Meeting an old family friend...

Today I had the wonderful fortune to catchup with a very old, dear family friend from Rockhampton. Sister Andrina was one the first people to befriend my mum and dad when they first arrived in Australia as refugees in the late 70s and lived in Rockhampton. We had lost touch over the years, but over the last couple of years, we have managed to get in touch again and Sr Andrina and I have been emailing each other on and off with little updates.

Sr Andrina was in Brisbane for the day yesterday to attend a meeting and she stayed on today and we caught up... initially it was planned for afternoon tea, but a last minute change saw Beth and me get ready in a flurry of activity in 10 minutes and briskly walk down to the train station and catch a train into the city at 9:20am. (I was mighty impressed with myself for getting ourselves together so quickly!)

We met Sr Andrina at her hotel and had morning tea in the hotel lounge... It was so wonderful to just sit and chat with her... we talked about many things... the past, the present and the future... we reminsced and she told me things that she remembered about my dad and my mum when they were living in Rockhampton... It's hard to describe, but she is one of those people that has a beautiful, calming presence... and considering I hadn't seen her in about 20 years and I only have recollections of her from my childhood memory, it was just lovely to kind of come full circle and talk to her now that i am "all grown up". The 1 1/2 hours that we shared just flew by and Beth was quite well behaved... although she was being her very cheeky self and enjoyed lying under a coffee time and trying to do somersaults in the lobby (she can be so embarrassing!) She also raided and ate everything I had brought in her bag (strawberries, biscuits, muesli bar, fruit box, rice crackers... AND she polished off half of the carrot and walnut muffin!)... It was good that we had morning tea at the hotel, because when she got sick of hanging around us, she just ran back forth between the lounge and the lobby... she was amusing the two young men serving at reception... and one of them was ready to run after her if she ran out the door... it was really quite sweet!

I am so glad I got the opportunity to meet Sr Andrina again after all this time... it has really made my week!

I decided today was going to be pretty much a write-off packing wise... in the afernoon I had to go to the post office to redivert our mail and while we were there, Beth and I sat at a bench and shared a chocolate eclair whilst we watched a pigeon walk around (Beth looooves watching birds!)... then got a call from a photographic store telling me a speedlite that I was buying on Phong's behalf had arrived, so we went and picked that up.

For some stupid reason, I managed to park 4 blocks away from the the photographic store... (and I might also add the footpath is damn hilly too!)... so it took Beth and I almost 20 minutes to walk there (this was because the child wanted to stop ever 2 minutes to pick a flower, touch a flower, walk along a low brick wall, stop in the middle of no where for a break and do other things that almost-2-year-olds like to do! You would never think that talking a 4 block walk could be such an adventure!) It "only" took us 15 minutes to walk back, 'cos I carried her half the way 'cos she was tired!

So that was our busy, social yet productive day. Tomorrow is going to be totally dedicated to packing... so Beth and I will be busy vegemites... (oh, that's happy vegemites isn't it? Oh, you know what i mean!)