Extended absence

Hmmm... 7 months later, eh? Quite a lot has happened during that time - the most exciting of which is that Alex and I got engaged in July! Hopefully I shall write more soon, but am about to head out for dinner at the Bondi Tratt, so that's it for now. I'm still alive though!

Storms and floods

Yet again a month has passed, and I haven’t got round to updating this site. Still blaming it on Facebook though! Anyway, it isn’t as though I haven’t been doing anything – life in Bondi (and the rest of the places I’ve been visiting) continues to be good – even in the torrential rain that has been a feature of the past month. There were floods on the Central Coast and in the Hunter Valley, in which 9 people died, and even here the weather was pretty severe – six-foot pounding surf etc, and so much wind that half the beach got blown into the skate park at Bondi:



But a few weeks ago, it still felt like summer. We headed down to Jervis Bay, about 3 hours south of Sydney, for a weekend away with friends. There were 12 of us, and we rented a big house right by the beach, for a weekend of barbecuing on the balcony, and marvelling at the fact that we were swimming in the ocean instead of wearing the woolly hats and gloves that we’d brought with us. Walked to Hyam’s Beach one day, which is apparently in the Guinness Book of Records for having the whitest sand in the world. Looked it up when we got back to the house (which conveniently had the 2007 edition), but couldn’t find it. The sand was ridiculously white though!





Had a great dinner at a restaurant in the middle of a forest – part of Paperbark Camp Ecolodge, and then finished off the evening in the Husky Pub, dancing to some interesting tunes (in my case), or knocking back tequila in order to be able to cope with the tunes (in Alex’s).

Back in Sydney, we’ve been enjoying the end of the main bbq season with mates, went to see The View play at the Metro Theatre (and got extremely drunk in the process), seen ‘Shrek 3’ and ‘Death at a Funeral’ at the cinema (both good), and helped Dom and Julie move house, using the trusty ute, of course. And went to Marcus and Nance’s engagement party in Manly, which was cool.

We’ve also been booking holidays, and will be heading to Queenstown in New Zealand for a week’s snowboarding in August and then to the Northern Territory in October for 2 weeks! We’re going to go and see Uluru, rent a 4wd and drive to King’s Canyon and the Olgas and then through the outback to Alice Springs, from where we will be catching The Ghan train up to Darwin, from where we’re going to go and explore Kakadu National Park – can’t wait!

So that’s about it. I’m still swimming in the ocean – got my new wetsuit a couple of weeks ago and it makes a big difference. The surf yesterday was ridiculous, so we were swimming parallel to the beach, in the white water – there wasn’t a single surfer out, as the wind would have made it impossible to paddle out. Lots of fun though!

Addiction

Well, I haven't written much about Fiji - I think I was too relaxed when we got back. It was great - neither of us had ever really been on a resort stylee holiday before, and we thought we might get a bit bored. Not the case! We stayed for 4 nights at the Outrigger on the Lagoon, on the Coral Coast of Fiji's main island, where they brought us champagne and canapes every evening, then got a helicopter transfer (nice!)to Castaway Island, and stayed another 3 nights there before getting the boat back. Our camera has been a bit strange ever since we bought it at Christmas, and soon we'll get round to taking it back, so our holiday pictures don't do it quite as much justice as it deserves.

The other reason I haven't got round to writing anything is that I have developed a mild addiction to Facebook since joining a couple of weeks ago. I couldn't be bothered for ages, and then lots of people started sending me message to join, and now I'm in there. It's a bit weird. But also very cool when overseas to see the little things going on in my mates' lives that you probably just wouldn't ever find out about unless you happened to phone/e-mail them that particular day. Anyway. Hopefully the novelty is wearing off slightly and I won't be on it for 3 hours at a stretch in future.

Aside from all that, everything is still all good in Sydney. BhangLassi are having a bit of a break, as Chris and Matt are overseas for a few weeks. We've been out drinking more than the recommended amount rather a lot recently - poker nights, rugby games, PGL (Pissy Girls' Lunch), comedy nights (at the Opera House, of course!)and generally just enjoying life. The water is still about 20 degrees, and swimming on Saturday mornings does seem to get rid of the hangover very effectively, which is good. May have to purchase a full wetsuit if I'm going to carry on through the winter though...

Fiji Time

We stayed here. Need I say more?

Off to Feeeeeeeeejeeeeeeeeeeee!

Three weeks since my last post, and again, lots has been going on...

