More about the new job

My third day in the office, and I headed into a 'voices from the field' briefing from the head of our programme in Somalia. I have a whole new appreciation for the job ahead: for me, and for my organisation. How on earth do you get people to prioritise energy management in a country that's so dangerous that the head office is located over the border in Kenya? How do you focus on fuel efficiency in shipping through seas that are so full of pirates that you can't hire ships (from any country) to carry your grain unless you can guarantee them a naval escort? And what's the relevance of vehicle efficiency in a country where most of the roads have been blown up - so part of our job of 'feeding people' becomes 'building roads so we can carry the food to where the hungry people are'.

Tragically, Somalia is also the place where, in the past year, four of our staff have been killed in the line of duty. Their names are on a plaque in the entrance foyer in Rome. I'm in new awe of the work our people do. I've been privileged to work in some pretty 'worthy' organisations in my life thus far: places that do an enormous amount of good.

But this place might just eclipse them all.

Early days in the Eternal City

First weekend on my own has been, frankly, a bit tough. I'm knackered, my italian isn't holding up very well (perhaps I should've expected that, after only 5 weeks of - intermittent - study. Hmmm) and I know absolutely NO ONE here. I've spent the last two days trying to navigate the supermarket, talking to the wall and failing to get past chapter 6 in my textbook. My new flat (home for the next month) is pure woggy kitch - all madonnas on the walls and best china in glass fronted cabinets. The landlady speaks only Italian, and I didn't dare refuse the coffee she had on the hob waiting for me, even though I don't, under any circumstances, drink coffee.

I know I've been a bit shellshocked. In all yesterdays wandering in this great city nothing 'really grabbed' me, apart from two old and ugly blokes who, in separate incidents, asked me for a drink 'only for talking, if you want'. Am I really only attractive to 50 year olds in Italy?

Today has been different. Today, I've caught a bus into town that took me past some amazing stuff - buses really are the best way to join up the dots in a new city, London taught me that - and at last, after 6 days (3 last time, and these last 3) I'm having my first, proper 'Holy crap batman, I live in ROME' moments...

The bus said '170 - Stazione Termini' on it. I know where that is, so I figured I'd hop on and see where else it took me. Turns out it runs along the Tiber, past some beautiful Roman ruins that aren't even named on my maps, then the Circo Massimo, home of chariot races in millennia gone by. On through Piazza Venezia - the square they tell tourists to not even TRY crossing until they understand italian traffic, onward up a winding hill past an irish and a scottish pub to Via Nazionale, then the old-style European Piazza della Repubblica and finally the train station.

This was the Rome I'd been looking for and which, apart from a few soaring moments when I stumbled on the Pantheon, and ate my first cassata beside the Trevi fountain, I hadn't found when I was first here. In those first crazy days, and even yesterday, Rome was overwhelming: with its layers of history all competing for attention over the smell of rotting garbage, piss and stale tabacco, or the cacophony of tourist groups, punctuated by the inevitable loud American.

Suddenly, from the coolness of an airconditioned bus, here were bite-sized pieces that I could file away for future reference, the quiet chatter of Italians, their unfailingly polite routine of 'permesso, prego, grazie' as people squeeze past each other to the doors. Here are places I can come back to to soak up at my leisure, landmarks I can see from a dozen different angles as I rolled out the streetmap inside my head. (Note: you can see the Vittorio Emanuelle monument at Venezia from everywhere. I must learn more about who he was!)

And here I found simple roman elegance, rubenesque statuary, and architecture that reminded me that, after all, I am in one of the leading cities of Europe. And I live here now!

I'm revitalised - I walk more than halfway home, tracing the route and stopping to wonder at the landscapes my mind snapped as I passed them before. I'm going to stop for icecream at the gelateria near my flat, which stocks more than 80 flavours (including sorbets and soy-ice cream, for the vegans out there). And for the first time, I suspect I might quite like Rome for more than just her food and her weather!

Day two, and today was time to tackle my mandatory Basic Safety in the Field training, and then start some real work.

At the UN, 'real work' includes setting up endless meetings, to meet the people I'm going to meet at other meetings, so we can all work together to determine the outcomes of the meetings before they happen... *sigh*. Luckily I'm a very good bureaucrat and understand exactly why all this is necessary.

