50 years of love: Ton and Ellen, my parents

"You must remember this, / A kiss is ..."

My parents have been together for 50 years. To celebrate the anniversary of this lasting relationship we organised several special events. On the Friday we had a pub dinner for 50 local friends and family at our lovely local Eltham Hotel. Fine food, good guests, music and dancing followed.

On the Saturday we organised a catered formal dinner for another 50 people (well some of them were remarkably similar to Friday's crew ;-) ) at the enchanting Clunes Old School site, a federation building in lovely parklands in our village. Many old friends and family travelled from afar to join us: my sister Anna from Melbourne, our dear family friend Sybille from Adelaide, Mary Daly from Sydney, Heather (nee Russell) from Inverell. Speeches, more speeches, champagne, performances by our 'own' family ensemble groups: myself on guitar, Hans and Tess and Yarrow singing. The superb food was capably provided by Laura Hayward, a young local caterer just breaking into the market.

Heather came over from Inverell!

Diana M. made this amazing cake

Saturday's venue: Clunes Old School

Inside the Old School with teak floors

Sybille, Mam and Briony at Clunes

Dancing with the girls :)

Finally on the Sunday afternoon we finished up with a BBQ at our own place, The Grange. John cooked up a storm on the verandah bbq, Katka and I made salads and all ten of us gathered around the large kitchen table and had a chatty and relaxed lunch.

In all it was an excellent weekend and I think my parents really enjoyed it. Many thanks to all those who made the huge effort to travel so far and help us celebrate half a century of love!!