Alessio comes to visit

It's great meeting up with old friends, especially when it seems like you only saw them yesterday and you can just pick up where you left off.

Our friend Alessio came to visit this weekend. We hadn't seen each other for five years or so, so it was wonderful catching up.

Al was on a whistle-stop tour of Australia and so we managed to cram the sights of Canberra in to one day! (including the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, New Parliament house, Manuka, Lyneham and the splendid new arboretum as well as a trip to Kingston model railway to see Thomas the Tank Engine!)

We stopped for a while to chat to a couple of guys at the tent embassy and Al was interested to discuss the differences in rights and prejudices between New Zealand Māoris and Australian Aboriginals and we both visited the National Parliament - a significant landmark on Canberra's skyline. There was obviously lots of places we didn't get to, but the main thing was seeing each other and catching up on news.

Audrey and Eli loved having Al visit as well. He provided them with constant amusement and bounced with them on our trampoline. I rather suspect they could have gone on a lot longer than he could! We were all sad to see him leave.

Alessio at Dairy Farmers Hill (National Arboretum)

At Kingston model railway museum