It was in the early 1990's when I met a good looking, tall, gold prospecting guy. Just to be clear, the guy is not my husband today.
On our first date we went out for coffee, then a movie. The strange choice was 'Aladdin' - the animated version with Robbin Williams as Aladdin's voice. This was not a pre-thought out thing, but rather a choice of whimsey. And there was nothing else great showing at the time anyway.
For our second meeting, I invited him to my flat; he was on the road around my area so I thought, why not? When it was time for him to leave we both knew there was a big attraction. As I was walking with him to his car, he told me that he was going to visit his parents in Margaret River straight away and stay there for about a week, and he also had some prospecting business to attend to. He BEGGED me to go with him! As you can well imagine, I was a tad shocked, speechless and lastly, excited. A tonne of things were going through my mind; who's going to look after my flat? What do I tell me parents? Who's going to pay my bills? What am I going bring/wear? I kept giving him every excuse under the sun for minutes on end. Until he broke me down. I agreed to go.
He then told me that he was going to arrange a plane flight for me for the following morning. This is because he had a friend that flew domestic planes and lucky me, I got the princess treatment by being flown all by myself and for free! Believe it or not, it was my very first time up in the air. It was a four seater and it was so loud I had to wear ear muffs. I started feeling a little queezy in the stomach and was not at all happy. By the time we landed, I had full on nausea but as I was driven to his parents house it had settled somewhat. What an experience! All I could think of was 'never again by domestic plane'.
I met the parents, the boyfriend was already there and I settled in nicely enough in a strange place.... it was almost like a dream when I think about it now. By what I saw in the house, the mother was a dolphin freak. Lots of dolphin pictures on the wall, dolphin books, ceramics etc. Apart from the fact that I thought she was a little obsessed, she was a pleasant lady. One particular day she took me around town and to some beaches while the boyfriend had some business to attend to. We generally 'hung out' for most of the day and I think she enjoyed my company, as I did hers.
When it was time for us to go back to Perth, the boyfriend drove me back in his land cruiser. It was a very long drive, but I don't remember much of it. I must have blocked it out of my mind because it was such a long and boring drive. We were on the road for HOURS.
The stranger thing is that after we got home, he dumped me a few days later. It wasn't an ' I don't like you ' dump, but rather a ' things don't seem right ' dump. I instantly thought the whole ordeal was very odd, but I accepted it graciously even thought he could tell I was very disappointed.
A few months later I received a letter from his mother stating that she was sorry that it didn't work out between me and her son, which I thought was rather nice. Inside the letter she had popped in a little book mark with a dolphin on it. It did make me smile. :) A few weeks later, I got a phone call from the guy to see how I was doing. He had told me how sorry he was and asked if he could come and see me. While visiting all he could do was apologize, while I was simply aloof the whole time he was in my flat. I think I was numb because I had blocked out the bad experience and just had absolutely no feelings toward him. He then left and we both got on with our lives.
Years later I married. We decided to go stay in a Margaret River chalet for a weekend. I think there were about 12 chalets altogether and each one was named after a wine. I can't remember what ours was called, but I do remember that I had never heard of it before and I hadn't ever again. The place bought back a few fond memories and some bad ones, but I never let the bad ones ruin the time away in gorgeous Margaret River with hubby. On the last day of our stay before heading back to Perth, our last stop was the Fudge Factory. We certainly indulged in some fudge but boy it felt so good to be back home that night.
