El - Ocean Swimmer!

I did it! Woohoo! The Big Swim, as I put it in my email to everyone who had sponsored me (and a few who have since), is swum! It turned out to be a great day, the giant swell never materialised, and it was a good feeling to run (yes, I did actually run) out of the surf at Whale Beach and across the finish line. A bottle of chocolate milk and some prawns and avocado, and I was nearly feeling human again. Spent the rest of the day at the beach, lazing around - even went back in for a swim later - although just to play in the surf really - then a game of beach cricket, at which members of the public proved better at taking catches than any of us. We were all English I suppose. Forgot to put any more sunscreen on for about 3 hours after getting out of the water, so now have nicely burnt shoulders. Doh. Still - with around $4,000 raised for charity, not too bad really.

Alex drove us back to Bondi late afternoon, and in the evening we finally got to watch some tennis at the Opera House forecourt - the last chance this year actually, as it was the men's final. Which Federer won, unsurprisingly. Still good to watch though, with lots of Chilean fans at full volume.

Ready to go...

Well folks, that's it. 3 months of training are now over, and tomorrow morning is The Big Swim. It feels a bit strange - I can't quite believe it's going to happen. We trained in the pool on Thursday, and then at the beach yesterday (Australia Day, so a public holiday), and today. The water's still lovely and warm, and it's been hot and sunny - but in the last couple of hours the wind has changed and a huge southerly is now blowing. Not entirely sure what that means for the water temperature up at Palm Beach, but apparently 6-foot swells are likely. Hmmm. Luckily, I am now an ocean swimmer, and thus embrace all such challenges. I have my CanToo swimming costume, so I'm all set.

We're leaving Bondi at 7am, picking up Rachel and Leo (extra supporters - woohoo!), and then heading on up to arrive by 9ish. A quick 2.7km swim for me, and then it's a picnic on the beach with all our mates who've come to cheer us on. I really, really want it to go well - everyone's been so generous in sponsoring me, so I hope I can live up to all your expectations!

Off round to Mike and Rache's for a leisurely barbie this afternoon - it is Australia Day weekend, after all. We spent yesterday at Alex G's all-day housewarming/Australia Day barbecue, which was great - not a bad weekend, so far...

Cold water

Well, Roddick beat Safin by 11.30pm on Friday night, so no late-night tennis watching for us after all. Had to have a drink at the Opera Bar instead, and then some late-night nachos at the City Extra - 24 hour food and drink with a view of the Harbour Bridge - sometimes it just has to be done.

I got up for swim training at the beach on Saturday, to find that the water temperature had reached a record summertime low of 14.5 degrees. Brrrrr..... Luckily the sun was out and the skies were blue, but there were very few people in the water - and most of them had wetsuits on. I think the coaches were scared of people getting hypothermia, so they made us alternate running (well, jogging, in my case) with swimming - my group had to run the entire length of Bondi Beach, and then swim back. Twice. After that I was ready for breakfast, and Alex came down to meet us and head to one of the beachfront cafes for some.

Managed an exciting trip to Ikea in the afternoon, for a new bookcase, and reminded ourselves again that we need to get the aircon in the ute fixed - it's started dripping all over the passenger's feet. It was around 35 degrees outside, and we were having to rely on Aussie Aircon - i.e. winding the windows down.

Jazzanova at the Beck's Festival Bar was all sold out, so we went to meet Chris, Esther and co in the Domain (part of the Botanical Gardens, with a big stage at one end), for this year's 'Symphony in the Domain' - a big free concert by the Sydney Symphony, which always ends with Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, cannons firing and fireworks. Excellent. And you get to bring a picnic and sit and drink throughout. Followed this up with a few drinks in the East Sydney hotel - a traditional old boozer near the park - and ended up back at some friends' house, playing guitar and drinking Pimms until around 3am. Not bad for a quiet night!

Sunday was all just chilling - lie-in, lunch, beach, bbq. Ah.

Awoken by the builders upstairs at 7am this morning (Monday) - joy. Another beautiful day, and I was swimming in the Icebergs pool by 8.30am. Now just got to do a bit of clearing up, soak up a few more rays and then it'll be off to start my 2pm captioning shift.

Summer’s (finally) here

It’s taken a long time, and the weather resolutely refused to play ball when the family were out here for Christmas – we had some nice days, but I think they were a little disappointed by the ‘Australian summer’, especially Erica, a fellow sun-worshipper. But it’s been hot and sunny all week, and set to reach 41°C this Sunday – woohoo!

I know there’s a drought on and everything, but even when it rains in Sydney, it doesn’t rain inland, where they need it, or fill up the reservoirs, which for some reason were all built where it doesn’t rain. There aren’t even many rainwater tanks on houses here, for when it does rain (apparently there used to be more, but at some point it came to symbolise being poor and backward, so most people took them out. Doh.) There also aren’t that many solar panels, especially compared to places I’ve been in Europe – Cyprus springs to mind – but I’m not getting started on that subject now.

As I was saying – summer is here, and our weekends are filling up with fun stuff. Tonight is Friday, and there’s going to be drinking in the city – probably Bar 333 – and then maybe we’ll wander down to Circular Quay and watch the late-night tennis match from the Melbourne Open on the big screen that’s set up in front of the Opera House steps. Tomorrow is my penultimate Cantoo swim training at Bondi, and we’ll probably try and catch something at the Sydney Festival in the evening. I plan to mostly lie on the beach on Sunday, with the odd swim to cool off. Oh yeah!

First post!

After having lived here nearly a year, and realising that I’m getting worse and worse at keeping people updated on what I’m doing (I don’t really like sending out massive group emails – I’m never sure if people actually want to read them), I have decided to add another blog to the millions already out there. I’m not promising I’ll be very good at posting to it regularly, but I am at least going to try!