Christmas !!!

Very quiet Christmas this year. Were it not for the presents and the days off work I don't think I would have noticed it at all!
We decided to have it that way due to saving money to go to Japan in April, and also because of my currently slightly shaky work situation (although at the moment things seem stable for the foreseeable first weeks of 2010...).

On Christmas Eve I had to work until 3pm, had 3 new temp staff to supervise for the day also so it was pretty tiring. After work, Mark and I went to the Hive Bar up the road from us for some wine and a cocktail that we ordered on the basis of it being called 'Myra Hindley' but which turned out to be rather nice. Then we retired home and began dinner. We had gazpacho, from the Delia vegetarian book (which is without a doubt THE best cook book for meat-free special occasion food) with some homemade croutons (Mark was Crouton Manager), then later ate some tuna sashimi with soy sauce. After dinner, we watched Doctor Who - the end of the 'Logopolis' serial, where Tom Baker as 4th Doctor regenerates into Peter Davison, followed by 3 episodes of the first 5th Doctor serial, 'Castrovalva'.

Christmas Day



Christmas Day began by waking up to the slightly bizarre (to an English person) sight of the bin men emptying the dustbins outside. Christmas in Australia is very much a case of keep calm carry on - especially if you are a bin man obviously!

On Christmas Eve, we left out some quince paste to see if we could attract in a wombat to live with us, to be the Erskineville Wombat after we fell in love with the wombat we sent to England a bit too much. And it worked!!!!



This is Chesney, the Erskineville Wombat!

We continued the day with bagels and cream cheese and smoked salmon, then took a stroll down to Sydney Park to play a bit of cricket. Unfortunately the weather was very overcast and began to drizzle not long after we arrived, so home again we headed.

Then we engaged in presents! We got so many good things!!! I got a lot of clothes, jewels and Claire Tomalin's Jane Austen biography and the Nigella Express book from the Fellows (which definitely looks like it will become a new favourite), Russell's new DVD and earrings and PERCY PIGS!!!!!! yes PERCY PIGS!!!!!!!!!! from Becca. If you ever want to make Mark and I really happy send us Percy Pigs. Also got a really good scarf from Mark's parents - similar to the pink one I wear all the time but in green so now I have variation! Bristol calendar and Cambridge calendar and Chatsworth House calendar (we always get a lot of calendars but we like the pictures).
Mark spent literally hours playing with his new Rubiks cube, also from his parents! I got him Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (they are GROSS but he loves them), Paul Smith socks (as usual haha) and new Poste chelsea boots (thanks to Lep for aiding their arrival!!) McWrinkle and the Platypus bought us Harry Potter DVD and also new speakers!!! with their lovely credit cards! Our music sounds so good now, haha.
We also got MASSES of other DVDS (Skins series 3, Inbetweeners series 1 & 2, new BBC version of Emma, Inglorious Basterds, The Snowman (!!) and Psychoville (which is so WRONG but I am hooked!)).
Mark bought me Mark Jacobs perfume, and two handbags (one of which is in the photo below, it is GOOD), and the skirt and top in the photo too!



The clothes are from Cue. The skirt has like a bustle, it is amazing! I wanted the top for a while after seeing it in the Cue window, I actually went to look for it in Myer because work gave me a $150 Myer gift card for xmas, but the Cue section in Myer didn't have my size - which turned out to be a good thing because Mark already got it!

Christmas Dinner



Mark has been testing out his skills as a food photographer. We had a dozen pacific oysters on the half shell, grilled in garlic butter, with roast tomato salad and a roast eggplant, goats cheese and walnut salad.





It was delicious. We drank a sparkling shiraz and then some desert wine that our friend Lise got us from the Hunter Valley as a gift.

Boxing Day

The weather worsened and boxing day was a bit of a write-off. It rained the whole day, so slept in til midday then stayed in for the afternoon. In the evening we went up to the cinema to see Bright Star the film about John Keats, which was very good. Then when we got home we ate mussels in white wine sauce.

