Bye January, Bye Australia

January has seen some crazy times, that seem a world away now as I sit here wrapped in blankets, fire blazing, looking out of the window over frosty English countryside...

...The new year 2011 started as it meant to go on with layers of thick, sticky heat falling over Sydney.



We took a trip out to visit our old house in Meadowbank and caught the Parramatta River ferry back to the city, like we always used to do back in the day.



We hung out at Sydney Observatory and on Observatory Hill, my favourite place in the world...we did the night tour at Sydney Observatory also, got to look at Jupiter and a lovely nebula!



We took our last day trip out to the Blue Mountains - where the air was fresh and clean and delicious - walked the giant steps, Furber steps and through the Jamison Valley. I ached for the next 3 days.

We've seen the sights, walked over the Harbour Bridge, swam at Balmoral, and spent a lovely evening with Dean at the free open-air concert in the Domain, Sydney Symphony performing a Shakespeare-themed set of works, with our accompanying selection of wine, cheese and antipasto. We saw Kitty, Daisy and Lewis play some fun rock 'n' roll at the Sydney Festival, and The National play an amazing gig at the Enmore Theatre. We braved the queue for the Annie Leibowitz retrospective at the MCA and found it thoroughly worth the wait. We had flat whites and falafels at Shenkin in Erskineville (my favourite home for always), thickshakes at BuzzzBar in Newtown, poached eggs at Baffi and Mo in Redfern, rojak and cendol at Mamak in Chinatown, polenta chips and many other delights with David and Kristie at Bloodwood in Newtown, Four Ate Five's excellent chips in Surry Hills, Crust Pizza in Neutral Bay (Crust Pizza!!!), and the most fabulous 3 course meal with the most delectable bottle of wine at Glebe Point Diner.

I had my last day at work and my colleagues bought me some beautiful antique silver rose earrings. Mark and I held our leaving party at Emma's shop, we had a vegetarian BBQ, and we drank our 2003 vintage Moet that I had been saving for such an occasion.

Our last day in Sydney was a busy one, made rather difficult by the fact the weather suddenly decided it was a good idea to be 36 degrees (THIRTY SIX DEGREES) for the day. Poor Mark had to carry an 8kg box to the Post Office, then we had to find lunch somewhere that had air conditioning before we passed out (Deus ex Machina sufficed with their lovely salads, giving us a chance to cool down). Then a trip to the bank where I lost the plot slightly and Mark had to do my accounting for me which probably made the bank people think he was trying to steal all my money or something.

Then a trip up the Sydney Tower!



For some last minute postcard sending and surveying of our beautiful land...

And the day was over. Just the evening was left, a last drink with Dean at the Art House Hotel and then onwards into the night to watch Priscilla Queen of the Desert at Emma's in Surry Hills.

On Tuesday 25th at 8am, a taxi came to Neutral Bay, a taxi came and took us away. It took us over the Harbour Bridge, past Circular Quay, and south to the airport. A final flat white later and we boarded a plane, one final loop over Sydney, beautiful Sydney, Sydney my home, and we were gone.

'Now, if you're ready, Oysters dear, we can begin to feed.'

I just made the BEST dinner - thai yellow coconut curry with prawn, red pepper* and pak choi. I love asian greens, I always like to eat them whilst Mark is away as he doesn't like them so much. I like the bitterness and the crunch. I guess I've always liked things like that, cabbage, sprouts etc. Green leafy things as part of a hot meal.

I really don't have that much to report. Stress continues to plague me in various guises - all UK-move-related. But I am calmer today due to a possible step forward on the temporary accommodation front and after a long discussion with one of my staff (Rosie) about Port Stephens and all the things we can do when we go up there in November with Mark's parents. I am planning a lot of swimming, walking, relaxing, whale and dolphin watching, fish eating, and horse riding. Spring break!!!

