News No.1 is that in the State election last weekend, March 18th, Chloe was elected as a new State Labor member of parliament (MP) in South Australia, in a landslide win for the Labor Party. And after the election she became engaged to Leon Bignell, another new MP. I won’t say much else about either Chloe or Leon, now or later, since they have to be able to have a private life outside this website. Just to say we are thrilled.

On March 15th Malcolm turned 61. His birthday got buried in both the election campaign and in my birthday celebrations and he’s publicity shy anyway — two of us in the public eye is enough, he says. I gave him a nano i-Pod so that at the gym he could listen to great programs podcast from ABC Radio National instead of being driven crazy by music chosen by a trainer in his twenties. I thought Malcolm would need a twenty year old to help him get the i-Pod working, but no — he did it all by himself, the old groover.

On March 5th, my 60 birthday, which I’d been rather reluctant to celebrate, Malcolm organised a divine lunch with friends at d’Arenberg Winery, less than an hour from our place. (We live in the major wine-growing state of Australia, close to dozens of top wineries.) But he also provided two other MAJOR surprises, so startling and thrilling I’m amazed I didn’t just DIE.

The day before my birthday we were out to coffee in Glenelg (a nearby seaside suburb) at a cafe we go to every day, when in walked Allyn Johnston, my editor from California, just like that! I almost rubbed my eyes in real cartoon fashion. I thought I was seeing things. Even when I knew it was Allyn I still thought I must be wrong, that it just couldn’t be so. It was wild. She is one of my closest friends so to have her to stay over my birthday week was heaven. She and Malcolm had been planning it for six months.

At my gorgeous lunch the next day (see a clear-blue-sky, late summer day, towering gum trees, a view of vines on rolling hills, and a very friendly restaurant with scrumptious food) I was beside myself introducing Allyn to friends she had heard about but had never met, and vice versa. Then I noticed that one of our friends had not yet arrived. Usually he’s punctual.
“Where’s Jurgen?” I asked. He happened to walk in at that moment. Hiding behind him, CREEPING in behind him, was my sister Jan, all the way from Italy! Malcolm had paid her fare. My sister was my birthday present! Dear readers, can you imagine how I felt? What I went through? I stood. I buried my head in a huge white table napkin and could hardly bear to take it away from my eyes in case it wasn’t true. But it was! Let me tell you I wasn’t the only one who wept! Both male and female friends cried.

Of course my agent Jenny Darling was also at my birthday because she too is a close friend. (Malcolm made up the guest list. He was a true event organiser.) Jenny, who lives in Melbourne, came back later in the week to stay with us, to work with us. We had three adult guests and were down to a mattresses-on-the-floor situation. It was like a campsite. I had only been back from a great visit to Phoenix, Arizona, and Dublin Ohio, five days prior to this all starting. The windows weren’t cleaned. The cupboards felt empty although they weren’t. And Adelaide was in the middle of Writer’s Week at the international Adelaide Festival of Arts with functions and shows here and there that we had to be at and wanted to be at. The election and the engagement followed that excitement.

And all this has happened in the last three weeks. I’m reeling.

I hope happiness has touched your lives too.

Love

Mem Fox xxx