Sunday

Today the weather was predicted to be similar to the previous day, but turned out to be dryer. So we caught the train to Circular Quay and looked at the Fiona Foley exhibition in the MCA, which was pretty though provoking. Then we walked up to the Rocks, and over the Harbour Bridge as we realised we'd never walked over it together! Back on the south side again, we rewarded ourselves with a quick half of porter in the Lord Nelson before heading home. There were so many weddings going on today, it was crazy, every corner we walked around saw another wedding party having photos!
Now I am off to watch more Psychoville and eat Guylian shells....mmm shells.

based on a novel by a man named Lear

Is everyone calm? I hope so.

December has been an extraordinarily busy month.

We began with an evening at the Opera at the City Recital Hall in Martin Place. Sydney opera company Pinchgut Opera specialise in staging obscure operas, and this year was L'Ormindo by Francesco Cavalli dating from 1644. It's quite good, it was well performed. I do love Italian operas as they are so over the top on the soap-opera drama. The ending was a bit rubbish though, which is probably why it's not a very famous opera. Back to the drawing board for you, Mr Cavalli !

Then I got to see my MUSICAL IDOL, JARVIS COCKER!!!! at the Metro theatre.



Oh my goodness he was brilliant!! He is such a great performer, and has such a great personality on stage, be it in distributing a chocolate bar to the crowd ("I know it won't go very far...."), querying the existence of an Australian Ipswich ("do you have an Ipswich? Is it nice? Ours is chronic."), and questioning the diet of koalas ("if eucalyptus just makes them sleep, why don't they just eat something else?")
He played a great mix of songs from both his solo albums and it all sounded so good! Ahh Jarvis.

Then two days after Jarvis was PATRICK WOLF!! which also was utterly brilliant.





The show even featured three costume changes from Patrick, and numerous instruments including an appalachian dulcimer ("I got it on eBay..."). I think I even enjoyed it as much as when we saw him on the Wind in the Wires tour at the Borderline in London back in 2004, when it was just him and a baby grand. This show was with a full live band, and he played all the best songs from his new album The Bachelor , as well as a lot from previous albums (only wish he could have played 'Bloodbeats', but it was not to be!) He seemed in a really good mood compared to some reports of recent gigs, he seemed to really love being in Sydney and changed several lyrics to be Sydney-appropriate, as well as expressing his love for the Sydney dining scene ("sorry if I look a bit fat - I just love your food so much").



Us at Patrick Wolf.



I got that blouse on the uber-bargain rail in that big vintage store in Surry Hills. It washed up well.

It's been really amazing for music here lately, what with Jarvis and Patrick, and we have also seen local Sydney band the Jezabels several times after months of silence from them - they are a brilliant band, a lot of Tori Amos influence. Also just a few weeks until the YEAH YEAH YEAHS which I am ecstatically excited for.

Other than that we have just been bumbling around, really. Trying to relax. Had a few good meals at old favourites Mamak, Kammandhenu, and Fatima's, brunches almost every weekend at Baffi & Mo (poached eggs on sourdough with extra avocado + skim flat white + fresh orange juice = best saturday breakfast ever). Also new discoveries in Cafe Sopra in Waterloo (great fennel salad), Bottom of the Harbour and their delicious fish and chips up on the esplanade at Balmoral, and a great new sushi discovery just a few minutes walk away on King Street in Newtown - Kai on King and their delicious chunky sashimi and steaming tempura.

All this has made us a little rotund so we have also been engaging in regular exercise in Sydney Park, where Mark and I compete in our pug count (extra points if you see the elusive black pug!). Pug count daily record so far has been 4 pugs. There are a lot of pugs in Sydney. OH puggy puggy puggy puggle how I want to scoop you all up and take you all home!

I am now off to do the washing up and watch Doctor Who. Mark recently discovered Newtown library has an extensive collection of old Doctor Who DVDs, which was pretty exciting! We are working our way through Tom Baker, currently.

escapism

The weather has been a little too much of late.



