November-December
Well, this sad event was rolling around. I did the best I could to have it forgotten but failed miserably. Any way, we decided to have several get togethers of our various groups rather than one massive big party.
21 November – Shark Fin Inn
We met friends who had a Hong Kong Duck Crawl in common.
I had met Roy in the 70s and then became reacquainted through Julie. Selena, his bride, is a lovely person as is Donna who I met through work close to 10 years ago. We all went to a Duck crawl and other Duck activities in Hong Kong a while back. In fact, JV and I have been to two more HKDCs since. We have also been on three Wine and Food tours with Roy in France. Great friends. We met at Shark Fin Inn and, as usual, Selena did the ordering.
http://www.sharkfin.com.au/Default.aspx?i=0
In conclusion it was a great day – great food, great wine and great friends. A decent start for PM70.
26 November – Jazz Ria, Balwyn
This was a gathering of former work colleagues from the company founded by Hugh and myself (and Dr Bellamy) in 1981. I was so excited that I forgot to take any photos but I have got a few generously provided by Geoff Nicoll and Will Hawkins, from Irina’s camera.
We had each person stand-up and give their name and when they started at BMM. We began with Matt, January, 1992 our first test group member along with Moosad. The folk were surprised when Hugh mentioned our start date of November, 1981 (same for me), not realising we had been along for such a while. We talked about the marriages – e.g. Geoff and Amelia from within BMM. There were many births with the most interesting being Kirk’s Son being refereed in local Footy by one of Geoff’s Sons. We talked about promotions with Kirk having been hired as a Junior techo to conduct Environmental tests is now the CEO of BMM Australasia. We talked about the offshoot – iTech Labs who were well represented today. We talked about divorces – me, Bruce, Hugh. We sadly talked about deaths along the way – Cliff Bellamy a founder of BMM; through Jackie Hartnell, our first employee, her husband Ian and then the sadness of her Daughter Kate in Black Saturday; David Scambler who had passed away the previous October; I forgot to mention my second Wife, Alison who passed away suddenly through cancer after having worked for BMM North America for close to a year.
We were saddened by those that did not attend: firstly shame file for Reni and Priya who promised but did not come; Moosad, James and Jackie that were elsewhere; Sydney people like Mario and Paul, who was badly injured riding to work; people like Guang, Janelle, Elisabeth, etc. who we did not know how to contact.
It was a great roll-up and I thank those people that came especially those who we had not seen for a while. Oh, and Patrick, not me, the proprietor of Jazz Ria. Special thanks to Anna who did serious organising along with Geoff and Amin.
28 November – Ripples, Malvern
Well, the little day I had tried to be made forgotten happened, sob.
The day started well with a Skype video call to our friends Jan and Hugh in Orange County, California. We had met them on our tour of Slovenia and Croatia a couple of years before. It was good to have a glass of wine with them.
We look forward to catching up with these guys in Georgia in June/July 2015.
The conference call lasted so long that we had to sprint out to catch our tram down to Malvern for the lunch at Ripples.
It seems like I cannot find any photos from Ripples other than this one being the latest addition to the Beau Brummel clothes suite from JV.
29 November – Uvadale Castle
At Gary’s place for a dinner for the folk that could not make it to the earlier turns. Again no photos. But later I recorded these for the presents I was not supposed to have received.
7 December – Château Lara at Edgevale
One last turn in the PM70 is a gathering of the music people at Edgevale Road.
So, that is it for the PM70. It was quite a marathon. Thanks to all of the participants, sorry that there not as many photos as there should have been.