A good friend

This is a photo of me with my good friend Greg, and his lovely wife and daughter (Lisa & Julia), about five years ago. At that time they lived in the countryside in Queensland, and could sometimes see kangaroos from their balcony. They live in Melbourne now. Greg's main job has been as a counsellor for people with various problems, such as alcoholics etc. It's not always easy work.

We first met in 1985, through a mutual friend in Brisbane. We were both 20 years old and crazy about music at the time, and enjoyed checking out each other's record collections (yes, records...there were no CDs even, at that time). In the next few years, we sometimes shared rental houses with other people, often went to concerts and parties together, and took a couple of long trips with other guys to remote parts of Australia.

I haven't seen as much of him as I would have liked over the past 20 years, as I've been in Japan most of that time, but we've kept in touch and remain great friends. I was best man at his (& Lisa's) wedding 7 or 8 years ago. What I like best about him is that he's not like the "average" person. He has his own way of thinking and behaving. He doesn't care about conforming to so-called "normal" behaviour, or acting like most people do. He's a unique individual, and very funny and intelligent. These days he likes to write short stories whenever he has time. Recently something he wrote about Australian football was published in The Age (the main Melbourne newspaper).