Once upon a time....

there was a young girl who I met when I first came to live in Perth. Bill's Dad & Dorothy had moved across the Nullabor a couple of years earlier and Dorothy's two children lived with them. Lesley was just a young teenager when I met her for the first time in 1977 and went on to become a Sister-in-law to me and Auntie to David & Gareth. Time marched on as it does and people grow up, leave home & lose touch and with Dad & Dorothy both marrying other people many years later it seemed that our relationship was over. That is until the advent of electronic media that abounds today and it was a pleasant surprise to receive a 'friend request' from Lesley last year.

So a year has passed with us chatting via FB & email and at last the occasion arose when we could meet. Lesley now lives in Canberra and a trip to Melbourne for a training course gave us just the excuse we needed to finally meet each other again and see what each of us has been doing for the last 28 or so years. The only bit of bad news was that Bill could not join us as he was in Sydney for a couple of days.

We decided that dinner would be the ideal event for our reunion and we had a wonderful night. Lesley was staying just around the corner from home so I was able to wander up after work and from there we then popped around another corner to a lovely little restaurant called The Olive Tree. From our initial meeting until we left the restaurant, (the last people to leave), we had a wonderful night reminiscing and learning of each others adventures since we last met. We have vowed that it will not be another 28 years till we meet again and look forward to Bill joining us next time as well. Oh, and the food was great too.

The weekend was another opportunity to catch up with friends and this time we had a yummy dinner with Astrid & Hans at Society in Bourke St before heading off to see Dr Zhivago at Her Majesty's Theatre. I have never ever watched the movie or read the book so did not know too much about the story. Such a sad tale and so very well done. It was a wonderful production and we all enjoyed it immensely. Anthony Warlow as always was just magnificent.

And then on Monday night another 'reunion' with a surprise visitor from Perth. Angelino has been a good friend for many years and last time he was in town we missed each other. We were flying off to Bali as he was arriving. It was great timing this time as Bill was not leaving for another day and so we had a fun night catching up over dinner at The Rising Sun. Good steak, good wine and good friends, what better way to start a week. It was great to see him again and also hear how Wanda, Tyler & River are doing. The girls have all grown up now in the six years since we left and to see photo's of young ladies instead of little preschoolers was a bit of a surprise. Where does the time go we asked.

We said goodbye to Angelino and paid close attention to the news regarding the Ash cloud over Southern Australia, maybe Bill would not be going anywhere this week after all. We'll wait and see what tomorrow brings.

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