Heavenly Beverley : On Tuesday 19 May 2009...

This was a day like any other day. I was living in my own duplex in suburban Perth with my boys, Callum and Alex, who had turned 20 and 18 years old respectively. I had part-time work as a special needs education assistant at Alex's high school. I had a fantastic group of friends - the Lush sisters - with whom I socialised frequently. Vanessa was living away from home, in an effort to find her own identity. She would soon take herself to China for an eventful and uncomfortable three months and extricate herself intelligently from quite a threatening situation. The dogs, Sascha and Pip, and Ruby the cat all held esteemed positions within our household. I had also escaped from a disastrous love affair with the Philanderer and had finished 2008 with a diversionary month long fling with a prim and repressed Kiwi.

I had considered lesbianism (!) as I thought that had to be an easier option than heterosexuality. There did not appear to be any reasonable men left in the universe. I had been on a series of exceeding ordinary first dates through an online dating site, from the Wide Mouthed Frog to the Chilean (who thought he was God's gift to women) to Dave the Brave (who didn't like dogs) to a particularly odious and unsavoury fellow who accused me of being frigid! I had just about given up...

While trawling through Oasis Active on that Tuesday evening, I was contacted by an intriguing man that I had previously viewed on a number of occasions. He called himself "spider52" and his photograph on his profile was of himself with his Beagle. He sounded promising, even though he was a smoker. I had hoped, after the Philanderer and my ex, not to be associated with a smoker again.We sat, in front of our individual computer screens, chatting online for several hours. Time and time again, I was convinced he'd lost interest, as he appeared to be as hesitant as I was eager. He later admitted he was exceedingly slow and laborious on the keyboard.

We eventually agreed to meet at the Whiteman Park dog exercise enclosure on the following Saturday. We felt that a dog date was an ideal initial meeting. If the three dogs didn't get on, there would really be no future for a relationship between us.

I met Michael on that Saturday morning and fell in love. Fortuitously, Ruby his Beagle was the most placid and easy going of dogs and the three of them had no qualms about each other. Actually, Ruby, as ever, did her own thing, whilst the other two scampered around her with a host of new canine friends. This is a trait Ruby has perfected throughout the years that have elapsed since that walk in the park.

We ate an impromptu lunch at the cafe - with the dogs - and shared the first tentative titbits of ourselves with each other. Michael was mesmerising. He didn't touch me or kiss me - as many of my previous dates had assumed they could just DO. We arranged to see each other the following week. I hoped my emotions were not too obvious. I was terrified I'd scare him away for good.

As luck would have it, I didn't have to wait even that long. Three days later, on the following Tuesday evening, Michael rang me after he'd visited his mum, who was in hospital awaiting bypass surgery.He asked if he could come to the house and have a glass of wine. Later, I understood his loneliness and fear. He had lost his wife to a massive heart attack six months earlier. He needed somewhere to go rather than back to his own home with its sad and painful echoes.

I warned him that he would have to run the gauntlet of some of my friends who were also at my house. The Lush Sisters were determined to vet any potential suitors after my previous unfortunate blunders. Michael accepted the challenge with alacrity and rocked up outside shortly afterwards.

And naturally he passed with flying colours. My guardian angels departed and we were left on our own. Michael introduced me to his photos of the Goldfields on Panaramio whilst we sat together and chatted and drank our first bottle of vino together. Several hours later, he realised with a start that he needed to drive back to his own home in order to catch a few hours kip.

The rest, as they say, is history. Unbeknown to me, Michael was cooking up his own tests. Three weeks after we met, he took me on a trip to some of his workplaces - Boddington Bauxite Mine and Worsley Refinery outside Collie. I had to wear all the safety gear, do exactly as I was told and stick to Michael like glue. I loved every second spent in those dirty, smelly environments. I was already completely smitten with the man.

The second test came in the form of our Goldfields trip four months later. Michael wanted to see how I would cope with the isolation and the grandeur of his favourite places. No shower, no toilet, sleeping in a swag. Love of a landscape or environment like the Goldfields was impossible to fake. I was besotted with both him and his passion.

During that trip, I discovered that Michael wasn't planning on going anywhere. That Christmas of 2009 was the last we spent apart. We embarked on another outback adventure the following April. Michael became seriously ill with a recurrent chest infection less than two months later. At the end of the June long weekend, he was grey, painfully thin and close to a breakdown. We arrived back at my duplex and I ordered him into bed. He agreed with barely a protest or whimper. We began living together from that day onwards..

Six months later, in early January 2011, we became the Beverley Hillbillies. And that, girls and boys, was only the start of our life at the House that Rocks. Together.