Hats on for Spring Rose Garden Lunch

Husband Ole and myself with Leigh McClusky

Quelle journée magnifique! The Lunch in a Spring Rose Garden was a glorious day, of wine and roses and fashion and delicious food at Carrick Hill to raise funds for Novita, the children’s charity.

Adelaide’s glamour A-listers attended the booked out event, organised by Novita’s Rainbow Committee which is chaired by charity doyen, Pamela Wall.

Held on the cusp of the Melbourne Cup, most women wore gorgeous hats to what is billed as one of Adelaide’s most prestigious charity events.

MC was effervescent media personality Leigh McClusky, I was honoured to be the guest speaker and my speech was followed by an exquisite George Gross and Harry Who collection, worn by beautiful models wearing hats by milliner Di Roberton and bijoux by Anne Middleton.

For me, it was an extraordinary event, because it linked three of my professional lives (although I have had as many as any cat!). I told the audience I had worked at the Crippled Children’s Association, the prior name of Novita, for six years in my 30s, where I initiated and organised the  Mrs South Australia Quest and the first national quest, the Mrs Australia Quest.  Carrick Hill was where my amazing journey into Frenchness began in another marquee.

I was there, notebook in hand 10 years ago in 2000 to cover the media launch of Encounter 2002 for my employer, The Advertiser. We were told the event would celebrate the 200th anniversary of the discovery of South Australia when British captain Matthew Flinders and French sea captain Nicolas Baudin met at Encounter Bay on April 8, 1802. South Australia was then an unknown coast and both captains named all of our coastline – Flinders naming Encounter Bay at the tip of Fleurieu Peninsula – named after the navigator of the French expedition, Count Fleurieu.

It is now very much the history of my life that through Encounter 2002 celebrations, I met my “lovely Frenchman’’ Olivier Foubert, managing director of Caleche Bridal House,  whom I wrote about in my best-selling book From France With Love. He is now my husband.

I left the Crippled Children’s Association to study journalism at the University of South Australia  in 1981 and when I finished in late 1988 (I did have a husband and three children, so I took my time) I walked straight into a job at The Advertiser.

What also excited me yesterday was meeting up with many women I knew from my long career including the patron of the Mrs South Australia Quest, Yvette Amer, one of the Quest’s former promotions officers, Suzy Tilley (then Burford). Glamorous MP, Jing Lee also attended, along with Anne Petch Lee Scammell, .

One last thought, everything that my life has become since 2000 was linked to that media launch at Carrick Hill. My careers, my love, my becoming an author and my marriage.

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2 Comments to “Hats on for Spring Rose Garden Lunch”

  1. By Besnier, 13/05/2012 @ 6:25 pm

    je m’appelle laurence besnier, je vie en france et je suis la fillieulle d’olivier, j’habite en france, je suis divorcé et je suis famille d’accueil, dites à olivier que je me souviens de lui et de tous ses enfants avec nostalgie car cela me rappelle mon papa qui est mort en 2005, je vous souhaites beaucoups de bonheurs et embrasse toute la famille foubert

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