Since Mark went away I've not been really doing that much, which I'm hoping to change this weekend with at least one proper day out. Last Saturday I got the train to Redfern then walked into Glebe and met Dean at about 10.30am, we visited La Banette, the bakery/patisserie and bought many pastry and cakey and bread based items. La Banette is great - can't believe I've not been before. They do this mini brioche thing stuffed with nutella, omg so nice!!!
We got the bus back to Newtown and dropped the food at Dean's before heading round to Shenkin to drink coffee and milkshakes and eat hommous and falafel and greek salad. Mmmm Shenkin falafel is amazing, and their hommous is pretty much the best ever. Possibly even better than the chile dip from Sultan's Table. We sat for a long long time then went back to Dean's to while away another couple of hours playing with the dogs. Then I walked back down the road to mine and watched the last of my DVDs before I had to take them back to the video shop, the last one being Notting Hill, which was enjoyable enough but Love Actually is SO much better. Then I walked up to the video shop to put my DVDs in the returns chute.

Sunday I woke up feeling a little ill. Lay around feeling sorry for myself for a while but then had a shower and caught the train to Circular Quay for a walk and to take some more photos. Then bought some AMAZING CHEESE from David Jones on the way home. Like mega creamy brie with a blue vein. Oh and also 6 oysters to try to make myself feel healthy. Oh oysters. How I love thee.

'O Oysters,' said the Carpenter,
'You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none --
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.



*Yes, pepper. I may have slipped comfortably into 'eggplant' for aubergine, come around to 'chips' for crisps, and eventually even forced myself to adopt 'lollies' for sweets, I cannot and will not ever bring myself to call a pepper a 'capsicum'.

In which I make a rare foray outside Sydney

My goodness the weather has gone wonderful. Walking around the last few days in glorious sunshine, no coat, not even a jumper on. Perhaps spring has made it through. Time to plant some herbs.

Last week I was down in Wollongong, a couple of hours south of Sydney, for a work conference. It was long and tiring, but this was the view from my hotel room:



At 5pm on Thursday evening.



At 7am the following morning.

A busy few days were punctuated with walks on the beach and evening fun times with my work buddies. The last night was a Friday 13th themed dinner and ball, and everyone went all out on the fancy dress! I went as Alex from Clockwork Orange, borrowing Mark's white skinny jeans and braces and adding a black bowler hat to complete the look!

On Saturday, after it was all over, I checked out of the hotel and had a little walk round Wollongong. It's a hit and miss kind of place. Nice along one stretch of the water, a bit bland in the town itself and some parts seemed a bit run down.



I didn't hang around too long and headed for the station, where I caught a south coast line train 50 minutes further south to the little town of Kiama.

Kiama is a very attractive place and has a lot of historic buildings in its little centre. It's set around a little bay with a shingle beach, the main sandy surf beach being in the next bay down.



The main attraction however is the blowhole, up on the cliff, a natural feature where seawater is forced up through a hole in the cliff creating a huge plume and a very loud gurgle. There is a viewing platform built all around the blowhole, so I hung out there for a bit. I could have watched it for hours, it was brilliant! I never expected it to shoot out so high in the air.





Lighthouse and blowhole viewing platform.

Blowhole visited, I had a slow wander back to the station. My bag with all my stuff in from the conference was becoming pretty heavy so it was time to head for home. Unfortunately, the train ride was a long 3 hours, but there was a lot of great scenery on the way, along the coast and, further north, the Royal National Park.

Got home and Mark met me at the station with much needed Shenkin coffee! Then we spent the evening eating thai food and drinking wine up at Thai Passion in Newtown, before a long long sleep.

In which I am uplifted and have adventures.

A couple of weeks ago, Mark and I ate at Mamak, drank a cocktail at Opera Bar and finally attended an evening at the Opera House with Stephen Fry. Which was an entirely enjoyable evening and indeed an inspiring one, as Mr Fry recounted tales from his youth and not-so-youth, such as when he met Hugh Laurie for the first time and holidaying with Peter Cook in Egypt. He also ate a Tim Tam on stage and liked it a good deal.

