By Paul Chong 18 January 2020

Yesterday a mixed group of us senior citizens of engineers, accountants, surveyor, lawyer, businessman, lawyer & lecturer, all in the septuagenarian & octogenarian class, had a wonderful time by staying younger than Springtime.

My old-time favourite Pat Boone would sing melodiously “A Wonderful Time Up There”. Fortunately, for our vibrant group of eight, it was still wonderful down here. And we were in the elevated site of Sommerville Chinese Restaurant in Winthrop Village – a place elevated from its main artery road Sommerville Boulevald.

Thanks to our food connoisseur Francis Chin who arranged & ordered the variety of delicious of fish & prawns, roast duck & chicken, vegies and the house speciality of chilli-dry fried Hokkien noodles . . . so good & palatable that it kind of melted in our mouths before our stomach had the pleasure of it. My wife & I even bought a packet home for our dinner. Quality aside, its quantity was enough for three persons & costing us only A$12.

Our thanks also go to our high-tech wizard Tommy who provided us with his mobile karaoke microphone with pre-recorded of thousands of songs, which were rendered beautifully for our entertainment & sing along by his lovely architect wife Florence. She sang like a bird . . . more like the nightingale.

We were each poorer off by A$25. Every cent of it was well spent. We ate, drank both white & red wine (with the compliments of Richard) & much Chinese tea also.

Our group started many years ago. We were more frequent in meeting up in the days gone by. However, as with time, our vision blurred, our limbs weakened with more restrictive mobility, our meetings are now less frequent. This is our first gathering to welcome the year 2020 . . . trustingly that our precious years ahead would see our world a much safer place. Let peace & harmony reign.