only 4 of whom were girls, and most of whom I shared little-to-no interests with. Music, however, was always a good salve, and Heath and I spent a lot of time singing in church for school masses. Heath is actually the only person I spent my entire school life with. Our stage debut was in Kindergarten - a production of Peter Rabbit where he played Mr McGregor (I can still picture him waving his tiny pitchfork at that darned rabbit) and I was a garden cat (it was a non-speaking part that mostly involved staring into a fishpond). In second grade, I learnt I could hit more high notes than most and was cast as Snow White, which is ironic since I was possibly the darkest kid in the class. Heath was already well aware of his musicality and was cast as Prince Charming. So began years of eisteddfods, school choirs, stage productions, performances, and a thankfully-short-lived covers band in which I convinced myself I could play drums for a while.

Anyway, I digress - during our later stints doing psalms in 2-part harmony, we started getting invited over to Father Kevin Barry-Cotter's place after church for what has gone down in history as some of the greatest lasagne ever created. Now, I remember the Christmas where we accidentally set his advent wreath on fire (don't worry, we managed to extinguish it before Father BC came back into the room), but I'm slightly ashamed to say that I don't recall much about this group dinner that Heath is talking about. I have a fairly good idea who would have been there. I've contacted a few of those people and so far all seem remarkably open to the idea of a reunion, even though nobody seems to know exactly who was present.

I tracked down Father BC. I had actually already tracked him down prior to my wedding when I was having a small religious crisis, but it turned out he had no recollection of who I actually was. Reassuring. So I was pleased to receive confirmation this morning that he is still in Cootamundra, a town 400kms-ish from Sydney, and a few hours from my old hometown. The message was from one of the Sisters on his behalf as he is on sick leave, but apparently he is delighted to hear from me! So I've been advised to call after the 17th when they expect him to be back on his feet. In the meantime I guess I should figure out who else was at dinner.

PS. Working on a public holiday is great. I'm actually getting stuff done. They should let me have the building to myself more often.