Last Saturday, we scoffed coffee and pie at Black Star in Newtown before making our way to Oxford Street. Popped into old haunt Ampersand cafe bookstore to look for books and drink chai latte. Mark got a couple of philos books but I didn't find anything. I am starting to find that in second hand bookstores, I just gravitate towards editions of books I already know and love and want to buy them again....Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, Goethe's Faust, anything by Joe Orton...I had to stop myself buying a great 1970s edition of What the Butler Saw - I really don't need a third copy!

Wandered on down into Paddington and stopped in at the newly opened Paddington Reservoir - the old site having been transformed into a new landscaped urban park. It's great in there - very calm - and there are chairs you can sit in so we did that for a bit.





Wandered around the market in Paddo for a bit, then back up Oxford Street for a look in Incu. We turned off in the direction of Rushcutters Bay and found some lovely streets, but got hungry so headed back up to Crown Street for late late lunch at Kawa (actually, Mark ordered breakfast even though it was 4pm!).
Then retired to the cinema for wine and to watch The Special Relationship which was good.

Sunday saw a nice bit of relaxation in favourite cafe, The Kick Inside up on Erskineville Road. Coffee and apple crumble, and a long hour's indulgence in my new David Mitchell.



Reading this is like slipping into a pool of velvet. Every page is so wonderfully evocative. And The Kick Inside is a great reading environment with its sofas and lovable coffee.



Then we caught the train to Circular Quay and did something I've had on my to-do list for a long, long time: Susannah Place museum.



Susannah Place is a row of terraced houses built in 1844 in The Rocks. The houses were continuously occupied from that point up until the mid 1970s, the last tenants moving out in 1990 at which point the terraces were handed over to the Historic Houses Trust.
We paid our $8 and joined the last tour of the day, and the guide took us through the houses, telling us stories of all the tenants along the way. The houses have been largely left as they were when last vacated, but have been furnished for different eras using the memories and photographs provided by former tenants.
The walls and ceilings were cracked and peeling, and you could see layers of paint and paper. The rooms were very small and cramped, with low ceilings, kitchens in the basement, toilets in the backyard. It was amazing the number of people that lived in those small rooms together - it was a real insight into the life of the working classes in Sydney in the 19th and 20th centuries. One had a double bed and a single bed crammed into a tiny bedroom, which had been shared by 3 sisters. Another house had a rudimentary shower installed in the basement, constructed it seemed from corrugated plastic, after the owner had become fed up of taking baths in the outhouse!
The tour also included watching a video where they took former tenants of the houses, people who had grown up in Susannah Place, and asked them about their memories. They seemed to remember a lot of hardship from their lives there, but it was fascinating watching them walk round the houses and say things like "we had our table here". It reminded you that real people had spent their lives there. Really interesting.

In which I become older, eat a lot, and be spoilt.

It's so waaarm today. Well, me with my English-person-temperature-tolerance thought it was warm anyway. I also saw a mega-cockroach scuttling across the pavement on the way home from work this evening, a sight normally reserved for summer, so I'm obviously not the only one that thought it was warm.










Mark and I walked the full Bondi-Coogee cliff walk over the June bank holiday weekend. It was actually the first time we'd ever done the whole thing in one go, which was surprising! We did it both directions for good measure, which took about 3 hours with a good bit of dilly-dallying thrown in. It was a glorious day for it, blazing sun, warm but not hot. I carried my jacket most of the way but wasn't sticky and uncomfortable. I guess something like this is much better done in winter than summer.
When we got back to Bondi we went straight to Fishmongers on Hall Road and STUFFED ourselves on fish and chips.