If you have never been in 41 degrees, you cannot imagine what it is like to be in 41 degrees. The air is like a desert bubble that clings around you, oppressive and suffocating. Haze and dust obscures the distance, and your immediate surroundings wobble and wave like you are viewing them through water. Being outside makes your head swim and your eyes sticky. The bushfire risk level is set at the grimly informal 'Catastrophic'.
That was the second day of 40+ degrees in less than a month, and the rest of the time has maintained a near-constant high 20s - mid-30s. Hot, endless, relentless heat.

I can't sleep at night, only in the early hours. I am zombied-out all week, then when the weekend comes I sleep endlessly and when I'm awake I am woozy and empty-headed.
This week looks set to be cool so I'm hoping to recover in 20 degree days and chilly nights.



We've both had various stresses of late so have been trying to take time to get out of the city and break routine a little. Last week we tripped out to Watson's Bay, where we sat under the trees and read and relaxed and got fish and chips and ice cream and coca cola.







An outdoor wedding was taking place just off to our right, and they had their photos done along the esplanade.

Today (Sunday) we tripped out to beautiful Balmoral, one of my favourite suburbs of Sydney. Lise, a friend of ours who's a PhD philosophy student at Macquarie uni joined us for a while and we sat in the shade, then retreated to the Bather's Pavillion for darjeeling and coffees.









Yesterday, we spent a long time in Redfern at my current favourite Sydney cafe, Baffi and Mo. Then I spent a delightful evening barbecuing prawns at Katherine and Darren's in Petersham.

Now I need to STOP watching Kill Bill Vol. 1 and go seek out my poop hat for slumber.

Flat photos!

Here's some (bad) photos of the new(ish) flat in Erskineville.





The living room, and doors out to the balcony.



Kitchen.... small but a lot of cupboards so not too bad.



To give a better idea of the layout. View from dining area towards living area and kitchen.



Dining area/books/piano.



Dining area back towards kitchen.



Mark's office, featuring the new Norman Foster desk!

There's no bedroom photo as yet because it seems to be in permanent state of disarray. It looks like the office but bigger and with a bed in. There's also a bathroom and utility room, but boorrrriiing.

The balcony you can see in another post below...

Lovable balcony

My chair



Mark's chair



Me in my chair

I do love the balcony. It's super hot tonight, about 36 degrees today, but there's a bit of a breeze going now and it keeps vaguely trying to rain but failing.

We got those outdoor fairy lights last year sometime but never put them up, so it's nice to use them! They make me think of Paris a bit, not sure why.

My foot has improved well after mosquito trauma, and I hope to maraude a little this weekend.

mosquito hell

We are meant to be off out on a fun Sunday marauding adventure BUT all has turned to misery. I sat on the balcony last night for barely 5 minutes when I felt a tingle on my foot. Looking down, I saw a MONSTROUS mosquito, about the size of a 50p, hopping happily around and treating my foot like a soda fountain.

This morning my foot and ankle were super swollen and I could barely walk properly. Mark went to the chemist and got me superstrength anti-histamine, and it's gone down a bit, but I still have a big fat foot and it looks like I'm stuck on the couch for the day :(

Tonight with Trevor McDonald....

I completely need to write the blog more regularly so that when I do go to write in it I am not overwhelmed by all the many many things I need to report about.

Some things that have happened recently are:

Vintage Fair at Canterbury Racecourse - huge fair of vintage clothing, homewares, accessories etc - loads of stalls and lots of fun to look around! I fell in love with an antique pearl and silver ring but at $450 it was a bit out of my price range :(

Der müde Tod - I know I mentioned this before, but to elaborate: this was part of the Sydney Silent Film Festival, for which somehow we managed to gain free tickets for a showing of our choice. We chose Fritz Lang's 1921 film Der müde Tod, called Destiny in English-speaking world for some reason. The greatest thing about it was that it was with live musical accompaniment from a pianist, which was awesome. It's actually a really good film, really spooky and with really good special effects considering the time it was made! It's the story of a young couple, who are very happy until Death comes to take the man. The woman bargains with Death and he says that if she can save just one of three people from their fate of death she can have her lover's life back...

Opera House open day. On a Sunday of horrendous torrential rain we battled on over to the Opera House for their doors-open day, in which you can walk around the whole place - all the venues including backstage areas - for free.