But back to that training. It was sobering stuff - a reminder that some of my new colleagues work in pretty crazy places, euphemistically known as 'hardship posts'. Over the course of my half-day training, I learned how to identify 5 common types of land mine, what to do if I'm taken hostage, or encounter child soldiers at a road checkpoint (hint: they may be small but those are still real AK-47s. Treat them as you would an adult who's pointing a gun at you), and techniques for coping with the psychological trauma of sexual assault, or being shot at.

I was knackered come hometime. It's been a good 48 hrs, albeit slightly crazyand so far all about the job. I'm looking forward to some downtime this weekend. I'm gonna find me a glass of wine and some of that amazing looking potato and rosemary pizza I saw yesterday, then collapse into bed, wishing ever so slightly that I could catch up with my mates in England for a cider and a song.

First day in Roma

I'm writing this from my new laptop at my new desk at the end of my first day working for the United Nations World Food Programme in Rome.

This absolutely feels as though I'm living someone else's life.

Transport arrangements last night ran like clockwork: amazingly I was hit with NO excess charges, and we were only half an hour late getting out of Heathrow (good by English standards!) which gave me extra nattering time with Julie, a mate from Aus who by crazy coincidence was transitting through Heathrow at the same time. For the first time ever, I was collected at the airport by a driver in a suit carrying one of those placards with my name on it. Our chappie spoke almost no english and drove like a maniac: but it was exciting to be hurtling through the streets of Rome in the dark, passing occasional brilliantly lit monuments - the Colusseum, the Vittorio Emanuelle II monument.... amazing. Despite my fledgling italian he seemed to think that I was worth being nice to (actually, he knew I was moving to Rome for work and probably thought he'd get a tip - which he did, because he was excellent - and return business, which he will). To my amazement, I understood him better than I expected, and remembered more than I thought I could, and we nattered on (actually nattered!) about how lovely Rome is.

Next morning I discovered that breakfast isn't served til 8am, so skipped that but found the train station, negotiated a weekly ticket, and after some faffing about got to work for just after 8.30. We started the day with a team coffee (I had water. Will have to work on that one!), then it was off to HR to meet James the chainsmoking Brit with a fringe long enough to tuck behind his ears, who spent the next two hours showing me the HR ropes. I couldn't believe it. An HR guy who was both helpful and right. So far, the UN is defying all stereotypes.

Spent the rest of the day trying (fruitlessly) to get the computer to talk to the network, as often happens on first days in new jobs, then gave up and asked my boss for some reading to do. But by day's end I had a laptop, a staff pass and a mobile 'on the way'! Eeeep! Oh, and had a meeting with one of our events people, a woman from Japan, about how WFP can 'green' its many, many meetings (the obvious answer - fewer meetings, more emails and phone conferences!).

Off home shortly - will do some food shopping and then just lax out, I think. Wonder if I'll find more of those lush ripe cherries at £1.50 a punnet. Hotel room is tiny (looks like it used to be a store room, but it has a bed, a cupboard and a tv in it, so I can't complain), and the walls are paper thin. Didn't get great sleep last night but think I'll unwind okay tonight. It's not as bad as sharing a room with Sleep Apnoea Guy (see my last trip to Rome for details!) Move into temporary apartment on Saturday morning, for a month.

It's all extremely surreal. I can't believe we're going to be properly living here, in Rome, a city that holds so much for a traveller to see, and paid for the privilege:- by one of the world's leading organisations, no less. I'm a bit scared of failing, but I also feel like I'm standing on the cusp of something amazing. Most of all, I really, really feel like I'm living someone else's life.

Final night in Corn Street, Witney

It's Tuesday night and in a little over 24 hours I'll be arriving in Rome. This time in England is over: there is no automatic right of return to the place that for three years now I've called 'home'.

The final installment of "one mores" has been and gone - Phil and Sophie, musicians who've become dearly loved friends over the past two years, came round to dinner with Phil's son Matt, and we ended up having a final meal at Suwanna Thai, which I still think is the best Thai food in England (closely followed in the 'Far east eats' stakes by Georgetown in Leeds). We've given them custody of my leaving gifts from work, books on castles and medieval cookery, which I received a day early because they're too heavy to carry on the plane, and I'm going straight from the office to the airport.

My bags are packed, ready for the morning. They are hideously over the limit and I'm only praying that I don't have to pay more than 10kgs of excess baggage (the max my new employer will spring for in reimbursement). I've checked for the umpteenth time that I have my passport, and various internet receipts for my flight, shuttle to town and hotel. I start my new job in about 32 hours time and need to hit the ground running, so it all has to run like clockwork when I get in.

