Our story

We started talking to each other in 1996 on a telnet chat called The Village during our respective stints at university. The talker was really popular with uni students at the time and we all logged on (more frequently and for longer than we care to admit) to chat about life, movies, etc -- the usual stuff, for a bit of fun.

A lot of us exchanged xmas cards and photos with some of our favourite people on the talker and Yves (WhiteRabbit) was one of the 10 or so people that I exchanged season's greetings with. That sparked a letter writing phenomenon that would soon fill several shoe boxes over 4 years -- not to mention the e-mails and all the time spent on the talker!

In between 1996 and 1998 I moved to Ohio, U.S.A., married an American and came back to Australia again (20kg overweight and miserable -- I might add). Yves had planned to visit me in America, but a month after getting back home to Australia I wrote to tell him that I was back home and filing for divorce. In December 1998 it was decided that he would come and visit me in Australia instead. Meanwhile I was busy jogging and dieting to shed my US weight. (I only got rid of 10kg -- I suspect the other half is hanging on to punish me for being so silly. The fight continues!)

In April 1999 my friend Jules and I drove up to the Brisbane International Airport and met Yves. He and I spent two amazing weeks together and fell crazy in love. Watching him leave at the end of that holiday was the hardest thing I ever had to go through. We had to spend 11 hellish months apart while I tried to find work in Australia and get my life back together.

In March 2000, having saved every penny I earned, I booked a ticket to France. I flew from Brisbane to Kuala Lumpur, spent a night in a hotel there, and the next day continued my flight to Paris. When I arrived at Charles de Gaulle I was exhausted, but had to somehow find my way to the right terminal for my connecting flight to Toulouse where I would finally see Yves again. I didn't speak any French (aside from 'Bonjour' and 'Parlez-vous anglais?') which made things... interesting, to say the least!

I eventually got to the right terminal, with the help of a fellow Aussie who spoke a fair bit of French. Phew! Once inside, I wandered around a little bit lost until I found the coffee shop where I had arranged to meet Yves' friend, Irvin, for coffee. We had just sat down and began talking and thinking about ordering croissants and coffee when out of nowhere Yves walked over to our table!! I jumped up in surprise and nearly knocked everything over on my way to give him a big hug.

He was on his way back from a job interview in Edinburgh and had missed his connecting flight so he'd been waiting for me at the terminal where I should have got off my other plane. Anyway, that was that, we had coffee and croissants, boarded a plane to Toulouse together and we've been inseparable ever since! :)

About a week later we moved to our first flat in Edinburgh and shortly afterwards we started this Web site. Now you know everything!

Update: We got married on July 30th, 2005 in Saint-Orens de Gameville, France.