DINK AND FRIENDS DOWN UNDER
Tindink flew out of Australia last night after her second long stay, with only eight months at home in the UK in between.
While back in the (to her) miserable, cold, wet and gloomy UK she had longed to be here in the sun and among cheerier people – and back she came!In spite of frustration at times with internet connections and losing contact with people she loves, she did absolutely blossom here! She will blanch when she reads these words in a day or two, wondering what’s coming next and I do like to keep her guessing … so what am I going to tell them about you, Dink?
Through Dink I have met some fantastic people, such as her daughter,
son-in-law and grandson, and our friends Greg and Dianne.
Actually, Dink and I only met G and D on this trip but the four of us bonded like
Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, since we shared a hotel suite on our first
two nights together!
Greg was just a good internet friend until we all met up last October, but
since then he and his wife and Dink and I have loved getting
together and I smile when I remember how good Greg was in bed.
And out of it!
What I really meant to say is that Greg has a great bedside manner, but
you’ve got to get the suggestion of sex into it to hold people’s attentions
on these networks, I find; especially the young ones.
I am not sleeping with you, she said, and rang hotel reception.
Separate beds were arranged and we have never shared more than a hug since.
She does like a big hug though.
But I am not going to tell you anything private and personal about Tindink except that she is more than the sum of her parts as shown in her internet play spaces here and there, and she is popular, both online and IRL, because she is genuinely benevolent and also a very attentive friend.
If you weren’t hearing from her personally as much as usual over the last five months, rest assured it was only because her lifestyle was different here. She was busy with family, or on the move — but never stopped asking me how various SU friends were and what she was missing. When she gets home she has a lot of people to catch up with, 700 photos to go through and a bunch of forms to fill out.Greg has already decided she must live in Miranda, in the southern suburbs of Sydney, and I can point her to a craft and scrapbooking shop there too. The arrangement seems perfect.
Conulla Beach photographed by Greg
Distances in Australia, and even Sydney, are large.
It was a two-hour trip yesterday, for example, from near the centre of the city, where I live, to Cronulla
Beach, where we spent our last day. It’s not like my old home city in NZ
where 20 minutes is a long commute.
I laugh thinking of his goofy grin, and at his wry and mischievous humour; but am also fascinated with his stories of a completely different experience of life than my own.
He is quite unusual for an Aussie guy in being – er sorry, average Aussie guys – interesting, intelligent and well-read, although like them in being very friendly and unpretentious. Dink was and is a national Treasure with a cap T – so nicknamed by our Cloggo, who thinks the world of her — but Greg and his sweetheart of a wife were fabulous new “finds” for me as well from these last few months.
Tiny companions photographed by Greg photographed by Dink

