Mini breaks, miraculous weather, and mad marsupials

The past few months I have really been spoiled rotten in terms of weekend locations. This past weekend was no exception. After a foul day at work on Friday (during which my colleagues discussed their um, preferences for the receptionist down the hall... for HOURS) I arrived at the ABC office to get a lift with a friend. Here I was mildly cheered by a young boy running up and informing me that there was face-painting on the floor above. He was decked out as a very overenthusiastic and slightly too orange lion. I was jealous.

Hopped in the car and headed south towards Jervis Bay. Currarong, our destination, is situated on the Northern headland that encircles the bay. Having seen the area before I was madly excited to be able to go back. The friends in question had purchased a small house a few years before, and utterly transformed it, from cabin to dream house, with the addition of a huge upper deck. From this, we could sit, huddled around a sizzling brazier, and watch the sunset with large glasses of wine. Strange though it sounds, it was lovely to know that it was properly cold, even by UK standards, and yet we were toasty warm.

The next day, after dropping in to the local Womens Association shop where they were all busy knitting away (socks, baby jumpers, and, rather bizarelly, ipad covers...) and complaining about the cold, we headed out on a bush walk around the headland. The sun was hot, but the pathway was unfortunately still completely flooded in places. Cue desperate attempts to swing over/squirm around the outside of the huge trenches of red, tea tree infused water that blocked our way. It was a great walk, and felt amazing to fully stretch the legs after weeks of non exercise. 

That evening we took deck chairs and a bottle of champagne down to the beach and watched the sunset. I was roundly derided for never having drunk champagne on a beach. C'mon guys, I am from London! It was a stunning sunset, prompting many many photos, only slightly marred when an overweight, middle aged lady came and started stretching out right in the middle of our view. Grr...

The following morning, shortly after dawn I was woken by a persistent cough outside the window. When it continued I tiptoed out to see what was going on. Ali was already awake and informed my of the presence of kangaroos at different ends of the house. Naturally, we somehow managed to get ourselves wedged between the two groups. There was a shaky moment when we had to edge back around the house, passing about a metre away from a large, unfriendly looking male. My God they get big! Retreating to the deck, we took up position to watch (and in my case play paparazzi).

Turns out the coughing is a way of the males stating they are annoyed with each other and would like to fight. After kicking away the youngster and female, they started feverishly playing with their balls (their own, not each others!) They then squared up and started to box. It was amazing. A few flying kicks. Circling. Bouncing. Suddenly it got halfhearted and they stopped, looking embarrassed. Evidently they had sensed they had spectators. Damn. It was truly magnificent though while it lasted!

After a large breakfast (featuring more champagne) we spent the morning at a different beach, this time looking over the lagoon rather than the ocean. The water was completely calm, with a yacht moored nearby, purely for photo ops, we decided. Passed a couple of hours lazing around and collecting shells before grumpily realising that it was time to head off, shake the sand from our feet, and troop back to Sydney. But not before some more food, and a little more champagne...!

Wow - what a weekend!

What a weekend! It had a bit of everything. Culture. Drama. Wonder. Intrigue. Vodka. Wine. etc etc

The weekend began early on Friday afternoon. Having pitched up about 10:30 (I had been there since 9...), the boss then announced that he was leaving the office at 1 to go to the "giggle and hoot" show at the Opera House, staring none other than Bananas in Pyjamas! I assumed that he was taking his young daughter to this - but, having learnt from experience, decided not to ask in case it was just a strange quirk of his (turned out he did - in his words "she loved it! She totally lost her noodle!") So I strolled out of the office at lunchtime into the hot winter sun, freedom!

That evening was the long awaited opening of the 'Sydney Moderns' exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. I arrived late, as usual, but luckily found some familiar faces amid the crush. Heading to the bar to take advantage of the free champagne, I promptly got a glass poured down the front of my dress. Grrrr. And people wonder why I rarely bother to dress up!

