Happy birthday Andrea!

Thirty-five years is a long time to have a friend. They have to be pretty good to last that distance and my dear friend Andrea certainly fits that category.

We first met because she was a close friend of my boyfriend, at the time, and had come back to Adelaide for a flying visit from a sojourn in France. Fortunately (for me) she didn't stay in France and even though the boyfriend of the time and I went our separate ways, Andrea and I got to know each other well and became great friends.

Today is her birthday, so happy birthday Andrea, may it be an enjoyable one for you. I hope you get at least a bit spoilt, you deserve it. Life has been a bit too free with its slings and arrows in your case lately, my dear and I hope it lifts its game well and truly in the coming year.

This photo was taken at my sixtieth birthday and you can see just how gorgeous this gal is when she gets frocked up!

Much love and bon voyage for your trip which is coming up soon. Have a wonderful time.

Kangaroos and Cars don't Mix

This is the story of something that happened to me a couple of months ago. I had lunch yesterday with Mme Benaut, dear friend and inspirational blogger, and she suggested I should recount this for the edification of others. And to serve as a cautionary tale.

It was, as they say in the classics, a dark and stormy night. In fact it was the night before I was to leave for a weekend in Sydney to celebrate my friend Nina's birthday. Being away from home of course necessitates putting my canine children (Fergus and Scully) up in a boarding kennel, much to their disgust. We've become accustomed to using a very good one at Mylor, (Top Spot Kennels) which although some distance away in the wilds of the Adelaide hills, looks after the dogs really well.

This particular night saw the onset of the autumn rain, with a vengeance. It had been raining steadily all afternoon and by the time I'd dropped the dogs off and turned back towards home, it was already pitch dark at six o'clock or thereabouts and absolutely teeming. While the rain was like manna from heaven to this driest of dry cities, it made driving conditions hazardous in the extreme. This wasn't helped by the fact that the stretch of road between Mylor and Aldgate, the next hills town, is very narrow, winding and dark.

My night-time eyesight is not all it could be, along with all the other failing faculties, so I was peering myopically through the windscreen and feeling fairly anxious already when a huge greyish white apparition loomed up out of the blackness to my left. With an enormous thud it smacked straight into the passenger side of the car knocking it off course and then seemed to disappear. There was nowhere to turn off the road and cars were right behind me so somehow I managed to keep driving, but very hesitantly as I didn't know how badly the car was damaged. I was also in a state of panic because I didn't know what I'd hit. For all I knew at that stage it could have been a person or a child. Visions of being convicted as a hit-run driver flashed before me. A bit further down the road there was a muddy turn-off to the left so I managed to pull in off the road and stop, very shaken. The drivers of two other cars behind me both stopped also to see if I was alright, which was kind of them.

One of them, a young girl, came over and I tried to open the passenger side door but it was stuck. She told me I'd hit a kangaroo as she'd seen it bounce off my bonnet and disappear over the other side of the road. The other driver who stopped was a young man who was really kind and thoughtful and had a very close look at the car for me to see whether it was driveable. He was soaked to the skin, it was raining so hard, but he still got down in the mud and looked under the car to see whether any oil or fluid was leaking out. He then offered to drive in front of me until we got to Aldgate, as by now I only had one headlight. I don't know who he was but I am very grateful for his help. It seemed like the car was alright to drive, in that it had no mechanical problems. Just the slight problem of a busted headlight and missing rear view window on one side, which had apparently been sheared off by the kangaroo.

I felt pretty bad about the kangaroo and was afraid that I might have killed it or at least seriously injured it, but there wasn't much I could do. Subsequently quite a few people told me they are actually pretty tough and unless you hit them full on with a vehicle with a roo bar attached, they often survive without too much ill effect. So I hope that was the case with this one.

It was a hair raising drive home as although I'd negotiated the rest of the narrow, winding hills road I was on, the remainder of the route was not much better and of course it was still raining heavily. Visibility with only one headlight was appalling so I had to keep the working one on high beam, which the approaching drivers probably didn't appreciate.

Finally I got home in one piece, which is more than I can say for the car. I still went away for the weekend and left the disaster locked up in the garage to deal with on my return. It needed quite extensive repairs as it turned out, although fortunately the insurance paid for them, all except the unavoidable excess.

Running into a kangaroo was the last thing I would have expected to happen so close to the metropolitan area, thinking they would only be a concern out in the middle of the outback. But apparently they are not uncommon in that area, and of course there are also lots of koalas. It made me realise that wherever you drive where there are trees and bushland, it's important to be aware of the wildlife that may be around and keep alert to the possibility of an animal getting onto the road. Of course in the case of this one, as it seemed to literally launch itself out of the bush on the side of the road straight into my car, there was little I could have done to avoid it. But I will be a lot more wary driving through those parts in future.