On Saturday, March 31, between 7:30pm and 8:30pm, it was Earth Hour, when most of the buildings in the CBD (including the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House) turned off their lights and switched off appliances on standby, and people at home did the same. Our mates Jo and Andy have a flat on the north side of the harbour, in Kirribilli, with a great view across to the city, and they invited us round for a dinner by candle-light to watch the spectacle. It was pretty impressive, but not exactly the total black-out we'd been picturing (especially as the Opera House was 30 minutes late in turning off its lights!). Lots of lights were never going to be turned off - street-lights, etc - and the parade of cars who'd specially driven down to the harbour foreshore to watch kind of defeated the purpose of the whole thing, which was to raise awareness of climate change. Delicious dinner though!

The great event of the following week was, of course, BhangLassi's debut at The Cat and Fiddle. A resounding success, loads of people came along to watch, and if the boys had any pre-gig nerves, you couldn't tell from the audience! The follow-up is happening tonight, at The Hopetoun in Surry Hills, well-known for the quality of its live music, and in Matt's words, "BhangLassi's Wembley".


A day to recover from that, and then it was Good Friday, and off we set for The Great Escape. A fantastic weekend was had by all, even in the torrential rain. Luckily, although wet, it wasn't cold, and by Sunday there was even intermittent sun, necessitating constant changes of clothing (hoodie on, waterproof on, waterproof off, hoodie off, waterproof on...) My personal favourites were The Magic Numbers, but I kind of knew they would be, being a band that are dear to my heart, but in terms of acts I'd never seen before, The Bird, a Sydney-based reggae-type outfit went off, I really liked the Hilltop Hoods and also Flogging Molly. Plus lots of others... Saw some bad and some great comedy in one of the bunkers (the festival is held at an old armory), and certain of the males in the group went to watch the same cabaret show on all three nights...

We had left Alex's old housemate from Battersea, James, in our flat for the weekend, handing over the key as he arrived from Brisbane on the Friday morning - looking a little unprepared for the wet weather, in Queensland-suitable shorts and thongs - so we were able to catch up properly over lunch by the beach on Easter Monday (it was sunny by then!), which was good.

Another short week at work last week, and then on Friday, we headed off to the Blue Mountains for another weekend camping, only this time it wasn't in a tent, but in a cave! It was Rach's 30th birthday, and her boyfriend Mike (the BhangLassi drummer, no less) had organised the trip for 11 of us. And it was wicked! 405 steps down through the bush from the lodge, which comes included when you rent the cave (or the other way round) was a massive, sandy-floored cave, fitted out with a barbecue, various acoustic musical instruments, area for a big campfire and a large, trapeze-like swing/hammock. We carried down food, booze, guitars, percussion and lots of drums, and partied like cavemen. It were great.




And after the excitement of the gig tonight is over, Alex and I are heading off to Fiji for a week of chilling and snorkelling on Saturday! Woohoo. I think it's raining at the moment, but, hey, I can cope with tropical rain. Fiji, here we come!

No time!

The thing about writing a diary-type blog, so I've found, is that the more stuff you do, the more you have to write about, but the less time you have to actually get round to writing about it. And the longer you leave it between writing, the more stuff you've done in the meantime, and so inevitably you end up reducing amazing experiences to one-liners. Ah well.

So - since last time, this is what's been going on:

The Playground Weekender festival! Up at Wiseman's Ferry, a little town/village I'd never visited, about an hour an a half from Sydney, on the banks of the Hawkesbury river. We rented a houseboat which slept 10 people with Chris, Esther, Matt, Mel, Andrew and various of his friends and friends of friends and had a hot, sunny, fun-filled weekend, involving lots of swimming in the river and barbecued breakfasts. Oh - and we visited the festival (mostly in the evenings) too. We could hear the music from the boat in the day, and there weren't all that many people there (you could tell it was the first time they'd organised it!), so we didn't feel the need to go over too early. Only one crash with the tinny (metal dinghy with motor for getting to shore), although we did come back in the dark one night and find it mostly underwater, lots of booze and generally muchos fun. Band highlights for me: Fat Freddy's Drop and Elbow.

Then Friday night, went to see Ross Noble at the Enmore Theatre. Wicked. There's a comedy festival on at the moment, so we've seen a few things. A couple of pleasant post-comedy beers catching up with Julie and Dom too, which was good. Saturday was Marcus's (the BhangLassi bassist) surprise birthday dinner in Manly. Thai banquet in Wok Bar - highly recommended for $25 per person - we could only manage about half the food!

