New Cast List

I have decided to make a new cast list. I will keep the old one but this one is more to the point and hopefully more logical.

• R, my partner since I was twenty one. Born in the UK but has been here since he arrived when on his world adventures as a teen and stayed on. He is a few years older than me.
  

• Mother and step father. They have been together for thirty five years and get along some of time. Mother is a health professional's walking nightmare and a great talker. Step father still works at the age of eighty. Update Oct 08: Stepfather no longer works and is quite unwell. Update: 26/12/08 Step Father died.
  

• Younger brother, has an acquired brain injury but works a full time job and has his own home and umpires football and cricket.
  

• Youngest brother, a successful tradie who drinks too much and is very socially conservative. He has been kicked out of the matrimonial home to live in a shared household. Update Oct 08: Brother is living with his new girlfriend.
  

• Sister, a dyke teacher with a girlfriend who is a bone surgeon. They are expecting a child soon. Update Oct 08: Little Jo was born and is beautiful.
  

• Stepmother and father. Father dead, step mother lives with her new partner in the north of the state.

• Brother friends. We have been friends with them for a long, long time. We have had some issues, but we have survived them. They have boyfriends in Thailand and visit them twice a year.

• Ex NT Politician. He is exactly that, along with being a cop and a journalist and now works for a peak agricultural body. He has a Fijian Indian partner who had a special friend as well. Too complicated for me, but it works for them.

• The dyke friends. T moved to Sydney to further her career a few years ago but her heart became defective and she had a heart transplant. She now has a girlfriend here in Melbourne and they are happy together and both are good fun.

• Dame M. She is a rich widow who lives in faded grandeur on St Kilda hill. She smokes, drinks and gambles and at 82 is still hale an hearty. I could almost recommend her vices. Update Oct 08: It is now the late Dame M. Clearly the vices were not good for her health, but she had a good time.
  

• The boarder. Dame M's house is large and she has a boarder of twenty plus years, sometimes known as Jasmine.

• The tenant. Dame M owns two flats above her house and one of tenants is also a friend of ours.
  

• The hairdresser. A close friend of Dame M's boarder. She has lived in a tiny rented flat for many years in St Kilda West and drives a sports car.

• The Mountain Women. They live in the hills and they have found love with each other after being married to men.

• Brighton Antique Dealer and her ToyBoy. She has an antique shop in Brighton where she lives. Her toy boy is only a few years younger than her. She is terrific fun.
  

• Our dyke friend in Japan. A long time friend met through R's work. She lives and works in Japan.

• My Sydney friend. A total user of the system and people, but never me. He is a professional Sydney gay guy and all that goes with it.

• Western district friend. Life would never get old for him, but it did, and it is not a great idea to retire to a town where there are no medical services. Lived in London and Amsterdam and inner Melbourne until retirement.

• Sister in law. She kicked my brother out from home for good reasons. She is lovely and a wonderful mother. Her parents live in a attached granny flat. Update Oct 08: Only one parent lives in the family home. Her father died.
  

• Nephew. Twenty with 'dreads' and lives in North Melbourne and does various jobs, from manual work to waiting. Sweet kid, well travelled but not as naive as he may seem. Update Oct 08: He is now living and working in Glasgow and is over 21.
  

• Nieces. One eighteen and is already a supermarket department manager. She has ambitions though. The other fifteen. Our favourite. She stays with us every so often.

• O/S rels: R's three sisters int the north of UK. Two of whom have visited us in Australia with their husbands and one adult child. The last one is pending.