Today is cold and sunny. Just like I prefer autumn to be.

Last night we went back in time, to a bygone era, in central London.

The founder of the business media company that Geoff worked for, until three years ago,  asked us for dinner with his wife at their elegant home in Eaton Square; Geoff eventually took the CEO mantle from him, and he moved up to become Chairman. They have since both moved on to new pastures.

We turned up to their glossy, black front door, in one of the finest squares in Belgravia, London, at 7pm prompt. We didn’t want to keep the boss waiting. Once a boss, always the boss.

It is eighteen years since our last fateful dinner there. Back then, the founder and his wife had wanted to meet the other half, me, before offering Geoff the job as Finance Director. I poured gravy onto the plate, and it ran over the rim and down to the middle of the bowed, antique table. Not my finest hour. But Geoff, thankfully, still landed the job.

It was so strange to be sitting in their elegant drawing room again, after a prolonged period. The decor hadn’t changed. But we had changed.

So much has happened in the intervening years. Two house moves: from Clapham to Chelsea, and three years ago, we sold up and now divide our time between Fulham and Hampshire. The children have grown up. Anna has graduated from studying history at Cambridge. She left Queens Gate and moved to St Paul’s Girls School for sixth form. Hugo is now studying Chemistry at Warwick University, after leaving Harrow. We aren’t spring chickens anymore.

Life has been full of mountains and valleys. Good times and bad times. Some friends have died. Dad, Stan the Man, has died.

This time I didn’t have a chance to make a fool of myself at the dinner table. After champagne, we went to Motcombs on Motcomb Street in Belgravia. Our host dialled a black taxi on an old fashioned telephone with a handset. And he gave his details, the same way, I imagine, he has done everytime a taxi has been summoned.

The scene reminded me of Ray Milland ordering a cab in Dial M for Murder, when he left Grace Kelly at home to be murdered.

If I had walked out onto the street and found myself transported back fifty years to the past, I wouldn’t have been surprised. There is something timeless about the area between Sloane Square and Green Park, Piccadilly.

Of course, our hosts were regulars at Motcombs and were ushered to the best table. The waiter knew what wine they liked, what starter he always ordered, a whole avocado with tomatoes, and how the whole evening should proceed. The dinner had been replayed many times before, with different guests. ‘The boss’ dines most days at Whites, the gentlemen’s club. There is routine to their lives, like a well orchestrated ballet. Structure is paramount. And it is a refined life.

At 10pm were back in our car on our way back to Fulham. The spell had broken. It was again early November, 2016, and I had to walk the dog before bed and unload the dishwasher. But for a moment I felt like Grace Kelly on a movie set.

Blood, sweat and tears. And leeches. And snakes. Bear Grylls would be proud of our jungle walk in Oz one Easter.

Not long after we moved to Chelsea, we went home to Oz in the Easter holidays – their autumn.

Dad had undergone open heart surgery in the interim. It was a tonic to see him fit, healthy and back to full strength.

The weather in autumn in Australia, like in the South East of England, is variable. It was cool on this particular day, but sunny, not unlike today in London. I suggested we all go for a walk in the National Park, along the coast path, which I had been told had fantastic views, from Otford to Garie Beach.

We pulled up to find a sign: Coast Walk 12 kilometres to Garie Beach. That didn’t seem too far to us. Dad agreed to walk the first part, and then pick us up later at the end. The first four kilometres took no time at all: an hour. It was a nice flat path, with spectacular views of the Pacific. Dad turned back. We reckoned it would take another 2 to 3 hours to reach Garie Beach. The hour of the clock was 12 noon.

Dad left. We pressed on. Very soon we left the very neat and tidy path and headed into thick jungle rainforest; a complete change of vegetation due to the lack of sun. It was damp and dark and undulating. It was scary. And it was slippery.

We looked down at one point to find that our white socks were covered in leeches. Somehow I had the presence of mind to calmly remove them: whilst Anna was screaming hysterically. Then a diamond snake, harmless, but huge, slithered past. Then I shrieked. On we pressed. It took about two and a half hours to navigate up and down through the jungle rainforest. We had only covered a few kilometres. We were not even half way. Dad would be on his way to Garie Beach soon to collect us.

Finally, we emerged into shrubland. We saw a beach ahead. Great, we thought, that must be Garie Beach. Some walkers, with all the right kit, walked past us. To our dismay, they informed us that it was three beaches and two headlands to reach our destination. We only had a few small bottles of water, and the temperature was rising. On we pressed, passing squatters’ shacks that were illegally built, but ideal holiday homes for those who can cope without electricity and water. Better than camping.

We were finally at the headland before the pickup point. It was now almost 5pm, and the rangers would soon be closing the park at dusk. I was freaking out that Dad would be having another heart attack. We had no mobile phone. Our water was almost gone.

I told Geoff to press on ahead and reach Dad as quickly as possible. I forgot to ask for a bottle of water. So off he and Hugo went, at a pace. When I realised that Anna and I had no water, I tried to signal to him, when he turned around to check on us, that we needed water. I threw my head back and motioned glugging water. He misread my charade and thought I was telling him to go ahead even more quickly. I was so thirsty.

Finally we made it to the carpark. The rangers had locked the gate to the carpark. There was a huge hill to climb. Hugo ran like a gazelle ahead and found Dad at the top of the road, just about to go and ring the police. The poor man. He was gripped with anxiety. We had walked for six hours with no food, no stopping and very little water. Crazy.

Bear Grylls would have summed up our adventure as ‘lunacy’.

Tonight, we are going to see Geoff’s old boss and his wife at their house in Eaton Square for drinks and then out for dinner.

 

We are home, finally. In Hampshire, this morning, the sky is grey, and there is fog lacing the ground, like cotton wool.

We left an Indian Summer a week ago to visit the Amalfi coast, and we have returned to Autumn. The sky is raining red, rust leaves. The drive is carpeted with them.

When the children were growing up, the gloom of the winter months was mitigated by visits to Oz: we packed our cozzies and headed to the airport at Christmas or Easter for family, sun and surf. It is the history of our family.

Sometimes, though, we were unable to swim because of king tides – where storms at sea made the waves massive and dangerous. In the Easter of 2007, king tides hit the Illawarra coastline. The waves washed across the beach and into the carpark. Youngsters skidded, upright, across the sodden sand with body boards – it was as if they were riding on escalators across the expanse.

But down at Sandon Point, where the escarpment turns inland and the plains open up, experienced surfers were riding enormous waves – 15 to 20 feet. We heard through the grapevine, and headed down to watch the spectacle on a Sunday afternoon. The riders were being loaded onto the waves with jet skis to avoid the crushing white wash.

There was a coming of age film in 1978, when I was 16, called Big Wednesday. Great surfing mates grow apart, as they age and take different paths, but they reunite for the ride of their lives, one last time, for the perfect swell. The film was written by surfers as a tribute to their years growing up in Malibu.

Shaun, my brother, was a keen surfer, and a lot of my male friends surfed. My sister in law, Wendy, was a surfer, at a time when not that many women surfed. She carved the waves with the best of the boys. And she had their respect. I am afraid it was like that – sexism on the waves.

I was not really the Baywatch type. Too fair! I burnt, went brown and then peeled. I was not a surf chick. But I loved the sea, and I appreciated the skill involved in riding a wave without falling off and being pulverised.

I love the fact that my children love the Aussie surf. And feel at home swimming and body boarding in the great Aussie waves.