Insert Jaws music.

Apparently, I can be difficult to control, which is why my daughter warned me to "think" before any offensive words came from my mouth during last Saturday's first meeting with in-laws-to-be over dinner in Melbourne.

Subsequently, it was with much excitement that we contemplated NOT going to Melbourne when Jetstar cancelled all flights out of Launceston last Friday.

Dodged a bullet, I thought. Binge on Italian movies all weekend, I thought. Eat orange Tim Tams and drink gin, I thought.

"You can still fly Saturday afternoon," my daughter said.

Terrific, I thought.

The trip into Melbourne from the airport took two hours due to weekend roadworks and by the time we arrived for our 8pm dinner, I'd been briefed.

"When you think you're going to say something like ma ma, think again and say nothing," my daughter said.

I believe she was recalling mum's right wing fascist phase, when during her 60s and 70s she had a propensity to offend. Okay, she offended for her last 30 years!

To mum, Muslims were "moosies"; Paul Keating was a "git, who no one ever liked" and she thought Australia needed more politicians like Pauline Hanson.

We arrived at the restaurant 15 minutes early. I ordered a straight brandy, daughter a fluffy duck, husband a bottle of Grenache. Yep. A bottle and one glass.

I was into my second brandy when eight members of our new family arrived.

They'd come to Melbourne from Christchurch as a family celebration for their 40th wedding anniversary and their son's engagement to our daughter.

They look nice, I thought.

Then I called his mum Pam instead of Ann.

F...k, I thought.

Turned out Ann's a bit of a straight talker herself. We really hit it off.

Then we figured something really weird ....

Dear reader Ann and I are 61 and 62.

When she was 21 and I was 20 we both did the same job in newspapers ... hers in Christchurch mine in Nowra, NSW.

We both learned to type, read, edit and print teletype.

Well, don't get us started.

From paper lice, to air-conditioned, room-sized computers. From swearing, to editors who made Murdoch look tame, we shared newsroom stories about how insanely smart we were as younglings!

Here's the other weird thing. Our children were born in 1986, two weeks apart; her son, my daughter. Why dear reader, Ann and I were totally in sync.

Afterwards, I heard I'd earned Ann's tick of approval. And she, mine.

We make a cute couple, Ann and I.

Last Friday, we found ourselves glued to the three-hour film Loro about former Italian Prime Minister and all-round sleaze, Silvio Berlusconi.

Was there too much "bunga bunga" for my husband?

The film's director Paolo Sarronteno, turned g-strings into an art form, with some hundreds of women providing a lush, moving landscape at the notorious Berlusconi bunga bunga pool parties.

Perhaps one bikini too many.

Saturday dawned and husband suffered a titillating, hearing-impaired, bunga bunga flashback while listening to Radio Melbourne's gardening talkback.

Host Libbi Gorr was overwhelmed when a guest came into her studio with a giant "bikini".

"It's a shame you can't see it," Gorr said.

Well, husband was "seeing it"; bikini instead of zucchini. True.

His mind had wandered back to a Sardinian poolside with Silvio.