Phillip King

I first met Philip in 2010 when I was working for a forestry business, growing trees on Philip & Paula's farm. It was early last year we met again, in the cute cottage by the lake, looking out to Mt Lindsay. We were supposed to be negotiating a farm lease but instead spoke about cricket and the West Indies and his early working life as a diplomat and I left without having progressed our business, so we agreed to meet again. These ‘meetings’ became a nice excuse to catch up and tell stories, drink Guinness, explore ideas and – occasionally and with boring necessity – negotiate the lease. It was a shame to eventually agree terms and sign the damn thing because it meant there were fewer reasons to meet. Although my liver has since recovered somewhat I feel diminished by the loss of opportunity, regret that I didn’t find more reasons to check in when I drove past in a cloud of bulldust, inst