After about an hour of either dull, pointless, or insulting speeches, we finally got into the show. It was a great mix - some fantastic cubist pictures of various well known sites, gorgeous black and white photos of the construction of the bridge, even a full reconstruction of a drawing room. The dominance of female artists was particularly prominent, as was the general joyous use of colour. It was a great show, only slightly diminished by the over zealous bouncers throwing us all out at 8:30! Congratulations to the curators!

The next day was similarly sunny, so spent a restorative hour sunbaking before heading to a local pub to enjoy the build up to the Lions game. And my god what a game it turned out to be! The atmosphere was incredible - the Lions fans dominated the pub - dressed in kilts and flags and being as lairy as possible without getting thrown out. While the Aussie's tried (shouts of "you'll never be a fullpenny" were thrown at the screen!) we were the dominant side. And, as opposed to the second test, it was actually a decent game of rugby as well! Afterwards, bouyed up by our win, we headed to a local bar which prided itself on Heston Blumenthal style cocktails. Blimey it delivered. It was definitely the most impressive drinking 'experience' I had ever had. I ordered the English Summer Garden Martini - which promised to bring me the tastes, sounds and smells of the summer. How could a drink bring me sounds, I wondered?

The waiter approached carrying two slabs of turf. On one lay an ipod and an eyemask. Placing the eyemask over my eyes, I turned on the ipod and was overwhelmed with english sounds  - church bells chiming, leather on willow, trickling streams, wimbledon commentary (love the stereotypical english life  - hardly realistic..!). I then inhaled deeply from the smoking watering can. Freshly cut grass filled my nostrils. Sipping from the gin and cucumber martini, I examined the rest of the apparatus. This included edible soil (chocolate cookie crumbs) which you ate with a miniature shovel, and absinthe 'worms' (jelly) which you separated from the grass and soil using a miniature rake.

Across the table, Vicky was wrestling with the Breakfast Mojito. Served on a dental tray, it resembled a high school chemistry experiment. You brushed your teeth with the Colgate using a miniature toothbrush (yup, they loved their small tools!!), then shot the mouthwash (served in a conical flask) then injected the rum into your mouth using a syringe. Biting down on a lime cleansed the palate. The night continued... but the memories got a bit fuzzy...All in all, it was an awesome experience which i cant wait to repeat!

The next day, lunch at a friends yacht club was followed by a lovely nap to prepare myself for the Wimbledon final. Starting at 11 at night, it was a true commitment to watch the whole thing. After the first 2 sets I had had as much as I could handle. Every point provoked a panic attack. We had squirmed our way through, hearts in mouths. Thinking that it would go to five sets (ever the British attitude!) I headed to bed. Where of course I didnt sleep, but woke up every 2 minutes to check the score on my phone... Idiot.

Knackered and elated I headed to work the next day, arriving at 10 (trying not to repeat all the time wasted on Friday), I collapsed in my gorgeous reclining chair in the sun. And waited. And waited. Around 11, the CEO appeared, on the phone. I didnt want to disrupt his call, so didnt get up or call out. Half an hour later, he was still on the phone. I started to feel awkward - I really should have made my presence known by now. At quarter to twelve, my immediate boss (without whom I cant do any work) arrived. He greeted me, causing the CEO to jump out of his skin, and glare at me for hiding in the corner. Brilliant. Ah well. I didnt care. Because that evening I knew I was off diving in the harbour!

Heading straight to Manly from work, we got to the dock and met the others, set up the kit and headed off! The feeling of heading out at full speed into the inky blackness of the ocean was exhilarating! Getting into the water was a slightly different matter. To say it was cold does not even come close to the reality. But it was well worth it. The contrast between the torch beams and the looming darkness is a pretty amazing feeling. The whole dive was really quite surreal - the swell around the rocks added to the out of control feeling. After  some initial discomfort, getting repeatedly swept into a clump of kelp, I went with it. And had a fantastic time. We came across a sleeping turtle - which promptly woke up at having a torch shone in its face and grumpily swam off, as well as several small rays. Sadly no sharks, but there's always next time, and certain people werent too comfortable with the idea of them. One of which was the friend who I was diving with - she had a rough enough time anyway, cheerfully informing me afterwards that she had thrown up in her regulator. Ew.

