We both just spent our last night in Perth with the Trots; or harness racing as it’s more easily recognisable.

Over here, New Year’s Day is celebrated in style with the majority of the town dressing up and spending a day drinking, dining and gambling at the Perth Cup horse races. Not us: at over AUD$200 to acquire so-called “Tentland” tickets to afford us air-conditioning, else spend our time in the heat of day, wearing suits, we decided to give it a miss.

My Welsh Godfather, Uncle Pad and his wife, Milica, are in town visiting his brother, Terry, who lives just north of Perth. They kindly offered to take us to the Trots; and the private members’ lounge, no less. Over the phone, Uncle Pad warned me that I’d “need a pair of slacks” and so Squiffy and I set about the local Salvos (Salvation Army charity shop — it really is officially called the Salvos over here, you know). AUD$27 (under £12) later and I found myself sporting not only navy “slacks”, black shoes, chequed shirt and–wait for it–a black a white, woollen sports jacket! With even less money down, Squiffy kitted herself out with a smart, pink cocktail dress and black low-heels (the only colour shoe that fitted). In fairness, both Uncle Pad and Terry warned me that my sports jacket wouldn’t be necessary: it wasn’t. Still, I wanted to shock my mother my looking smart in at least one of my blog photos!

We all had a lovely time at the races, even though nobody won a sausage from their bets. In fact, Squiffy momentarily lost her budget-conscious head and happily gambled-away all that she could get her hands on. One to watch in the future, methinks (Squiffy adds: oh, $1 per race, that’s a whole fiver. How much money did you pour down your throat in the form of beer DaveB ;o). The members-only lounge was quite an eye-opening venue: for all it’s appearances of a local town social club, it turns out that many of the patrons are secret millionaires in their later years. From Hazel, who would routinely drop AUD$100 on a bet because “you can do that when you get to my age” to Calton, a former race winning horse-owner who would clutch a hand of four betting tickets for each race. And then there was the Australian gent who complained that because of his long-standing patronage “if anyone in here should get a free feed, it’s me”, who turned out to be one of Western Australia’s wealthiest farmers — a multi-millionaire! Nice to meet you all, and good on you!

Thanks very much to Uncle Pad, Milica and especially Terry who, without knowing us beforehand, offered us a place to stay without asking for references first! Your hospitality is unmatched, sir.

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