Fifteen Years.

1994, posing awkwardly in front of the brand new fence.

When I received the invitation to go on Craft Retreat recently I - of course - said Yes! pretty much straight away without doing anything technical like checking the calendar. It was left to my good friend and fellow Craft Retreater Jenny to point out that I'd be going away from my beloved family on my birthday. Which is okay I think, a little time-out is a nice birthday treat, fair enough. But my birthday is also the anniversary of Fixit and I getting together and it is our 15th (which is divisible by 5 so it must be important - unlike last year when we had a posh dinner because I got my numbers mixed up) so I did feel bad when I realised all this and I asked Fixit whether I should stay home after all. Luckily Fixit was very nice about it and said we could just go for a posh dinner on another night. The upshot of this is that I am celebrating my birthday slightly early (ie today) and to make up for my thoughtlessness I decided to mark our anniversary with the tale of how Fixit and I came to be.

Sixteen years ago I was working at renowned Melbourne ice-cream shop, Charmaine's Icecream. At the time I was in a relationship with a moody English boy but it was limping along - and not just because he lived in Canberra. Long-distance love affairs are difficult enough but there were other problems, chief amongst them the backwash from our disastrous European trip together. Enter Mister Fixit, who started work at Charmaine's in the kitchen, making the icecream. (I was out the front scooping it.) We noticed each other. I was still in a relationship but we chatted, and whenever he walked behind me he would give my ponytail a friendly tug. He told me later he used to admire my arse in a favourite pair of rainbow coloured trousers. It was about this time that I successfully auditioned for the show Stomp! -in its Melbourne Comedy Festival incarnation featuring 30 local performers- and I actually received the call that I'd got into the show when I was at work. I still remember turning around in blissful excitement to see Fixit and another worker smiling curiously at me, wondering what the big news was. Fixit was the first person I told, come to think of it.

Anyway, some days after that I came into work and heard that Fixit would no longer be working at Charmaine's. He had been hit by a car whilst riding his motorbike. A P-plater, on the freeway, had pulled over suddenly, taking out the motorbike and sending Fixit flying at top speed into the metal railing at the side of the road. His leg was so badly broken that his foot was facing the wrong way. We were all deeply shocked, and even though I hadn't known him for very long I decided to visit him in hospital, acting, I now see, on the dormant attraction I'd felt for him. I remember walking into his hospital room, full of concern, and barely noticing the scaffolding protruding from his leg, dazzled as I was by his manly bare chest. I actually went slightly weak at the knees, but Fixit didn't really notice because he was high as a kite on the hospital drugs at that stage.

I didn't see him for ages after that, although he tells me that I nearly knocked him off his crutches when he was hobbling along Brunswick Street months later as I rushed out of work to grab food for my dinner break. After he'd regained his balance he remarked to his friend that he knew that girl but I was long gone by then. In the meantime I called it quits with the moody English boy and got my head together. And six months after that I announced to a co-worker at Charmaines that I was ready to have a boyfriend again. Being as he was a very helpful and older-brotherly type, my co-worker scratched his chin for a bit and then said Hmm what about Mister Fixit? And I, without even bothering to think that hard about it, said Mmm yes, he's nice.

So it was arranged between my co-worker and Fixit's best-friend (the Bike Nazi, who had also worked at Charmaine's) that Fixit would be invited as the Bike Nazi's guest to the Charmaine's Staff Party, which as it happened was being held on my birthday. Now, I knew about the set-up but the Bike Nazi had seen fit only to say there is this girl, but not which one to Mister Fixit. So I was at my MOST charming, and he was sitting there happily chatting to me as one of the few people he actually knew whilst simultaneously wondering who the mystery girl was and keeping an eye out for her. For quite a long time, actually. But finally my charm offensive began to take effect and he told me later that what went through his head was : I don't care about whoever this set-up is, I'm quite happy where I am.

And that was when the penny finally dropped. D'oh.

We hung out together for the rest of the evening and as we both left he held my hand and asked for my phone number. I think our first date was 3 nights later.

(I achieved almost legendary status at Charmaine's amongst the girl-staff meanwhile for my work that evening, and some of them started asking my advice on How To Get A Man. True story.)

Last year we walked past Charmaine's Icecream on Brunswick Street where it all started, only to see it had shut down. But me and Mister Fixit, we're still going strong, even if I do desert him on our special day.

Happy Anniversary xx



1994, a friend's wedding. Fixit looks SO young!!