Signing off for now - driving down to Jervis Bay this weekend - lets see if it can measure up!

Beth, meth, 'speth'

As it turns out, I have been very lucky with the easygoing nature of my living spaces over the last 9 months. Two friends had strange clauses written into their contracts. The first, at D and J's place, was that the weird flesh coloured crystal that lived on the window sill and plugged into the mains was never to be turned off. Naturally it gets turned off a lot. Quite often on purpose. It is now rather smaller, and seems to be melting. Odd behaviour for a crystal. The other friend, H, had the rather alarming clause "you must not speak to or make contact with the other people living in the house". Nice. Not remotely dodgy. As it turns out, maybe a worth while warning. They are very friendly, but keen purveyors of herbal and chemical remedies.

Last week I was on Oxford Street when I suddenly noticed a crystal in a shop window, exactly the same as the rapidly diminishing one in the Bondi flat. Excitedly, I texted my friend. Here is a record of our somewhat stilted conversation:

B: Just found a shop that sells crystals in case you kill yours!

D: A shop that sells crystals in case I kill mine? What does that mean?!?

B: The odd melty one that keeps getting switched off! Always good to know where to get a replacement just in case! A bit like when a friend asks you to look after their pet...

D: So confused. Are you trying to buy crystal meth?? And what have you been doing to people's pets???

At which point I gave up trying to make any sense and just replied:

B: Yes, thats it! Trying to buy meth but its raining so all the usual suspects are hiding inside.

D: ... Have you tried asking H's flatmates...?

To a normal person I would have thought this quite clearly translated as sarcasm. However, when I saw D on Tuesday at a pub quiz night, he started to ask something and then went quiet. When questioned, he looked shifty and muttered something about not wanting the whole group to hear. I pushed further. Whereupon he announced to my group of friends that he was worried about me and my obvious meth habit. There was a shocked silence. Followed by uproarious laughter. Various flattering comments flew, "shes too fat to be on meth! she still has eyebrows!" Poor sheepish D had honestly spent the whole week worrying that I was hiding a terrible secret. Which, considering we all spent the whole of last weekend together, would have been an impressive feat indeed.

Balderdash: bloody brilliant!

As I have probably mentioned before, having been introduced to this game, I have now fallen head over heels for it. The joy of Balderdash is that you don't need any general knowledge, and for once it helps to be slightly mad and overly enthusiastic.

To try and demonstrate its awesomeness, I brought back some great examples from this weekend to share:

The question at hand was to suggest the synopsis for the movie "Ooh, you are awful!"

Each person writes their idea of what the movie would involve (the 'dealer' contributes the correct answer to the mix) and then the answers are collected and read out anonymously, with the contestants having to guess which is the actual one. We came up with these to choose from:

• A kitsch drama released in 1985 about a family adapting to post WWII life in Britain.
• In which two young men fall in love with the same girl. After impregnating her with no knowledge of paternity they elope with one another to form a transvestite duo in the freak show at the circus.
• In this 1935 slapstick comedy, actress Simone Lesley discovers her shambolic husband has been cheating on her with his 18 year old secretary and seeks revenge through a series of hilarious pranks.
• 50 year old Mira Windle moves from small town Wisconsin to the bright lights of New York City. Initially ostracized, her catch phrase of "ooh you are awful!" catapults her to the forefront of society. Based on a true story.
• A con man searches for a girl who has the location of hidden bonds tattoed on her backside.
• A boy who launches a year long reign of terror over his best friend's hamster; involving poking it with a white hot stick, Chinese waterboarding, and finally killing it with a sledgehammer and a rusty nail.

After much deliberation, the votes were in. As it turns out, we all lost when it turned out to be the girl with the tattoos gracing her nether region. And people started to look at Dom a bit differently after learning he was responsible for the plot line involving the hamster... All in all, good fun, turning increasingly purile as the wine flowed. After an hour we all physically ached from laughing.