We made sure we sat in all the seats we wouldn't normally be able to afford (haha) and it was good to see inside the Opera Theatre!



The Opera stage is set for the Mikado.



In the Concert Hall.

Wicked

OH MY GOODNESS Wicked was amazing!! I had to think about whether I could afford to go, but it was SO worth the money. It's such a fun story and it's fun to spot all the references to the original Wizard of Oz story (including the origins of the cowardly lion, tin man and scarecrow).



In the bar, they were serving 'Oz-mopolitans' in light-up green glasses!!! We could not resist.



Katherine and Caroline, my Wicked companions.

Melbourne Cup. Tuesday 3rd November.

Australia is properly into racing season, and the biggest event of the season is the Melbourne Cup, which is possibly also one of the biggest sporting events of the Australian calendar. At 9.30am I found myself in a betting shop, with Karl and Sally helping me to place the first proper bet of my life - $10 on a horse named C'est La Guerre. I then entered the sweep at work and got Master O'Reilley. Unfortunately, neither horse even placed! What a fail. And thus ended my short-lived gambling addiction.

That Tuesday was also an insanely hot day. It hit 37 degrees in the city and was really unbearable. It was windy and the wind was hot, exactly like standing in front of a huge fan heater, if you can imagine such a thing. This unfortunately coincided with two non-air conditioned, rush-hour trains breaking down on the Harbour Bridge and being stuck for 40 minutes. This created quite a kerfuffle with a lot of criticism of CityRail for still running the 30 year old, non-aircon trains in excessively hot weather during rush hour, as it obviously creates a health risk. There were a lot of people arguing that they should have evacuated passengers from the stuck trains. I went home on a non-aircon tin can train, not in rush hour so it was empty, and I still felt ill after 10 minutes, so I can't imagine what being stuck for 40 minutes was like.

That is all for now I think. I just went to check to see if I've been paid (I've been living on $10 since Sunday..boooo) and found my tax return had...returned!!!! AND I got $1500! Brilliant! Rich beyond my wiiiiildest dreaaaaams!!!

frolicking

I am sleepy, and am yet refusing to go to bed because I am punk innit.

A few weekends ago, back at the beginning of October, in fact the weekend before we moved house, our old friends Sam and Georgina came to stay. They are currently inhabiting Auckland, just the other side of the pond from us, and dropped in on their way back from a holiday in Fiji, all brown they were. Well, Georgina was brown, Sam was more pink.

On our first evening together, a wednesday, shortly after their arrival, Mark took us all to a philosophy of maths lecture. Yes, a philosophy of maths lecture. Opera house? No! Harbour Bridge? No! Philosophy of maths lecture. Philosophy. Of. Maths. We foolishly agreed to this and along we went. Actually, it was ok. It was part of a public lecture series and was easy to follow and quite interesting. The questions did drag on a bit though.
The trouble with allowing a long time for discussion in a public lecture is that you do get some rather bizarre questions from members of the public. Mark says that it can sometimes be hard to tell the difference between a brilliant question badly put, and just a bizarre question asked by a crazy person. So in a public lecture when the speaker doesn't know everyone, it is always best to assume the former, rather than risk offending the person. In case they are a maths genius who just doesn't know how to form a sentence. Unfortunately this does sometimes mean that daft questions slip through the net.

After the lecture, we gandered down King Street into Newtown for a meal at Kammandhenu.



I love Kammandhenu. Last week we accidentally unintentionally ate there 3 times. But it is so good and so cheap. Yay Sri Lankan/Indian/Malaysian fusion.

All dosed up on dosa, hoppers, roti and lassi, we then pootled a few doors up for a cocktail at Madam Fling Flong before retiring home to slumber.

The following day I had to go to work, but everyone else went to the beach at Manly :( Unfortunately it was a crazily hot day and it made Georgina rather ill, so we headed home rather earlier than planned. This did mean however that due to a lack of food, we ended up being forced to check out the Italian restaurant in Meadowbank, down at the Shepherd's Bay centre. But wow! We got some pizzas and they were amazing! Some of the best pizza I've had in Sydney. The service was also really friendly. It was generally an all round surprisingly good meal! This knowledge turned out to be useful as during the week we moved, Mark and I got takeout pizza from there everyday for about 3 nights in a row!

