The social calendar is all in place now for us to catch up with friends. The last few days have been busy with catching up with our good friend Russell who goes back to our first time in Brisbane in 1992. Russell often use to come over to the Calgary office for work and we would have him over to our place for dinner. He remembers Maples our dog well as every time he took off his shoes to come into the house, Maples would get excited and jump up his leg and excitement we’d all over his socks.
Fraser went into the city to catch up with another old work colleague Buffo who is now working for another company and mentioning that retirement is also on the cards for him. Lunch time saw us catch up with Alison who worked in Calgary for six months and is now working for BHP and going great guns. She says she is up for long service leave at the end of the year and she is only 30!!!
Last night we caught up with Robert and Robyn who we haven’t seen since 2003. They had done a stint in the Calgary office back in 2001 and we went around one evening to pick their brains about their experience. Nearly 16 years later we return to tell them of our experience. One of their sons was there and he is now 24 of which we certainly didn’t recognize him.
Our evening didn’t get off to that great a start as Frasers phone fell out the car splat onto it’s face.
Bugger, $100 later and it has a new face. We haven’t done much today except go to Bunnings to get some chair tips for Nick and some groceries out at the Indooroopilly shopping centre. We use to shop here back in 1992 and it has certainly gone upmarket quite a bit since our day.
We discovered lots of different varieties of Tim Tams whilst looking for the good healthy food and did well by not purchasing any of them. We cannot believe how many varieties they now have of these biscuits. Of course being ex-pat Aussies, you always crave for what you can’t have.
Brisbane is a bit tricky to get around because of the river. It divides the city in two and from our observations there are not that many bridges that cross it. It is a very easy city to live in as it hasn’t got the huge populations of Sydney and Melbourne but the humidity in summer can be stifling. We have been experiencing it since we have been here and can’t understand how we managed to live here before without air conditioning.
We are on a bit of a low today as it is one year to the day since we lost grumpy, stubborn Miss Maples.
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