Points to anyone who can guess which was mine. Off to bed now, the combination of full working weeks and action packed weekends is really wearing me down - break out the violins...!

Rain, rugby, rivers and more rain

My friends had very kindly offered me the use of their family boat house for the weekend, so I wasn't too chuffed to wake on Saturday to pissing rain. After a swift reminder to myself that this is how most weekends start back home, we got on the road, radio blaring, drinking cold coffee (the others) and warm diet coke (me) and eating tim tams.

While I had been to Berowra many times before, this was the first occasion on which I would have to be 'the responsible adult'. I was determined to succeed, with none of my usual flustered fuck ups. Dropped the others off at the jetty with all the bags (at least the rain had let up at this point) and headed round to the marina to grab the boat. Here I fell at the first hurdle. I couldnt get through the gate. Vaguely remembering that I was meant to be using a fob, I started waving one of the many fobs on the keychain at everything in sight. Nothing. I then tried all the keys in the lock. A few fit, but refused to turn. I had just resorted to trying to bust the door open when someone opened it from the other side. He then pointed out, smirking rather too much for my liking, that the fob point was on the other wall to the one I had been looking at. In plain sight. Its red light blinked at me smugly. Glowering at it, I passed through and shut the door behind me.

Found the tinny and boarded. Successfully lowered the motor into the water. Untied one of the painters and left the other one looseish for me to easily cast off when I got the motor started. Big mistake. I jerked the pull cord back. Nothing. Tried again. Nada. Gave it a bit of choke. Still nothing. The pulling became more frantic. At this point the painter had clearly had enough and somehow I found myself floating towards the middle of the river with no idea how to get the boat under control. The very few people around looked on disinterested. My friends watched nonchalantly from the jetty.

Thank god an old man took pity on me and came over to lend a hand. Soon we were pulling away - me desperately trying to cling to what shreds of dignity I had left, and heading for the house. The rest of the afternoon was lovely, with lots of food, sitting in the suddenly appearing sun on the veranda, playing cards, and trying to get the fire lit without the help of such useful things as firelighters. As it turns out, there definitely can be lots of smoke without fire.

Headed back across the water to meet some more friends at the pub for the Lions game in the evening. Surrounded by Wallabies supporters, we tried to keep a vaguely low profile - not helped by three of us ordering kids meals, which attracted hateful glances from the waitresses and surrounding children alike when we asked if we could have our free icecream...! In fact, the kids present were a pain in the arse - constantly coming over and berating us for having a bottle of ketchup on our table, because "Daddy says its meant to stay on the counter". One look at Daddy's stony face, grotesque tats and large gut and we returned the ketchup...

The game was great, with Australia starting off convincingly strong despite 3 players being stretchered off. Unfortunately one was their kicker which was to have disastrous consequences. With England 1 point ahead in the final minute, the Wallabies were awarded a penalty. We were convinced it was all over, slumped over our drinks. The poor guy (incidentally just out of rehab for alcoholism) then slipped and buggered the whole thing up. We cheered for a split second, before the usual British "oh god, do you think the poor guys alright?" kicked in. Not a nation that does winning well. Unfortunately the cheer was enough to piss off the surrounding Aussies. The evil glares got darker and less subtle. Despite the support of the Irish girls on the next door table (not interested in the game, but had been drinking wine from the bottle for some time now...) we beat a hasty retreat.

Headed back down the hill and piled into the boat. It was now wet and very dark, two small headtorches not achieving much apart from making their owners look like crazed miners. Luckily there were no incidents of people falling out of the boat, as we headed back to the warmth of the house, which, judging by the pile of ashes, had had a roaring fire going as soon as we had left.

The rest of the weekend was an indulgent mish mash of eating, sleeping, drinking and playing games. (See the next blog for more on our epic rounds of Balderdash...) The rain barely let up from dawn on Sunday morning onwards. After only a couple of dodgy moments, such as a near collision with the ferry while searching for somewhere to moor the boat, we made it back to the other side of the river with all our bags vaguely dry and intact, piled into the borrowed cars (excellent insurance system) and limped off through the torrential downpour back to Sydney. And were home in time for the Block! (Anyone would think I had planned it...)