Happy birthday Nina!

My dear friend Nina turned 60 on Saturday, not that you would ever think so from looking at her! Always the soul of elegance, she looked even more gorgeous than usual! We had a wonderful celebration to mark the occasion - not just a great night out, but a great weekend as Nina's lovely daughter Melisha (in the photo below) decided her mother deserved a very special event and arranged a cruise on Sydney Harbour. A small group of close friends and family who come from all over and among whom I was lucky enough to be included, were therefore invited to get ourselves over to Sydney for the weekend where accommodation was arranged for us at a hotel right on fabulous Darling Harbour and join in what turned out to be a fantastic and memorable two days with Nina and her husband Peter (the hunky one with the beard!). The cruise was quite a night as it turned out and as the rain came down we ate, drank, talked, laughed and enjoyed each other's company like a little group of marooned sailors in a leaky boat! As well as making it a birthday which I'm sure Nina will never forget, it was a great experience for her friends and family members, many of whom had not met before in person, to finally do so and understand why they are people who are so dear to Nina. Her three children, Melisha, Aaron and Mark are all very different, but delightful and special in their own unique ways. Nina I know was very touched by all the thought, effort and generosity Melisha devoted to making her 60th such a unique and enormously enjoyable event for everyone who was there. Peter, Nina's gorgeous husband, very generously contributed also and it's clear to see from the photograph how much he enjoyed himself.

Happy birthday dear Nina and I look forward to celebrating the next special one. We both decided waiting until our 70ths for the next big one is too long, and a half decade big celebration is the way to go, so in my case there's a little less time to wait for that, but it will be definitely one to remember, like this one was for Nina!

My dear friend Ginny

I first met Ginny about 9 years ago when she was assigned as my "mentor" on my first day in my new job, and I couldn't have had a better one. She and I have subsequently become great friends and have shared some memorable times together. In one of these pictures we are at my 60th birthday party, with her gorgeous daughter Becky. She also came with me over to Geelong earlier this year when I finally graduated - she insisted on being present as she said she so admired my achievement in getting to the end of a gruelling few years of arduous study while working full time. It was a really special experience for me to have her there. Ginny is always the life of the party - could talk to a stone wall as someone once said, is bubbly, enthusiastic, happy and gregarious. She absolutely adores her two lovely children - Becky, who as I said is breathtakingly lovely and very smart too, and Matt - a tall, athletic and delightful young man - who is on his way to being a lawyer. Both kids are an absolute credit to Ginny, and they equally adore her.

Imagine the shock then when it was discovered in the last couple of weeks that Ginny has cancer. She is today in Sydney undergoing a very major operation, following which she will be subjected to extensive chemotherapy and radiation. Because of the location of the cancer, the surgery will be difficult, long and very invasive and she will need to undergo significant therapy and rehabilitation afterwards. The positive side is that she is still young, otherwise healthy, and has a wonderfully supportive family, a host of friends who love her and because she is a strong and courageous woman, has every chance of beating this.

It is still devastating though to think of this lovely, bubbly woman who has brought such laughter, fun and friendship into my life having to go through this ordeal. I am hoping and praying the surgery goes well and that she makes a successful recovery. Another reminder I suppose, as if we need any more, that life is precious and fragile and the health and vigour we take for granted today can be snatched from us at any moment.

Let's all make the absolute most of the benefits and gifts we have and always be on hand to lend our love, support and help to those of us who have heavy burdens to bear, like Ginny and her family do now.

Mme B - my blogging inspiration

I first became enthused about the idea of blogging, thanks to a tour Mme B kindly gave me of her lovely blog featuring photographs taken around her home and garden, birds, her cats and other delights of the natural world ( do have a visit if you haven't already). She and I have been friends for many years and share an enthusiasm for writing so it wasn't difficult to convince me to have a go. Mme B has created a great network of friends across the world through her blog, to the extent that she and MB plan to visit some of them when they go away in the near future.

This is the real joy of blogging I think, the fantastic opportunities it offers for networking and linking up with people of common interests anywhere across this remarkably globalised world of ours, as well of course as the benefits of keeping family and friends constantly updated on your own life and activities. When most of us lead such busy and preoccupied lives as we seem to today, keeping in touch with friends and family tends to fall further down the list of priorities than it should. They are however very special in our lives, and if this is one way of making that contact easier, then I think it's great!

The above photo was taken of Mme B and her lovely mother some years ago when they were living in Brisbane and I spent a hot and humid but very enjoyable week with them. Think you'll agree they make a very glamorous pair (and still do today)!