My birthday was fun! I especially liked having a birthday on the Saturday of a bank holiday weekend! And it was the Queen's Birthday Holiday so I was able to fib that I was actually the Queen and the day off was in my honour. We got up and went for breakfast at Black Star in Newtown - delicious pastries and coffee and it was great to sit out on the pavement in the winter sun. Then we hit the CBD for some shopping - I ended up with a great leather jacket and a new blouse - and we ate lunch at the antipasto bar in the food hall of David Jones. Cheese and antipasto plates and a glass of wine later, we headed to Surry Hills for a little more shopping and a coffee in Kawa on Crown Street, before heading back to Newtown for a cocktail in Corridor followed by dinner at new restaurant Bloodwood.

Bloodwood was a really good experience. It's quite an industrial looking place, with exposed bulbs and pipes along the ceilings, so a bit different to the average cosy restaurant set up. The menu consists of lots of smaller dishes made for sharing. We ordered cuttlefish salad, polenta chips with gorgonzola dipping sauce, mushrooms in red wine sauce and trifle for pudding (posh trifle!). Haha, I was on the phone to mi madre and told her I had "mushrooms on toast and then trifle" and realised it sounded like I'd been to a rubbish cafe in the 70s or something. It was good, honest!

For my birthday I got cake forks, cheese knife, cake slice, the new Snow Leopard operating system for Mac (haha, a bit like the Simpsons episode where Homer buys Marge the bowling ball that says "Homer" on it hahaha), and SEWING MACHINE(!!!) from Mark, sewing bits (including the best pin cushion EVER) and books from Mark's parents, and Alice in Wonderland DVD, jewellry and poems from mi madre and padre. What a lucky pie !!

After all that fun it was so hard to go back to work after the bank holiday! It doesn't help that my job has been a bit frenetic these past couple of weeks. It's the end of financial year on wednesday this week so the pressure is on!

Mark has been a bit under the weather this week - on Thursday morning he was in bed until 9.30am which is quite worrying for someone who considers 7am to be an EPIC lie in. He's a bit better today though so hopefully a great deal of marauding can be done at the weekend. We need sun to be healthy!

Das Erdbeben in Chile

The week began with a major tsunami warning along Australia's east coast on Sunday, after Chile's earthquake. Ocean beaches were closed from Bondi and Manly in Sydney right up to Queensland, as raised water levels and dangerous currents were predicted. Fortunately, we escaped unscathed.

What I found astounding though was the way people still continued to visit the beaches, even going in the sea, while the warning was in place, exasperating lifeguards. Quite a contrast to the situation shown in a news report on Samoa, also on tsunami alert, which was devastated by a tsunami last year. People there were panicking, fearing a repeat performance, while in Sydney people were travelling to the ocean to 'watch the waves'. What do people need in order to learn? Do they need a 50ft wave to crush them to death? People are stupid. They make no sense.

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Saturday was a scorching hot, clear day with bright blue skies over Sydney. We pottered around the corner for a late breakfast at Bitton (amazing scrambled eggs), then to Sydney Park for a lie down under the shade of the trees, then back up to King Street for a juice in South End Cafe. I'd not been to South End before but had read some good reviews, and it seemed like a really nice cafe. Lovely decor and a really homely, cosy feel. They had a really good range of juice options (I had my usual apple and ginger but they offered a good selection including beetroot which I always think is a good sign that people are taking their juice seriously). I must return to try the food at some point.

Sunday we were up early and off to Balmoral Beach, which being further in the harbour seemed to have no tsunami issues to be raised. It wasn't that nice a day in the end, overcast and windy, but we lay a long time on the beach, reading.

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I lost an earring having a picnic in Sydney Park a couple of weeks ago, one that Lep sent me for Christmas, little hoops with birds on. We were sitting in a more secluded area of the park and by the time we left it was dark and there were no lights. We had only walked about 20 metres across the grass when I realised it had falled out so I assumed that if I went back in the light, I would probably find it as it was unlikely anyone would have been through and picked it up. But unfortunately it was nowhere to be found in the grass. I keep finding the other one all lonesome in the bottom of my bag - I never know what to do with lone earrings - and it makes me sad :(

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.

failure to be sensible, ill, too much rain

Not much has happened recently that has been particularly conducive to bloggery as of late. I apologise once more to those people (all two of you?!) who may or may not have been on tenterhooks awaiting the next exciting installment of my life.