(This did not happen... nor did this)

New depths in delusional search for career direction

We've all had those days when we question our job - whether it be its purpose, responsibilities, working hours etc

But Monday really hit it out the box. Knowing that my boss had been off for a week, I arrived purposefully late to give him time to get his head together, answer the backlog of emails etc before I pestered him for my daily task. On arrival in the office, I found that unfortunately he hadn't got very far. Indeed, the only thing he could think of was a huge pile of financial documents that needed shredding.

Fine, I thought, I'm not above shredding. This is a job in which I spent weeks just scanning documents. Tedious. Repetitive. Soul destroying. Shredding couldn't be much worse!

Except there turned out to be no shredder in the office. So my task really was to hand shred (no, not using a manual shredder - hand shred as in actually rip all the papers up by hand) a massive box of very confidential papers.

7 hours later I had come to a few conclusions. 1) My university degree that cost me thousands of pounds and 3 years of my life was clearly invaluable, 2) There had to be some ulterior reason why this company is willing to pay me to merely rip up paper all day? 3) Hand 'shredding' is a lot more strenuous than it appears. My hands are now a reddened mess of blisters and paper cuts.

Scampering sheep and sensational scenery (or Sleepless in Scone)

This weekend was the Queen's birthday. Well, actually it wasn't, but it was her 'official' birthday. So we got a day off work. In England, you ask, the land of the sovereign? No, in Australia. Naturally. Any excuse for a day off... I may have made references before to their penchant for long weekends. Aussie friends are aghast to learn that we don't get St George's Day off work (Australia Day is a big one for boozing!) that Remembrance Sunday is always at the weekend (Anzac Day coincidentally seems to nearly always fall during the week...) and we don't celebrate our Queens Birthday with, yeah, another day off.

Woke up disgracefully early on Saturday to head to Scone for the weekend to stay with some friends. Not that it mattered if I was tired, as I wasn't driving, but its just not cricket old chap. Arrived just too late to join the others for the local sheep festival, the highlight of which was 'the running of the sheep'. Not quite the same impact as Pamplona but they did put red socks on the sheep to add to the drama... Points for effort!

The drive took us through wine country and then through the mining towns. It was hugely atmospheric, as the rain set in, with the industrial chimneys looming out of the low lying cloud, belching smoke to add to the mix.

Arriving in Scone we shoved the footy on and promptly fell asleep on the sofas, which the others were not impressed by when they arrived with the three month old twins in tow an hour later. The twins and sleep do not go hand in hand. As I was to discover first hand that weekend.

It was a brilliant weekend - amazing food, great company, gorgeous countryside. Highlights included the Lions win on Saturday, some epic games of Balderdash, and Jim's ten minute talk about favourite stubby holders he has owned. Beer holders being a crucial part of life. What was a deeply strange topic of conversation was at least impressive in its length and passion. Once again, only in Australia...

I spent the weekend having a bit of a love in with Lacie the Kelpie. She is possibly the most amazing dog I have ever known. Having complained bitterly about looking after a Maltese/Chihuahua cross a week before due to its desire to sleep on my pillow (and going to great lengths to get there) I was utterly content to curl up with Lacie on a single mattress on the kitchen floor. And on the sofa. And the kitchen benches. You get the idea - am still having shameful thoughts about stealing her and somehow smuggling her back to the UK.

I have also utterly fallen for the twins, despite all previous protestations of not really liking children. They are at the amazing stage of discovering smiling. It was lovely looking down at the tiny being as it gazed up adoringly. No-one looks at me like that - it was great! And almost made up for the late night screaming. It is truly incredible that something that small can make that much noise and for that long! It is also amazing that their heads smell so good. Random, but true. Of course I have now caught the cold that was keeping them up all night. But it was totally worth it!