Undreamed of meetings (C8 last week) continue. “My husband and I,” says Jenny Archbold of Bellingen in a regal manner, “went to Europe in 1980. A friend of ours said he was going at the same time and we should arrange to meet up. Fat chance of that I said as no one had a fixed itinerary, then we called in to check the Poste Restante in Vienna and found our friend at the counter doing the same thing.”

Josephine Piper of Miranda tells, “Years ago, travelling on a post bus in the Swiss Alps, the driver stopped to allow us to enjoy the view. ‘I have a cousin [in] Australia, where are you from?’ he asked. ‘Miranda,’ I replied. ‘Oh, I’ve been to Miranda Fair.’ His cousin was a chef in a local restaurant.”

Also in Europe, Wolf Kempe of Lithgow relates, “While I was having dinner in my hotel in Wroclaw, Poland, some years ago, the group nearby asked to borrow a chair. They were from Sydney, and I and the lady in the group had been migrants on the same trip of the MV Skaubryn from Bremen to Melbourne in 1956. We remain in contact nowadays.”

However, these meetings worry some people. Anne Baillie of Saint Georges Basin says, “My mother always insisted that she could never have an affair. Wherever she travelled, she always met someone she knew.”

Again to drinks. Peter Watson of Annandale asks, “In 1960s Adelaide, I loved tetra-packs, called Snips, of frozen milk – chocolate or strawberry. There was also the icy orange alternative called Sunnyboy and a raspberry one called Raz. Were these wonders unique to Adelaide? or if they had counterparts in other states?”

A dissenting voice on drinks is Rob Hosking of Paddington, who says: “At ‘La Fiesta’ in Avalon, a ‘spider’ was lemonade with ice cream, and a ‘bodgie blood’ was Coke with raspberry flavouring and ice cream (my favoured tipple). I don’t believe in ‘widgie blood’, as it wouldn’t have been red, and was simply known as a ‘lime spider’. (Despite the cafe’s name, the proprietor was, indeed, Greek.)”

Then, another tale of a “lost” car (C8 last week). Barry Riley of Woy Woy once reported his car stolen from a shopping centre car park. “Second floor, seven spaces from the lifts,” I told the police. They phoned me an hour later to say they had found it where I’d reported it, but on the other side of the lifts.

Column8@smh.com.au

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