On Friday I worked again, but afternoon only and we had plans for the evening. We joined the lengthy queue for Mamak after some beers in the city, and had yet another brilliant Mamak meal. Mamak always seems to impress our visitors greatly as well! We ended up trying pretty much one of everything, including old favourite cone-shaped roti tisu, and we all enjoyed the rojak salad so much we got overexcited and ordered another one!



Me and Georgina full of the delights of Mamak.

Afterwards, we headed down to the Clare Hotel on Broadway for some beverages and just made the last train home!

Saturday was unfortunately a bit of a write-off due to the weather. It began to get rather wet on Friday night, and we woke up on Saturday to torrential rain. Unlike English rain, when it rains in Sydney it rains with attitude. You literally cannot go outside because you will get soaked in 3 seconds, even with an umbrella. And it won't 'brighten up in a minute' either. Rain rain and rain and rain a bit more.



We caught the train to King's Cross and ran to Bill's as fast as our leggy pegs could carry us. And we still arrived SOAKED.



Normal.



Frightening.

Fortunately, a lovely Bill's brunch soon cheered us up and dried us off.
Unfortunately, it was then time to go outside again. We headed back to the city, but after a couple of hours of hiding in shops were feeling pretty miserable. So we decided to give up, bought Peep Show series 1 from JB HiFi, went home and cooked a big chilli, drank wine and watched DVDs all night! Brilliant.

The next day Sam and Georgina flew back to Auckland, which was sad :( It was so good to have them over, and we are already planning to join them for a bit when they begin their tour of New Zealand in the New Year, in their new camper van!


Now I must head off to get my Poop hat on. We had to get up rather early to watch a Fritz Lang film named Der Müde Tod. It was the wrong time of day for Fritz Lang really, but was rather good! More soon. Nightypoos.

PS all photos other than the two at Bill's are by Sam or Georgina!

New house !!!

Here is our new building in Erskineville. It is great!!!



It's a converted factory, and they left the chimney on top. I think it's quite a new conversion, only done a few years ago. It's a small block, only I think 40 apartments in the building, and only 12 apartments per each staircase so each communal area is only shared by a small number of people.

Our unit is off the main road, which is nice.



Our balcony is the middle floor, which is good because it means it's covered over by the one above, thus less exposed to rain and hot hot sun.

Queensland: Day 6 - 17th August 2009

Day 6: The Daintree and Cape Tribulation

FINALLY here is the lowdown on our final day up in the tropics. And it was a good'un. We wanted to head up into the Daintree National Park, as far as Cape Tribulation, so named by Captain Cook in 1770 after his ship ran aground on the reef just off the coast. It now is also referred to as 'Kulki', the original aboriginal name for the site. People are now shifting back towards using the aboriginal names for certain parts of Australia (such as 'Uluru' instead of Ayer's Rock) as they have realised that renaming sacred sites in reference to Australia's European colonialists was actually quite offensive.

We made a moderately (by Fellows standards) early start and headed north out of Port Douglas to the Daintree River, which marks the entrance to the National Park. There is no bridge across the river: instead, they have preserved the original way of entering the rainforest, which involves the Daintree River Ferry. This is basically a flat topped boat which you drive your car onto, and then drive off when the boat reaches the other side! Quite an experience! There is also a little section for pedestrians to stand in.



It holds quite a number of cars at once, so we didn't have to wait too long to board. Once over the other side, we were off into the rainforest!

The road is narrow and windy within the National Park, and since we were stuck near the back of all the cars that had been on our ferry-load, it was a bit slow going as people drove carefully. So, we decided to stop off for a bit and do the Jindalba boardwalk.
There are a handful of these boardwalks in the Daintree. They basically build a raised wooden path along a short route, which allows you to enter the forest and have a look. Of course, it would be near impossible otherwise to go for a walk as the forest is too thick and the ground to uneven, in some areas too swampy, and of course the undergrowth may harbour all manor of deadly wildlifes.



