Last weekend my husband and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary. The day conjured up lots of memories because for the first time our anniversary was on the same day as our wedding (a Saturday). I decided to relive part of the day with a surprise trip to the church we got married in. After all after six years, I thought it was about time we went back.So, after dropping off our 3.5 year old with his Nanna and Aunty Nat, we headed into town about the same time we did so, six years earlier - except this time there were a few differences and I am not talking about the extra weight or the grey hairs! I was in a Mazda, not a vintage Bentley; my husband was driving, not a chauffer; I was not dressed in a willowy ivory number, clutching white roses; my Dad wasn’t nervously fidgeting beside me; and 100 or so people weren’t awaiting my arrival at the other end. In fact there was no one at the other end. No one at all. And you see, that kind of derailed my plans for a trip down memory lane.

The church was closed. Doors bolted. Windows barred. The green steeple seemed to be laughing down at us saying: you think after six years, you can just turn up again, and we’ll welcome you with open arms? No way, we know what you’ve been up to!

Earlier in the week I’d expressly phoned to make sure the church would be open for our little sojourn. The church secretary and the “verger” (whoever that is - sounds like someone from Star Trek, or maybe the Thunderbirds) assured me that if we arrived before 5pm there’d be no problem as a Palm Sunday rehearsal would be taking place.

But as I’ve already told you - that wasn’t the case. I even phoned the “verger” on a mobile phone number displayed outside the church, just in case he got an attack of the guilts and decided to fly down and open the church for us. I mean what else do these church types have to do on Saturday nights anyway?
Well no such luck. And I still haven’t heard from him.

So what to do? We took a few photos of ourselves outside the church for old time’s sake and briefly considered joining the homeless people outside the building next door. (Hey, perhaps they were there for us, in the absence of the “verger”?)

Instead we decided we’d better make the most of being in town on a Saturday afternoon, without a kid, and with a few hours up our sleeves now we didn’t have the option of enjoying a bit of solace at the stained glass windows.

So, where to? It’s 4pm - too early to start drinking; too early to have dinner; best to have a coffee and consider the situation. Perhaps we could go to a movie? Yes, let’s get a paper. Soon discovered 4pm is never land in cinema world. No movie ever starts at 4pm - they’re all halfway through.

And actually we’re parked in a two-hour zone so if we go to a 5pm movie we’ll get pinged in the middle of it. So we could just park somewhere else and forfeit all the gold coins we’ve just fed into the hungry parking meter, but, oops, do we have any coins left for the next one? And where is that cinema anyway - it used to be so simple - with those big blockbuster-type places in George St. Are they even there anymore? I think the last time I went was 1986. Oh there’s that Reading place, and that Dendy place, and that Verona place.

Oh god it’s all too hard. Let’s just head back to the ‘burbs where we know we can park. And catch whatever movie happens to be on (Emilio Estevez’s Bobby - not bad).

I tried to do something a bit different - I really did.

But next time I think I’ll get my Mum to come to our place and we’ll just go to Hornsby.

Isn’t life in the digital age wonderful? I find by the time I update my two blogs, transfer pictures onto the computer from the camera, answer my emails and check my favourite websites, there goes the night. I find I now spend more time in front of the computer than the television. I have simply swapped one sight-ruining box for another.

Social commentators used to spend columns of space writing about the dangers of television. It was supposed to tear at the fabric of families, and ultimately society.

How can families possibly be relating properly if they are sitting in front of the gogglebox all night? Well at least we all sat around the gogglebox together and occasionally even laughed at the same time.

In contrast, using computers is a fairly solitary task. I’ve never heard of the family logging onto You Tube, for example, and having a laugh at the latest Chad Vader episode (check them out - they are so funny. Chad, as opposed to Darth, actually works in a grocery store, but I digress).

Music used to be something to be shared as well. Now with the i-pod generation, music is a case of plugging in and tuning out.

For our little kids, perhaps the same will become of television. Everyone will have their own personal monitor and it will be so interactive there’ll be no such thing as the 8.30pm Sunday movie. It’ll be the anytime-you-want-it movie, from any camera angle you want.

It’s not all negative though. I find that with my blogs and the uploading of my photos onto share sites, such as Flickr.com, at least those members of the family who don’t live near you, can get a sense of what you’re up to. How else would my son’s Aunty is Canada know, for example, that he just saw King Kong on the weekend?

So we all get to know things about people we never needed to know. And as for the stuff, we need to know? I’ve just got to write one more post, answer three emails, contribute to an online forum, and edit the Christmas pics (in particular reducing the size of my nose and chin), and then we can talk, ok?