Yes that's me. I know, it's cheesy, but as you all know I have no shame and so don't mind being a schmaltzmeister. Today I had an epiphany - a moment of clarity. The sun broke through the clouds and there was a rainbow and strange, distant choral voices. Ok, that's enough of the saccharine, here's the story.

I was walking down Adelaide's Rundle Mall today in my lunch hour, on my way to the outdoor shop strip on Rundle Street today to get some bit's and pieces for the upcoming circumnavigation of the earth. As I passed the famous shiny balls, I saw in the distance an old familiar face, none other than the woman who I was once engaged to but didn't end up marrying. As she approached, hand in hand with a man, a smile came across my face. Partly because she had her normal look on her face, one so sour that it could turn milk, partly because the man she was with was older, greyer and fatter than me, and partly the smile you get across your face when you are about to greet and speak to someone you haven't seen in a long time.

I didn't actually get to speak to her though, because it would appear she is still bitter about our breakup in '99. She only removed the sourpuss look for the merest fraction of a second to give me the iciest glance you have ever seen. One that if looks could kill, Dubya would have had his troops on her looking for weapons of mass destruction. Then, following the glance, she just looked straight through me and kept walking.

I stood there, slightly dumbfounded, hands on hips just watching after them as they kept walking. Then the moment happened - my smirk turned into a full blown belly laugh. I was suddenly the happiest man ever - I could have been that guy, trudging down the mall with the ice queen, but instead I am the guy with the worlds best wife about to embark on the trip of a lifetime and move to a new house at the beach. Onlookers must have been puzzled as I contained my laughter, said "chickachow" and kept walking.

The smile was then plastered on my face. I went into one of the outdoor shops, and plonked down nearly $50 for a money belt and 4 luggage padlocks. Potentially, this is a negative about the upcoming holiday, having to spend money to be security conscious, but today, the purchase had to do with the trip that I never would be going on if I was still stuck with her, so all was rosy.

Whistling and walking back to work in the glorious winter sunshine with a spring in my step, I thought to myself that I couldn't top the experience off any better than with a good coffee. (Alright, I could have had a beer, but I was going back to work). So I ducked into Illy, on Grenfell street and let me tell you, you'd be hard pressed to find a better cappucino in this city. Deeeelicious.