Maggie, Surfer Girl.
It had rained a lot in Sydney, I don’t remember it raining quite so much when I lived there before, just put it down to climate change. The morning I left though, the sun was shining; I was on my way to Coffs Harbour to have a drink with Deborah. Deborah got in touch with me through face book, we had a brief encounter in Sydney in the seventies and it was time to catch up again. Ten kilometres out of Sydney the rain started, just showers to start but the layers of clothes came out and by the time I got to Coffs Harbour it was chucking it down. It was getting late so I found a pub and got a room so I could dry out and warm up, the following morning I rang Deborah to arrange a meet, only to find she was flooded in. No way in or out of Bellingen, so after 35 years we still didn’t have that drink, who knows when I might be up that way again? Nothing for it, continue up to Byron Bay where I was hoping to see a couple of very old friends from Cornwall, Dougie and Maggie.
In 1972 I was on my way back from Afghanistan, there was a postcard waiting for me in Istanbul, from my sister, informing me she had married a bloke from Cornwall. Well that would be my next destination…go meet the in laws…I left Kabul with 20 pounds in my pocket and after 2 weeks of sleeping by the side of the road and hitch hiking, the uncured Afghan coat I’d bought in Kabul was getting a bit smelly, to say the least. I managed to get as far as Bodmin Moor on the thumb but at midnight with no traffic, I decided to phone for help. A couple of hours later, my new brother in law turned up in a little Renault and got a whiff of that old Afghan coat and I am sure wanted to throw me out but couldn’t…I was family…
I tell this story because it was at that time I also met Dougie and Maggie, we have run into each other in various places over the years but this time it was to be at their home in Byron Bay. There is a bit of a Cornish connection in Byron, so I ended running into more folks from all those years ago.
I am….THE LONESOME TRAVELLER….travelling east….BE HAPPY!