Marianne’s Gang – The Girls’ Day Out

(Attending: Mamamia, Sparrow, Marianne, Lotrfan, LadyP, Georgie10, Emme, Missy)

Thanks to GrownUps chat room, a lot of us have made friends with people with the same sense of humour as ourselves.

Three of us were arranging to meet up again and were making comments in the ChatRoom and Missy from Rotorua asked if we could make it Wednesday morning as she would be in Auckland and would have time to 12 noon when her husbands meting would finish.

So we managed to set it all up through chat, private messages and emails and got a time and place, by this time our numbers had grown to eight. Some of us knew each other but three were completely unknown to five of us, so I said I would be wearing a red hat and a leopard skin top, so would be easy to spot on Ponsonby road.

Well that plan worked well and while the early birds were waiting for the later ones we sat on a wall and several people spoke to us and asked who we were and what were we doing, so we told them we were members of GrownUps and chatted online and were meeting to have coffee, they thought that was great. Sparrow made a grand landing with beak and mask and caused a lot of laughter, both with us and passers-by .

So six of us were there and waiting for LadyP and emme, then we saw the Link bus arrive at the stop down from us and then it came and stopped behind the wall and let emme off to join us, then LadyP arrived, after finding a park and then trying to find us

We wanted a photo of everyone on the wall and were figuring out how we could do this when a lovely young girl, Nicki from the boutique, took some for us. We then decided to go down the side street to the Cafe Liaison that I had seen when I parked my car.

The lovely café owner, Dianne, was very friendly and asked who we were and we told her we were from GrownUps etc and all made our way outside to a table and from then on it was all laughter and fun, we felt as if we had all been friends for ages, Dianne said to us that we were welcome to stay as long as we liked, she was enjoying hearing all the happy laughter. So we did we stayed till after 1.30pm, Missy had to go at 12 noon but the rest of us carried on and had lunch in between laughing.

Dianne was also kind enough to take our group photo and put pink flowers in the girls hair, we have sent her a copy of this photo and made her an Honorary member of Marianne's Gang.

One of the things that contributed to the fun was that sparrow had come out without her hearing aid, so there was a bit of repeating in louder voices for her of things that should of not been shouted for all the world to hear.

Sadly after 3 and a bit hours it was time leave, Diane gave us all hugs and said we were welcome to come back any time, and we will be doing that for sure in the future. That day for us eight will be a memorable day for the rest of our lives, and was all due to GrownUps and the chat room.

Read about the girls' second get-together here.