Rrrrrracing....

Tomorrow is the race that stops a nation.

Yes, it's Melbourne Cup Day.  Here already (where has the year gone?) and instilling a betting frenzy among otherwise sane people everywhere.

Don't get me wrong, I'm having a bet too - in fact mine's already placed - but it'll be a nutter of a day wherever you go.  Women in too high high-heels, too tight and too revealing dresses wearing half a chicken on their heads in the guise of a fascinator; fellas in loud and obnoxious suits in unflattering colours sporting the ugliest tie they could find at Vinnies.  Or is that just what happens around these parts?

For the LOML and I, heading off to another day in the shop, it signals a slow morning, a dead lunch, and then an even slower afternoon.  It might as well be a public holiday given the lack of people out and about.  Particularly out and about gift shopping. 

True, there'll be a few diehards out to prove a point (you know, that the rest of the world is going straight to hell for partaking in a flutter on the nags accompanied by a liquid lunch), it wouldn't be the same without them but as a rule it's a wasted day.  

However, should my trifecta by chance happen to get up, my next post will be from a remote island somewhere off the coast of Thailand.  I may or may not have a cocktail with an umbrella by my side.  Nothing wasted about that.

So here's to a slightly wet track, a good barrier exit and a speedy home straight for my pick Drunken Sailor - with a name like that's it's bound to get plenty of support from the punters of Australia - hopefully enough to push it past the post first!

Go horsey, go!