I left UNCS with fond regrets when I followed my PhD supervisor to La Trobe University in Melbourne in 1972 rather than stay at UNSW and change thesis topic mid-stream, but kept up my choral activities with a vengeance. I started with MUCS in 1972 and sang with them for several years; in 1974 I also joined Tudor Choristers and was a member for the next 26 years. In 1975 I also joined Melbourne Chorale, and the following year I joined the choir of Canterbury Fellowship, an Anglican choir based at Trinity Chapel at Melbourne Uni of which I am still a member (when I'm in the country!), and became a member of the Melbourne Chorale Chamber Singers. For a number of years I was singing 6 nights a week! Most of our friends seem to be choristers or ex-choristers ...

I married Bruce Macrae in 1978. Which reminds me of a good story against David Goodwin who participated in an IV minifest in Ballarat a week or so before our wedding in which Bruce was involved. David knew I was getting married, and he knew Bruce was getting married, but he didn't realise we were marrying one another. At a dinner one night within earshot of Bruce, he was chortling about my getting married again and saying Woo she was a Goer (David and I having had a brief fling at one stage - hence the photo of us in my backyard in Banksia St - shh, don't tell Margot - except she knows!) while others tried in vain to hush him up. So much for trying to convince Bruce that he was marrying a virgin.

I worked as an academic at La Trobe for 24 years and shifted to Monash in 1996, where a year later in addition to my job in the Psychology department, I became Associate Dean (Teaching) in the Faculty of Science and discovered John Hurst again after 24 years as John was my counterpart in the Faculty of Information Technology. I swopped it for Associate Dean (External Affairs) after 4 years so I could do lots of travelling. Then in 2000 I jumped the academic ship and became Faculty Manager in Science.

Our son Alexander is now 25 and has been living in London for the last 4 years. After completing an honours degree in Performing Arts at the Victorian College of the Arts on double bass, he went to the Royal Scottish Academy in Glasgow to do a masters, then a year at the Royal College of Music to do a postgrad diploma and licentiate. He worked nights as an usher at the Royal Opera House and when he finished the courses, stopped playing and continued as the most over-qualified usher I know of. He got Leave to Stay from UK immigration in July this year and now has a day job as a front-of-house manager at the National Portrait Gallery. He is now the most over-qualified front-of-house person I know of.

Bruce and I were able to see quite a bit of Alexander from January 2003 - July 2004 when I was manager of the Monash University London Centre. Now I am at the Monash South Africa campus as director of policy and administration. Working in London and Jo'burg are opportunities I never would have imagined 4 years ago - I don't have any regrets about becoming an administrator! Bruce took early retirement in 2002, a reason I was free to apply for the overseas positions, and he's been having a ball swanning around as a man of leisure.

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