One final pint at the New Inn, to offer my thanks and best regards. Most of the regulars are in on Tuesdays, so there are good wishes and a quiet 'well done' from the landlord, Martin, who is also well travelled and understands that this new post is a bloody big deal.

I'm knackered, but I don't quite want to go to bed - I'm not ready for tomorrow to come. This feels like it's happening to someone else - all the buildup, the angst at work that prompted me to look for a new job, the thousands of times I asked Ants 'are you SURE you would really live in Italy, cos I'm taking this job if you say yes one more time', packing up the beautiful home we made together just a few short months ago, and now leaving friends behind who have also filled the shoes of our families who are so far away. And I have needed them - the work stuff over the past 6 months has been brutal. Even now that it's over, I do not feel I have the mental resources or resiliance I had, or am used to having, and I feel a bit under-manned and half dressed.

I'm nervous as hell on so many fronts - I kinda liked Rome, but I didn't love Rome at first sight the way I did with, say, Brussels, or Vienna, or even Hong Kong. Three months ago I had no serious thought of ever going to live in Italy, and I spoke only enough italian to order a pizza. (I'm not much better now, truth be told!).

Anthony is putting a lot of faith in me, by agreeing to put his career on hold and be a househusband, for six months if need be - although we hope to find him work, he has a knack for 'something turning up'. I'm scared I might hate it. I'm scared I might love it but he hates it. Most of all I'm scared of letting him down, that the gamble won't pay off and we can't make it back.

The one thing I'm truly confident about is the job itself. This is exactly the role I shaped myself for when I started my masters back in 2002 and have subconsciously worked towards ever since. I feel I was made for this job and, barring unforeseen dickheads in the office, feel certain I can make a success of it.

There's one more thing I'm confident of - Ants may have misgivings about this too, but he's prepared to back it, so I need to make it work. It's time now to sign off, head upstairs to our airbed on the floor one last time, tell my husband I love him, and get some sleep.

'One more before I go'

It's been a solid week of goodbyes. I feel slightly bewildered - I wasn't quite ready to leave Witney and Oxford, so there's a welling up of grief and even loss at going, no matter how exciting the adventures to come. But I'm also aware of being carried on an immense tide of goodwill, from people who are sad to see us go, but so, so supportive, encouraging, and who will be willing us to come back to England when we're done.

It started last Monday, with a trip to the Bell folk club at Adderbury. I still think Jules was telling woppers when he said it was only 15 minutes from his place (else I don't want to know what speed he drives at when he's alone in the car!), but this community of singers has made us both very welcome over the past 6 months - and Ants too , when he's been able to make it. We all sang up a storm tonight - and Sheena and Dave and various other regulars looked genuinely dismayed when I said I couldn't make next fortnight - or the next dozen or more after that. I went home feeling warm and buzzy. England has given me an enormous gift, an open door to the folky world - I've played at a festival, made recordings, sung in countless pubs with countless musicians, many of them far more experienced than I. This generosity, and talent, is what I will miss most when I go.

Wednesday saw Jules and I tee up one last time, back where it all began, at Open Mike night in Grandpont. I still remember the first time Jules came in to the Marlborough arms pub. He played 'The Dance' and I was spellbound. It was like meeting an old friend for the very first time, words and music both new and yet achingly familiar. Guy recorded us and, when he handed the master over on Sunday, wasn't kidding when he said he thought it might be our best yet. We've promised to stay in touch and send each other songs to learn, so don't think you've heard the last of 'Wytham wood' just yet!

Friday was our 'official' leaving drinks. I tried to break with tradition and escape the dreaded Red Lion in Eynsham, but the bloody Queen's Head was closed 'til 5.30 (and the Star just ain't the same since Ollie left), so there we were.

Bolted out of there by 6 to get buses into town in time for Happy Hour (half price cocktails) at the Duke of Cambridge on Little Clarendon St. I have the lovely Helen to thank for this place - they do an amazing concoction of cherry liquer and chocolate and cream and it's like drinking a black forest cake. Lush.

