365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 31 : Happy 20th Anniversary Sydney.... and Happy Birthday Nanna!

I have been in the Emeralsd City, as Sydney is often known, for 20 years today.

I can still remember getting on a bus on a Tuesday night in Alstonville, heading for Sydney with just one bag of clothes etc hoping that by being in the city itself that I might hasten QANTAS and their foot dragging over officially employing me as a flight attendant. They had offered me the position yes, but a concrete start etc was seeming an ever distant prospect and so, frustrated at being stuck in neutral, and running out of money, I headed to Sydney, and arrived very early in the morning at Central after the driver entered the City via my favourite street then, and now, in the whole world, King Street.

I was homesick, and uncertain about what lay ahead but determined to do something, anything to get life moving again.... and 20 years on, it has worked very well! I have the most beautiful guy in the world as my boyfriend, and the relationship grows deeper and stronger every day, I live in a great suburb, I have a fantastic group of friends that enrich my life at every turn, I enjoy my job and I have a rich and diverse spectrum of interests. Life is very good....

The marking of the way, which was quintessentially Sydney, and involved dinner at a sushi train on Bathurst Street with my gorgeous guy and close friend, Fahmi (see above top), a walk through Hyde Park to the Spiegeltent set up at one end of the park for the Sydney Festival (see above middle), and a performance by a vivacious fun Irish singer and her band called Sharon Shannon (see below) with an audience a typical Sydney mixed bag of socio-economic groups. The day was a lot of fun, and encapsulated so much of what makes my life so rich today - friends, boyfriend, the City itself, the Festival, and the general vibe of being in such an energetic, fun city.

I am one very lucky guy!