Bec on the boardwalk.

It is surprisingly cool under the canopy, and it's a quiet, peaceful place. Although we were on constant guard for any wandering Cassowaries that might appear! The Cassowary is a huge, flightless bird - as big as a man - that inhabits this area. It is critically endangered, only an estimated 1500-3000 currently exist in north Queensland, but they all live in a very small area in the wet tropics and are actually sighted on a reasonably regular basis. This does make them sound rather fascinating, but the trouble is, they are incredibly aggressive and have razor sharp spurs on their legs. They run at you to attack, and are capable of disemboweling you, probably before you've even realised what you are looking at. The Guiness World Records book lists the Cassowary as the world's most dangerous bird. So we didn't really want to meet one of them. There are numerous advice signs around the boardwalk areas advising you that if you see one, to try to put something in between you and it, like a tree.

After the boardwalk, we continued on up the road, which was now clearer of traffic. After stopping at a cafe for lunch, we arrived at Cape Tribulation in the mid-afternoon.



[Perephoto]

Cape Tribulation has such an amazing feel, it is like nowhere else I have ever been. The light is strong and very harsh, which meant my photos didn't come out that well. It is a beautiful, golden sandy beach but is eerily quiet and relatively person-bare. There were a few people walking up and down, but none of the usual beach activity, like swimming and sunbathing. The main reason for the lack of swimming is clear from the prominent warning signs all along the beach - you are deep into crocodile territory. Crocodile attacks can kill you in an instant, and the croc population is thriving in the rivers and creeks that open into the sea around Cape Tribulation due to the area's relatively untouched state. My Rough Guide says that you may even see them sunbathing on the beach at Cape Trib.!







Cape Tribulation feels like the End of the World might feel. A calm, peaceful place with an undercurrent of vague unease. It is also literally the End of the World for many visitors to the north Queensland tropics. The sealed road to the north ends just after the turn off to the small car park, and continues as a mere dirt track up to Cooktown and the nothingness of the northernmost tip. Impassable to all but experienced 4WD drivers most of the time, and for parts of the wet summer season completely impassable to all due to flooding, many travellers simply make Cape Tribulation the end of the road.



Cape Tribulation is also one of the only places in the world where two World Heritage Sites meet - the Wet Tropics and the Great Barrier Reef. From the lookout point up on the Cape, you get a good view out over the Coral Sea.



We had a stroll up and down the sand and up to the lookout point. Mangroves line the edges of the sand, feeding from the salt water. Beyond is dense rainforest.

After a good bit of exploring and crocodile aversion, we drove a short distance back down the road to the Dubuji boardwalk, a longer boardwalk that takes in mangrove swamps.





These leaves were HUGE!



Swampy. There were a lot of shapes moving in the water. I don't imagine that stagnant brown water is a particularly healthy environment in which to live, but apparently in the wet season there is a lot more water so the creatures must just cling on to life until it gets good again.



Mangroves!

On the way back to Port Douglas, we stopped off at another couple of beaches on the Daintree coast - Myall beach just the southern side of the Cape, and Cow Bay further south.



Stinger warning. Fortunately, dry season is stinger safe as they are all vacationing in other waters. There seems to have been a lot of worry about dangerous animals in this blog post so I'll round it out with some info about marine stingers - or to give them their correct title, Box Jellyfish.
Box Jellies are, quite simply and quite officially, the deadliest living thing on earth. They contain enough venom to instantly kill 60 adult humans, and there have been over 5500 recorded deaths since 1954. Even if you survive the sting, you may suffer a heart attack and drown before you can get back to shore. Their tentacles can be up to 3 meters long and in the water they are so transparent that they are practically invisible. The pain of the sting is agonizing, and tales are told of victims continuing to scream even after being knocked out with morphine. Best avoided.

---

So that is almost all for Queensland. The following day was the day of our return to cold cold Sydney. But before the flight we just had time to go check out the marina side of Port Douglas, and the resort of Palm Cove north of Cairns. Pictures to follow in another entry!

As usual, additional bonus photos!! can be found at Flickr.