Super cool surprise! Mandy Connell arrived from Newcastle (in fairness, she was on her way to stratford anyway). She'd texted a week before to say 'I'm here for 5 months, we're all gonna have the best-est summer!' and we had to explain that our summer was gonna take place a little further south. But so, so amazing that she made it for this! Typical Aussie style, she turned up with backpack, guitar case and a mandolin. Never bring what you can't carry. Brenda, Nicola, Malcolm, Tess and Zoe rounded out our merry band, but when the cheap drinks ended, it was time for stage 3 of our progress and we hopped a bus back to Witney.

The New Inn was jumpin' by the time we arrived - the Company of Chivalry had migrated in force from Bristol and it was Friday, so a lot of the regulars were in their usual places. I hugged Ants and told him how amazed and thrilled I was that the Company'd come all this way just for us. He reminded me that he'll be here for another 4 weeks and will see them lots. They weren't here for him, he said. I nearly cried. I might've actually. I was a bit soused.

We sang, we ate fried stuff, we talked, we drank - o how we drank! - and Martin finally booted us all out well after closing. We slept 10 people in our 2 bedroom cottage that night - 2 on the floor in our room, two in the spare bed, Kate the Witch alone in the loungeroom (how'd she do that - it's the biggest room in the house?), 3 in the loft, and us.

I cooked brekkie all round the next morning, Ants took Mandy to the station (the bus waited for her - they don't DO that in England!), the company left, and I burst into tears at the thought of all those dishes, and the prospect of moving with a hangover.

Somehow, we got it all done. Furniture to Zoe's, a truckload to storage in Bristol, racing the clock to arrive in time so we'd be allowed to unload. Thankyou Si and Badge who put their own hangovers aside to give us a hand!

Endless cleaning Sunday. We were late to our 'next' farewell: dinner at the Kaz Bar and one last session at the Half Moon. That crazy but brilliant Heather Payton came all the way from London to say g'bye, Folly Bridgers and Half mooners were there in force. The Kaz Bar didn't disappoint - it never has! Then it was over the road for singing and one last Aspalls, before switching to softies for the drive home. Singing 'it's hard to be leaving old England' had a poignancy all of its own that night...

Last but not least - Advice Liners past and present, and friends, as my last Monday rolled around. Where else - it had to be the Fleece in Witney. I've not had a better meal any where else in England, and at no meal at the Fleece have I had company quite this good. Hannah Savory was a special guest - complete with card wishing me 'in boca al lupo' - 'good luck, although more literally something about entering the mouth of a wolf, which is perhaps more accurately how I feel! At Eliza’s insistence, we finished up on church green with a bottle of champers and a stack of glasses. Oh! And check out my groovy leaving present from the A-team - a blend of 'roman' and 'leader' apparently. I love it and wish I could pack it and take it with me.
Actually, there's a lot I want to pack into my suitcases tonight - or maybe I just want the new job to be based here. I learned when I left Melbourne that it's people you miss most when you go somewhere new. There are plenty of folk I still miss from Melbourne, who won't really be any closer, and a lot of people who I haven't met yet in Rome and that will be fun, but right now, I'm carried on this wave of love and respect, good wishes and a touch of admiration from some, that makes me feel very, very special here in England.

Y'all better come and visit!

It's not just what you're given...

Dick Gaughan has been opening gigs for more than 20 years with a song that makes my heart surge and my tummy get goosebumps. The chorus is everything I try to live my life by.

"It's not just what you're born with, it 's what you choose to be.
It's not how big your share is, it's how much you can share it.
And it's not the fights you dreamed of, but those you really fought.
It's not just what you're given... it's what you do with what you've got.'

(written by Si Kahn)

Amazing. And that was just the beginning - but a very exciting start to our second 'farewell to folk' music adventure in England. (Ironically, he's also a Scotsman - although he at least still lives in Scotland).

Dick Gaughan is, I think, the kinda bloke I want to sit down and have pints with, and talk about life. His songs are rich in pro-scottish sentiment, without being anti english: he wrote 'both sides the tweed' about the importance of England and Scotland working together. He takes the mickey out of religious fundamentalism - including those uniquely Scottish christians, the Calvinists - he sings about history and unionism and the power that one person, or many folk all pulling together, can have.

And, like Luka Bloom, and Pat McKernan, and other truly great folk artists, he is just one man with a guitar on a stage, but his singing, his playing and his chatter fill the room, and you leave feeling like you've witnessed something very special.

PS Melbournites take note - we saw him play at this amazing venue called the Limelight theatre in Aylesbury. It was just like being in Northcote - the limelight is a former school, turned into a performance space, with a little bar run by volunteers. The sense of community was awesome, and I missed you guys!

