Date: 15 January

Location: Hard Pressed, early (as per my cursed habit) and waiting for Papabear.

Oh, the Portsea Polo weekend, was a crazy, crooked fairytale of a weekend.

We lucky, fay creatures who are free from the 9 – 6 grind fled rainy Melbourne for Portsea early. I had been entrusted with the keys and alarm code to Bunky’s beautiful Portsea beach house and all went relatively well until, between carting in carloads of stuff (Cards Against Humanity decks, pizza ingredients, outfit selections, hat) the gate to the family castle slammed shut. I froze. It started to drizzle. 100km from any spare set of keys with 20 people heading in this direction, I pulled it together and did what any sensible girl regretting wearing a skirt that day would have done: I dragged the bin to the tall fence, scaled it and braved the long drop into the wet back garden. Of course — because I am me — I slipped and ended up covered in mud, but I was in.

One shower and a few hours later everything was much rosier. The others dripped in, bearing suit bags and more pizza toppings and music suggestions. We made about twenty thousand pizzas in the house’s modest oven, we played a lot of Mariah and Beach Boys (I have this playlist called ‘Caffeine and Champagne’ that I listen to while doing my makeup that occasionally gets a public airing when the mood is just right) and Cards Against Humanity, drunken yoga pose-offs happened, one of the boys made cocktails.

We spent Saturday morning attempting to magic away the visible damage inflicted by those same cocktails and just generally making ourselves pretty. Princes and princesses both. Some might even say the princes were hogging more mirror space.

The polo itself flew by in a pastel whirl. The rain stayed away, cameras snapped, the cocktails were strong and, onfield, someone won the match. Andy Murphy DJ-ed in our marquee and managed to get everyone dancing (on grass, in daylight– no mean feat right?), helped along by champagne aplenty, and a glitter canon that sporadically rained golden glitter confetti over the whole affair.

(Ed: 6 days later I would ask the doctor to take a quick look at my eye and, bewildered, she will extract a sizeable piece of glitter confetti from my eyeball.)

Saturday night involved shots and dancing in the sweaty dark and cavernous basement of the Sorrento Hotel followed by some old school skinny dipping at Shelly Beach.

Sunday involved the inevitable hangovers and Bloody Marys while The Planeteer cooked up litres of huevos racheros which, together, vanquished the hangovers for long enough to muster everyone back down to Shelly Beach (clothed this time.) There we dipped and napped the afternoon away. Before I knew it I was horrendously sunburned and it was home time. The highlight of Sunday was without a doubt an incident that occurred a few minutes after we’d set off for the beach. Tassels, last out of the house, had armed the alarm and we were trudging along the sandy path when we heard the distant stinging wail of a house alarm. Then our phones all began to buzz. The group had been sent a Facebook message: ‘Could whoever put the alarm on please come back and turn it off’. One of the poor boys had been left in the shower and, stepping out wet and naked, had set off the house alarm. I would later find a 10 second voicemail on my phone from him that was all alarm. Slow clap for this guy.

Funny, the polo weekend usually produces pages and pages of dramatic incidents, gossipy tales and ‘news’. Our large friendship group is as incestupus as a 90210 high school. We’ve all kissed someone(s) and been on at least one side of a declaration of undying love. This year, save some awkward bucking horns between Joey and an ex-flame of hers, there was hardly a ripple. (Though, thanks to the skinny dipping, there were plenty of nipples. Sorry, couldn’t resist). And yet, it was still just the most charmed of weekends.

Could we be growing up?

(Ed: Upon reflection, this seems unlikely.)

Love

Alex

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