Standing on top of Sydney Harbour Bridge, yes we climbed right to the top, Caroline told me that when she emigrated to Australia in 1980, the bridge and harbour were the first sights of Australia she had from the aeroplane window and she fell in love with Sydney immediately and that love affair has never ended.

By the way, she is telling me this story over bottles (yes plural) of champagne beside her pool, the temperature is 30 degrees and the sun is like a fireball in the sky. I just thought I would drop that in as I know the weather at home is miserable, not that I’m trying to make you all jealous of course!

Anyway back to the story, Caroline settled 1 hour inland of Sydney near to Windsor and never being one to waste time the first thing she did was learn to water-ski and loved it, then went on to pick strawberries and mushrooms for a few months before settling down to a business course that would hopefully get her a proper job.

Eventually she got her first job as a clerk/driver at Tony Packard Holden, which was a large car dealership in Sydney. She tells me this job was perfect for her because she got to see lots of different areas of Sydney and even drove for a few celebrities – yes she got to drive cars from Ferrari’s to Rolls Royce’s. I even caught a glimpse of her on t.v. once but by the time I had shouted all over the house to anyone who could here “ Caroline’s on the tele!” she had had her 30 seconds of fame and gone.

In 1986 she married her first husband Mark, unfortunately this was not to last and she moved to Sydney less than a year later. The next couple of years were spent living the party lifestyle but in 1988 she came back to the UK with a couple of motocross guys with the intention of travelling around for a year. She was to stay for six more years and settled in the Bedford area. This had been a good move because it was during this time that she met her second husband Simon. They were married on 4 July 1992 and in 1994 they decided to make the life changing decision to leave the UK for good and return to Australia.

To be continued………………………….