And the man played...

I remember when I went to my first ever Oxford Folk Festival, finding it absolutely hilarious that Eric Bogle albums were kept in the Scottish Music section of the CD stand. After all, the man who wrote songs like 'Now I'm easy' (an ode to a NSW farmer), or that great Australian classic 'And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda', well it doesn't matter where a man was born, he's an Aussie now, surely.

And yet, when you hear him speak, forty years after he left his homeland, there's no mistaking the soft scottish brogue and dry northern wit. As he stood up the front at Hitchin Folk Club joking with his old mate John Munro, the pair of them were pure Scots.

I didn' t dare miss this gig - Bogle's only one within coo-ee of Oxfordshire before I leave for Italy (and still nearly a 2 hr drive away!). It's his last ever tour of the UK - getting too old for the trip, he reckons, and heaven only knows when I'll next be home at a time that he's gigging there.

And he was brilliant.

It's always amazing, when you hear a voice so familiar from recordings, in real life for the very first time. Every intonation of every line is familiar, but richer than your CD, and ever so slightly different. Every old song he played was imbued with memories, wrapped up in Bogle's own stories of where they came from.

'Now I'm easy' is a song Ants and I learned in our early days - this night we learned it's about a NSW farmer Bogle met in a pub and, he says "we traded life stories. I was workin' as an accountant at the time, so his life story was a fair bit more interesting than mine". Another was of a bloke he met at a party in Adelaide "he said he was a merchant banker. I dunno if he was, but what he was, is a fair rhyme for that". I wondered how many people in the room would know that the two places he'd just mentioned were nearly two days' drive apart.

As songs we knew and loved mingled with songs we'd never heard, and with poignant stories and witty banter, we felt privileged to be there.

I'd not appreciated before just how strong is the anti-war theme in his music. Right throughout, his repertoire is rich in protest - anti greed, pro peace, pro environment, pro people. It's not just the waste of life in 'Wille McBride (aka 'The Green Fields of France, but titled 'No man's land' by its author!), or 'The Band Played Waltzing Matilda'. It's the lamentation of the death of the mighty Murray river, the disrespect shown to the hard living farmer. But his songs are also rich in celebration - of the lives of aboriginal people and beliefs in the Coorong, in songs like Lost Souls, written for a group of boys who took a handful of Coorong sand to a grave in Belgium, and brought back a lump of clay, so that after nearly 90 years, the spirit of their relative could find his way home.

Best of all, it was a folk club, not some big festival or touch-me-not concern. John Munro manned the CD stand at interval, and Bogle and Ants were about the only two smokers in the place, so when Ants went out for a fag at half time and after the show... there he was! We wandered up to say hello, and thank you, and to tell him his stories about Australia were making me homesick (which was true).

When all was sung and done, we collected the car from the parking spot we'd scored RIGHT in front of the pub, and started the two hour trek home, satisfied that every mile had been worth it.

A rare voice

My notes on tonight wouldn't be complete without a word about Miriam Backhouse, who played the opening spot. We'd actually passed her on the stairs, her waistlength platinum hair reminding me of the very gorgeous Maggie McCathie, a mate from Melbourne.

Described in several places as a 'now-obscure' singer of the 70s, lately living in South Africa, there's a retro quality to a lot of Backhouse's singing, but very much after the fashion of a Joan Baez, or the Sandy Denny of old. And, like them, what a voice! From soaring soprano to lilting alto, rich with inflection and experience and... I want to sing like that then I have her years.

She made us laugh, too, with her solo wit that's far harder to sustain than two old men who bounce off each other's riposts; and then she made us cry, with songs about boys who died under apartheid, and the mothers who mourn them.

A fine first act, indeed, she was, for the headliners to come, but also a powerful performer in her own right. England and her music scene never ceases to amaze me.

It's this I'll miss most when we leave.

English, as it ought to be

A lot of my English friends don't understand why moving to Italy has me scared half out of my pants. "I'd be terrified if it was me," they say, "but you moved half way around the world already. Italy is only two hours away".

True enough. But when I left Melbourne, the trip was more than 12 months in the planning (not two!), and coming to a place where I already had about a dozen friends, and even family (Sam, I mean you!) here already; and the language, system of government and even the side of the road you drive on were all the same.

