Weekend fun

OK, so it's Tuesday now, but what's interesting about work? The weekend was much more fun, starting with a trip to the open-air cinema at Mrs Macquarie's Point in the Botanical Gardens on Friday evening.


It's a bit of a formal cinema, compared to some of the other open-air ones around Sydney in the summer, but it has the great views across the harbour and a proper bar to sit and watch the sunset with a drink in. So that was nice. And then we wandered over to our seats (you get a sticker when you arrive that you can write your name on to reserve a seat whilst you go to the bar), the screen rose up from where it had been lying flat on the water, the bats started flying out of the trees, and we settled back to watch 'Glastonbury'. I've never been, but I almost felt that I had by the end of it! Made me a bit homesick for English festivals in the summer though. Still, someone had thought about that, as they were handing out flyers for the Playground Weekender festival that we're going to in March on the way out!

Saturday was the final Can Too swim training session at the beach, as lots of people were swimming in the Cole Classic at Manly Beach on the Sunday. Was quite sad to say goodbye to a lot of people, although hopefully we'll meet up again at some point. Also let myself get talked into signing up for a 4-week surf ski course with Spot, one of the coaches who also runs BondiFit. Surf skis are kind of like long kayaks - the lifesavers use them and race them (and catch waves with them) - we're going to be learning in the harbour at first - so no waves to tip us up. Have managed to convince Alex to do it too!

Then back to ours for a barbie with some mates, and lots of games - darts, dance mat and finally poker. Our run of house luck finished though, and Mark cleaned us out (although he has been playing in some pub tournaments recently, so I reckon the practice has paid off...)

Sunday, Dom and Mark were heading up to Curl Curl beach for a surf and invited us along. Never been to the Northern beaches before the Big Swim, and suddenly there we were again! You can sort of see why so many people think Bondi is too crowded when you get there - it was great.

Although our surfing wasn't really - the paddling is just so tiring, and the current meant that I only made it through the break once. Maybe the surf ski course will help the old upper body strength. They had to head off, but left us the beach tent, so we spent the rest of the afternoon lazing on the beach with the paper and occasionally going for a dip to cool off.

The bluebottles did start appearing by the end of the afternoon though, so we eventually packed up and headed home to Bondi, for a glass of wine and some more barbecued chicken on the balcony. Ah.