Mark and I are both currently ill with colds. Mark with his second cold in only a couple of months. Mine is not quite as bad as his, although I fear that since he had it first and I may therefore be a couple of days behind in the cold timeline... To be quite honest I think I deserve lifelong immunity from colds after the horrific, almost-3-month-long cold I had starting immediately after we arrived in Australia, which included a period of almost a solid fortnight during which I could not breath through my nose at all. Not even slightly, not even with all the decongestants money could buy.

Mark had his birthday t'other week. I got him RayBan Wayfarers, crème brulée tea from T2 and the two Yeah Yeah Yeahs EPs ('Yeah Yeah Yeah' and 'Is Is'). He also has some books, including David Starkey's Monarchy which arrived from Bristol which he has already finished and which I am now reading - it's really exciting! And I now understand the Wars of the Roses which would have been helpful *before* I went to see the plays. Gah. We went to Ice and Slice in Newtown for dinner with USyd phil dept. (usual wednesday night dinner). Some of them didn't realise it was Mark's actual birthday until near the end of the meal, then started singing Happy Birthday and the WHOLE restaurant joined in!! Mark looked like he wanted to die a bit, it was so funny.
After food Mark and I went for cocktails in Madame Fling Flong, then had to head home because it was a school night.

Not much else has occurred. It is torrentially raining. Has been for a few days. Some towns in Vic/NSW are flooded.....this country seems to be permanently on fire or underwater....hmm. I am trying to save a lot of money, but keep failing by shopping. Had 17 minutes to wait for the train home from work last night and instead of waiting patiently in the station I went and bought another new top and new skirt! Aghh. Sense, pie. Sense. *shakes head*

Shuffling around

This evening Mark and I are getting packed up as we leave the Glebe house tomorrow for another temporary home. At least we will soon have a more permanent home! As I mentioned a couple of posts back, we had our application accepted on the house in Meadowbank and put down a deposit on it last Saturday! Until we can move in on September 3rd, we will be in the Medina Executive Apartments. It looks pretty nice and is being paid for by Macquarie University out of Mark's relocation allowance. The downside is that it's in North Ryde (near Macquarie University), a dull suburban sprawl connected to the city only via a 40 minute bus ride. But, there are gym, sauna and swimming pool facilities, so hopefully I will be too busy getting wet to notice the surroundings too much.

Today Mark took the morning off work and we strolled around Glebe and Newtown, until it was time for a seminar he wanted to attend at the University of Sydney. We also had another poke around in Gould's Book Arcade on King Street, the most brilliant warehouse piled full of second hand books, where I acquired Nylon magazine and Nabokov's The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. That makes the second Nabokov novel I have bought in a week (the first being The Defence, found for $3 on a stall at Glebe Market) - the lesser known ones that I found hard to get hold of in the UK just keep appearing!

Here's a few pictures from around Glebe/Newtown:


View of the Central Business District.




On King Street, Newtown.


Mark in a cafe reading Nylon.

Thai thai thai weekend.

This evening we had a lovely meal at Thai-riffic on King Street in Newtown, with the University of Sydney people. It was pretty good - Mark and I shared a Pad Thai as we were warned the meals were huge, and the warnings were right! It was delicious though - a much nicer Pad Thai than what I am used to, and they put the peanut at the side of the plate which I like. I am not very fond of the peanut part of Pad Thai so it was good to get the option of whether to add it to the dish or not.

On Saturday we had a lovely day at Glebe Market, followed by rosehip tea at Badde Manors on Glebe Point Road. On Sunday we had a really good red curry at the Fair Trade Café just a few doors down from Badde Manors. I like that café, it has a very relaxed bohemian feel.

Apologies for the lack of interesting photos here and at Flickr recently. I will get back on track soon I promise!