At this point they usually remind me I was wrong about the language. English is not the same as Australian (although, it has to be said, most English people speak worse English than I do). I very quickly gave up trying to explain concepts like spaz, wog, or daggy (although 'the dress sense of 90% of english people' would do nicely on the last one).

It took me months, when I first arrived, to get used to my boss saying 'Morning Georgi, you alright?'. 'Yeah fine, why - do I look sick? Has my hair been messedup in the wind?'.

I wish someone had told me that over here, calling somone "fit" means you fancy them like mad, not that they're in better shape than you expected. (Yes, I was describing someone senior at work).

After three years here, I never say 'pants' anymore when I mean trousers, and I understand that, for people of my parents' generation, 'pants' and 'knickers' are both mild swear words... oh, and a 'twat' is not just a funny pronunciation of the word 'twit' (yep, used that one at work too.
oops). Long weekends happen because we have 'bank holidays', I sleep under a duvet not a doona, bogans have become 'chavs' and scrags turned into 'mingers'. It's years since I tried to call a hot bloke a 'spunk' - in this country, that's what he makes, not what he is!

Although I made myself stop in my tracks the morning I passed one of the 'born and bred in Witney' lasses at work and out of my very own mouth came the local customary greeting of 'hiyaaaaaaaah, y'a'riiiight?' Never again.

I will say this for the English language, as spoken in its native land. Nowhere else can you use words like bespoke; poorly; ill; quaint, horrid, mocked or archaic; without sounding like a complete wanker. Frightfully English? Indeed. But if not here, then where? And I have to say, the words for truly great stuff - spendid, marvellous, wondrous - these totally eclipse their coarse Aussie equivalents like 'grouse', 'bonza' and even 'bloody brilliant'.

I was trying to explain all this to my colleague Claire, on the walk down from the bus one morning."Oh!" she exlaimed, laughing her arse off. "That's just super!"

'Nuff said.

A picnic in the forest

We had friends over last weekend (Huw and Gill), who brought their daughters who are eight and ten. I love it when kids are still kids at that age. Our house has a loft space under the roof - carpeted, with a skylight and electric light and all. You reach it by climbing up a retractable ladder through the manhole in the spare room. You should have seen the looks on their faces as I pulled the rope that releases the ladder... I've read descriptions of kids hopping with delight - now I've seen it, complete with choruses of 'oh wow. Oh Wow!' They were up the ladder and claiming their hidey hold lickety split - although it didn't take them long to realise that if they pulled up the ladder, there was no room for thm to sleep haha! But that was by no means the main attraction. There's a roman villa near our place, ruined, but with some amazing mosaic floors still intact. You can also see bits of underfloor heating (hypocausts) and the remains of the baths. Amazing. Some of you may remember that, after my friend Dan showed me this place (yes, it's the one Bill Bryson writes about in Tales of a Small Island), I vowed to come back with a Roman picnic.

And we did!

No dormice, I'm afraid, but certainly plenty of crazy roman goodness. Cheese pastry bites, made by rubbing flour and cheese together to look like breadcrumbs, then adding an egg, frying in oil, coating in honey and rolling in poppyseeds. 'Savoury fritters': take red chicory (or other bitter leafy lettucy thing) and chop finely. Add flour, red wine, salt and pepper to make a batter, then fry in olive oil until it looks for all the world like hamburgers. Then make everyone guess what's in it! We also had ham in a fennel and red wine sauce, feta cheese with honey and pepper, creamy cheese with herbs, asparagus, honey cake... oh, and lashings of beer, wine and cider. Mmmm. The sun obligingly shone all afternoon, taking the temperature to a balmy 21oC! The girls wrestled Anthony in the grass (he let them win... or so he says), and I took them paddling in the stream and to find wild garlic in the woods. (It's 14 and raining today, but hell, it's Englandl That's how it works here.)
Last but not least, it turned out to be a weekend of random coincidences. We'd worked out a little while ago that Huw and Anthony share exactly the same birthday - both born April 28, 1972. I figured that with that, and the fact that they're both tall hairy men who love history and folk music, they were bound to get along. Even more uncannily, Gill grew up about 500 metres from me in Knoxfield (mum, if you're reading this, Rickards Avenue). That put her on the wrong side of the boundary for my primary school, and she went to Knox Park. But she went to high school with most of my old crew, and we had some funny, funny stories to share.

Wish we'd had them up here sooner, and more often. But it's one helluva weekend worth of memories to take away with us! Thank you.