'The boys are back in town!'

was the theme for a great weekend of fun & memories, many of which had been submerged for many years.The reason for this big walk down memory lane was the 39th Reunion of the 25RADAPP's known as Frogs. For those who don't know, Bill was a Radio Apprentice in the Airforce based at Laverton in 1971 & 1972. The reunion was the brainwave of two friends who had completed the course, did their 20 years and many years later met another 'fellow' in a bar. ( Yes, a real Fellow). This got the grey cells wondering where all the other guys were and so began a year long search to see who would jump out the woodwork. The boys and their helper's did a great job finding about 40 of the 62 original boys who joined up in 1971. People came from all over Australia for the weekend and the winner for the longest distance travelled came from Dubai. Bill & I travelled the shortest distance.

The big event took place at The Rydges Hotel in the city beginning on Friday evening and concluding with brunch on Sunday. With photograhic name tags the meet & greet on Friday night was a great success and as you can imagine there where lots of 'no way what happened to you'. The comment most said to Bill all weekend was how fit he now looked and had he been running marathons. Memory does play tricks but he does not remember being a chubby little thing. Perhaps he just hadn't grown then and the baby fat looked different on a shorter guy. Hairstyles, or should we say lack of, was also a constant source of amusement.

On Saturday all the guys boarded the bus and were taken on a trip back in time with a visit to the RAAF base in Laverton where they had all begun their journey together. They were given a tour of the base and spent some time recreating the original photo taken at the beginning of 2nd Year. The rest of the trip was spent in the Officers Mess. Code for BAR I believe. They all behaved and enjoyed the memories. Mind you some of them had to come home for a Nanna Nap before the big event on Saturday night. How things have changed!

Held in Bobby Dazzlers the main event was a great dinner and presentation put together by Trevor (the oracle), who seems never to forget anything, & Shane who checked all his details with Trevor. Loads of laughs and lots of memories were jogged as the many photo's were flashed up on the big screen. To see all of the men as 'kids' of between 15 & 18 years old was a source of much amusement to everyone including the WAGS.


What did the women do while all this was going on for the weekend? With our name badges reflecting the before & now photo's of the man we were with it was easy to meet people and we all enjoyed catching up. Some of us knew each other from many years ago and others met some lovely people for the first time. Saturday afternoon was free time and everyone made the most of a lovely afternoon in Melbourne. 2 of the girls from Perth decided that I could be their tour/shopping guide and we headed off to Docklands to 'do' Harbourtown & DFO. This was after a late night excursion to China Town, The Croft Institute and Fed Square the night before.

A very noisy Sunday Brunch finished the event and the weekend was deemed to be a huge success. We have all left looking forward to keeping in touch and maybe doing it all again in a few more years. Bill & I spent the afternoon with friends, Rick & Helen, who we had last seen many years ago in Perth and had a lovely time catching up over a lesuirely lunch at Blue Train Cafe at Southgate.

With the fun over it was time to come back to the present day and return to the usual Sunday night tasks like ironing the shirts for Bill to pack for his next trip away. Boring perhaps but with an early morning flight I wasn't getting up in the morning to do it.

until next time..........

Fun times in Feburary

We finished January off with a bang bopping along to the great music of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons when we went to see The Jersy Boys at the Princess Theatre. We had a great night and can highly recommend it when it comes to a theatre near you.

The following Saturday night we walked up the road to the new home of the Melbourne Theatre Company and had a change of pace seeing the play 'The Swimming Club' with John Waters & Angela Punch Macgregor. Set on a Greek Isalnd it was a very entertaining story. It was a good night and the Bailey's Cheesecake after the show finished it off just perfectly. Very bad for us but yummy.

The next weekend I deserted Bill and joined Mum for the weekend at Halls Gap for the Grampian's Jazz Festival. Just like last time we had a ball and thoroughly enjoyed the four days we spent there. Whilst most of the time I was in the main Marquee with the Trad Jazz, I did wander and see some of the other bands featuring Jump, Jive, Swing and Mainstream Jazz. Each night we joined the many others in the coffee shop while the muso's just 'jammed' and entertained us into the wee small hours. Luckily home was just a 5 min walk away from the coffee shop.

With about 5000 people descending on the tiny town of Halls Gap for the 4 days the festival is an amazing thing to be part of. About 50 bands play over 9 venues during the festival and keep everyone entertained. With a forecast that looked glum the Gods decided to be kind to us and we had beautiful weather for the whole 4 days. Blue skies & sunshine with mild days made for a great time for everyone there. The spectacular scenery of the Grampians combined with the music at every turn makes for a magical weekend. You can't help but enjoy every moment. We did.

With the festival finishing at 6.00pm on Sunday one of the highlights was the picnic tea where a group of Musicians joined the party and played for 3 hours until it was too dark to see anymore. They had played all weekend in many combinations but seemed like they could not stop at all. At one stage there were 10 of them all having a great time as were all of us lucky listeners. What a night.

It was very hard to leave on Monday morning to come home but all good things have to come to an end. Back to work on Tuesday and a 5 min catch up with Bill before he headed of to SA for the next few days. I got 3 nights R & R before the challenge of the next weekend. More later

until next time.........