news... So I have a little bit of a (true) story for you.→[More:]

The Chef lived in Tasmania a few years ago, playing rugby for the uni down there. He messaged me excitedly to let me know that one of his good friends from Tassie was going to be in Melbourne with his wife on Monday (last night) and we're going out for dinner with them.

We had a slight spat on Sunday, when he insisted that I stay at his place YET AGAIN on the Monday night, and I pointed out that he's stayed at mine like, twice in the past two months. He said to make up for it, he'd bring me lunch at work on the Monday (his day off).

So at 12:30 on the dot, he arrived bringing take-away Pho with him... though he disappeared shortly after eating, as he had laundry to do and had to rush off to meet his friends. I was looking forward to dinner - couldn't wait to meet his friends, especially since he was SO excited about them coming, and he'd arranged for us to go to Cumulus - a restaurant with sentimental value for us: it was where we had our third date and is owned by the same guy that owns the Chef's restaurant.

At about 4pm I returned to my desk after a meeting to find a missed call from The Chef. I messaged him to see what the deal was, and he messaged back to say he had a funny story to tell me later. Turns out, his friend's work had make a colossal fuckup, and had told him the wrong town - the friend and his wife were actually in Sydney instead. They'd already booked and paid for accommodation here in Melbourne, but couldn't get a refund for that night's room, so they offered it free of charge to us. I was pretty stoked when I heard it was the Sofitel - Casey and I had gone there for my birthday weekend last year. It's Niiiiice. I was pleased with this development, and ran off to the shops so that I could get some clothes to wear to work the next day. Any excuse.

Casey was with his friends, and we arranged to meet up at a bar called Hell's Kitchen. It's a pretty groovy bar in the city. It's a bar I really like - cute, nice atmosphere. Actually, it was also the bar that Casey and I had our first date in. We had a drink with his friends then went on the restaurant.

Dinner was lovely. I drank too much, flirted shamelessly with Casey, and complained loudly that he wouldn't carry me the 10 metres across the road to the hotel.

The hotel room was SWISH. We had a corner room, which was GORGEOUS. 36 floors up, amazing views. I ran to the window and started taking photos to tweet, but Casey lay on the bed and told me to join him. I tried to brush him off - important tweeting, people! - but he insisted, so drnkered me launched myself onto the bed.
That's when I knocked over a facewasher that was on the bed and saw the box with the name of my favourite jewellery store emblazoned on it.

He said "tonight I recreated our first three dates" and I burst into tears before he'd really finished even one word. he asked "is that a yes?" and I managed to utter a "hell yes" between tears and kisses.

So it's all official. The chef and I are getting married this Christmas.