Thursday 22nd was then Alex's birthday - he's finally reached the grand old age of 28! Apart from a very stylish BhangLassi mug (the envy of the band, I'm told), I also got him a day's hire of a Lotus Elise - to make a change from driving the ute! So we're going to take a day off work sometime and go cruising! He went to band practice on his birthday, so I went to see the closing film in the French Film Festival, with Tom, the only person I thought would be interested! Film was quite good, even with Gerard Depardieu playing his favourite character, and then we went for tapas.

Took Alex out for his birthday dinner on the Friday (after I had spent all afternoon at a boozy work lunch in the sun by the harbour - my first one in a year!) We wandered around East Sydney - mainly known for its Italian restaurants, but it has some others too, and he picked Voiaj, which has dishes from all over the world, and amazing decorations inside. And you get to drink out of metal goblets! I played it relatively safe with Moroccan lamb, although I was slightly tempted by the "Afghan camel snake pie with dirty rice..."

Saturday was the full-on birthday celebration, along with Alex G, who has the same birthday! We spent the whole afternoon from 2pm in the beer garden of the Rose Hotel , which is a great pub (and conveniently, just across the road from the theatre where a few of us had booked to see Ardal O'Hanlon, of Father Ted fame, in the evening). A huge thunderstorm at around 5pm meant we had to retreat under cover, but there was lots of room. Cooled it down a bit from the 35 degrees as well!

And after all that, on Sunday we went round to visit the Kirribilli massive for an afternoon of fajitas, poker and birthday cake (and the odd glass of wine!) Woohoo!

Have just come back from Wednesday night swim squad - hopefully I'll carry on all winter - may need a wetsuit in a couple of months though - it's in the Icebergs pool (see the pic at the top), so outside. Feel a lot more relaxed than when I got in from work though, which is all good.

And finally - the most exciting news of the past few weeks - BhangLassi have got real gigs! The first one is April 4th at the Cat and Fiddle in Balmain. Talk round these parts is of little else...

Harbour swim

Was great to see Leila again - she was last here about a year ago - although she was pretty busy working for most of the time. Came back from the last surf ski training session and she had cooked us dinner though - nice.

Bhanglassi had a chilled out practice session at Mike and Rache's flat, not far from us, on Thursday night, followed by dinner cooked by guest bassist Matt - risotto with scallops...mmmmm... They're sounding pretty good these days - if only they'd get their arses into gear and book themselves a proper gig somewhere!

Friday we had intended to go to the full moon drumming session, which happens on the cliffs between Bondi and Tamarama (once a month, surprisingly enough) - but were just too tired by the time we got home. Quite poor really - have to go next month instead.

In fact, this weekend was rather characterised by sleep. I got up for the 8.30 swim session at the beach on Saturday - supergood - caught 3 waves and nearly won one of the surf races because of it! Returned feeling pretty tired and went back to bed - Alex hadn't noticed that any time had passed in between me leaving and returning! Hot and sunny, so we spent most of the early afternoon lazing around the balcony with the papers. Then deceided we ought to do something, and caught the bus to Watson's Bay. Here there is a famous fish restaurant called Doyle's, established about 100 years ago, so pretty old for Australialand. Just made it before they stopped serving lunch at 3pm, and had fish & chips (v. nice, but priced for tourists) and a bottle of rose in front of the little beach (inside the harbour). Had a lot of fun people-watching - especially the rich people with yachts and pink shirts. Took a walk up to the South Head afterwards - the southern side of the entrance to Sydney Harbour, to walk it off a bit, and then came back down for an ice-cream in the park afterwards. I fell asleep on the bus on the way home, and then we passed out for a couple of hours when we actually got back, only to be woken by a phone call from Carol and David "hoping to catch us before we went out for Saturday night"!

Sunday morning wasn't characterised by sleep - got up and drove to the Opera House so I could do the Harbour Swim. Was much more confident than last year, and it felt like I went a lot faster, but I only shaved 1m02s off my time, to finish in 30.46. Back for a swim at Bondi, as it was very hot and sticky out of the water, where Alex did some proper hardcore swimming, and then got stung by a bluebottle. Ah well. Back home, had some lunch, and then I passed out on the sofa for a couple of hours, before we got up to start our trip over to Manly (back to Circular Quay to get the ferry) for Andy and Kristin's barbecue in the evening. Which was great.

A fairly touristy weekend, all in all - Bondi Beach, Doyle's, Opera House, Bondi Beach, Manly. Excellent.

And back to the Opera House on Monday evening, to see the Gotan Project. It felt a little odd to be watching in a formal concert setting, but they were really good, and the stage show was cool. Not a bad Monday night really!