FORGIVE me, but I'm in a self-indulgent mood again I'm still struggling with the real world after a week with mates on a lush Victorian dairy farm just across the Murray River from the Snowy Mountains.

A proud father, I'm going to waffle on about family, in particular Jane Catherine Kendall Allison, now 25.

Like the Australian voter waiting for an election date, she's been waiting ages for a date, too. From her boyfriend, Haydn Whitfield, 29.

The pair (pictured right) met when Jane was in year 9 at Crestwood High School. Haydn's sister, Kerry, introduced them.

Ironically, Jane's brother, David son of Alita (aka The Redhead) and I was in the same grade as Haydn, although they did different subjects.

As they say in "True Romance", it was love at first sight for Jane and Haydn.

``I guess it's a rarity these days for a couple to find their soulmates so young, but we're very happy we did,'' Jane said on a visit from her Port Macquarie home at the weekend. ``I can't wait to be Mrs Whitfield.''

I feel responsible for the Whitfield family's mass migration to Port, after extolling the wonders (and value-for-money housing) of the coastal gem.

Haydn's brother, Damien, met one of our Castle Hill neighbours, Lyn, a hairdresser and settled with three kids in Shelly Beach.

That's two headlands from where his retired parents, Ewen and Maureen, live at Lighthouse Beach.

Kerry, also a hairdresser, married locally and bought five doors away in Jane's cul-de-sac at Shelly Beach.

Haydn is a fit-out carpenter with his own business and Jane, a BA (fine arts) works in an art/crystal/antiques gallery which was just voted a winner in the mid-North Coast Business Awards. Jane also teaches art to adults and children.

Righto, the punchline.

A few weeks back, Haydn proposed to Jane after formally asking for her hand. They plan to marry in The Old School, Rawdon Island, at a ceremony guests will reach by boat up the Hastings River on May 17. They will have been together 10 years. Romantic, eh?