'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'.

Musings on the present and the future.

Part of the Kaldor Public Art Projects 2010 is currently on just down the road from us in the former brickworks on the edge of Sydney Park. They are currently being used to contain Stephen Vitiello's sound installation "The Sound of Red Earth" - sounds recorded in the Kimberley region in Western Australia. Each of the buildings is a different theme - my favourite being the coastal one with sand on the floor and the sound of the ocean.





Mark has left for Europe for 3 weeks and thusly I am lonesome. Although I did go to the video shop and rent The Boat that Rocked, Notting Hill, and series 1 of Pushing Daisies, so I have many hours of entertainment. On Friday night we had a goodbye meal for Mark (the other Mark) and Daniella down at the Sultan's Table in Enmore, as they are leaving for India for the next few months! I've never really wanted to go to India before, well, not really been bothered about it I suppose, but I'm quite into the idea now! Thinking about an Indian holiday at some point. I am getting Japan cravings again, too - can't wait to go back but that's an expensive one so will probably be a few years before we make it back. I would love to visit the onsen (hot springs) and go down to Hiroshima.

Went to an election party the other week at Nick's house in Stanmore! Got confused when the coverage on different channels was showing completely different results, ended up dancing to video channels instead, drank a lot of red wine, and set fire to a picture of Tony Abbott in the garden. There is a hung parliament now, deja vu!!! Hung parliaments are à la mode.

Election aside, the main news over here for us is that it looks like we are moving back to the UK in 2011. Which feels incredibly soon and I'm not really sure I want to....but more on that another time.

Anyway, I need ideas for entertaining myself in Sydney over the next 3 weeks! I'm usually full of ideas for stuff I want to do when Mark goes away, but this time I'm at a slight loss, oddly. I'll have to plan some walks I guess. I think it's Pyrmont Markets next Saturday so I'll hopefully make it down there (although it's SUCH an early start!). I guess he's only been away over the hot times before, so I normally just go to the beach. No beach yet, not yet. In a few weeks hopefully the beach weather will come. Although I am fond of the beaches on a nice winter day for a walk - beaches are a lot more attractive when there aren't oodles of people slathered all over them.

We were saying recently how maybe one benefit of being back in the UK is that we will perhaps be a bit more sociable again. We have both been a little lonely in Sydney, Mark doesn't really see many people and most of the people I meet through work are not permanent in Aus, or they are just...'work people'...you know? Like...nice people.....but, you wouldn't necessarily socialise outside because you only have work in common really.
I've always made an effort to stay away from the "expat community" and all that business, because I always thought it seemed a bit counter-productive...like, if you move abroad and only socialise with people from the country you've moved from, you can only really be looking back, and I'm not one for looking back if I can help it. As it turned out, most of the people who became my closest friends were expats, non-australian, so maybe I shouldn't have tried to avoid that so much!

Aaaanyway, just looked up Mark's flights, he'll be in Berlin in about a hour, finally! Such a long journey, I've had two full days and one whole night's sleep since he started travelling. Actually can't wait to be in Europe again - not UK but Europe. A magical place where you can get a flight for an hour and a half and actually land in a different country from the one you set off from! Ahh. Going to watch this film now. Work tomorrow. Goodnight!

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.

winter brrrrrrrrr

I am currently going through my third Sydney winter. With this vast experience behind me, I can now share with you some extensive research I have conducted into Sydney winters. I have learnt the following things:

- No matter how old or new, rickety or solid your house is, during winter, the inside temperature will maintain a constant 10 degrees colder than the outside temperature.

- This is due to the Australian insistence that insulation is on the whole unnecessary.

- This in turn means that, no matter how old or new, rickety or solid your house is, you will constantly find patches of mould on your walls.

- To combat this, the advice is to ventilate your rooms thoroughly, everyday. This lowers even further the indoor temperature of your house.

- The disparity between indoor and outdoor temperature may trick you into putting on 64782 layers before you leave the house. Don't. You will be sweating within minutes.

- No matter how hot I am hurrying around with one too many layers on, I still see plenty of Sydneysiders all bundled up in hats, scarves and big padded coats as though they were off for a polar expedition.

- To cope with indoor temperatures, I have established from talking to Australians that it is normal to have an array of thick winter houseclothes, far more than you would ever need outside.

- As well as the above, it is normal to have a duvet on your sofa during winter, to sit under when you are watching tv, reading, or other sofa-based activities. I went in for this this winter and it's lovable!

In which the sky is blue and the Opera House gleams

Opera House in mid-winter......

Sunday was the most beautiful, sunny warm day. I took the train to Circular Quay and walked up to the Opera House, out of boredom more than anything. There were so many people. Opera Bar was heaving and they had live music outside.



The sails look so smooth from a distance. It always surprises me to see the mosaic effect close up.



The city gleams. I took a very similar photo back on the first day I arrived in Sydney.

From the Opera House, I walked back round Circular Quay and into the Rocks, stopping at that little cafe for a Florentine (my favourite ever biscuit). Wandered further on up George Street suffering a severe coffee craving and trying to find a flat white that wasn't $4.50 ($3.50 is really my upper limit when paying for coffee) but failed. Sat around Susannah Place for a little while, then gandered back down George Street all the way to St James for the train home.

Tonight I am working uggh. Although it is less painful when at home on the sofa with a cup of tea and the tv on. I'm out of the office on a management course for the next couple of days, so it's going to be very busy trying to catch up. Mark is back home first thing in the morning, so hopefully I'll see him before I go to work!

In which Luna Park is very enjoyable.

Mark has been away this week, on a fleeting visit (really fleeting - less than a week between arrival and departure!) back to the UK for a job interview. But more on that another time.

With Mark away, my last week passed rather quietly, but not unpleasantly. Friday however was an exciting day. Dean (my boss) took Sharon (the other team leader in our unit) and I out for a lovely lunch at Grasshopper, a little restaurant and bar just down from our office on Temperance Lane (off George Street - you can't actually see it from George Street and I always thought the lane was just a place where bins were kept, it was surprising to see a restaurant at the end of it!). It was a great meal. I had Sydney Rock oysters to start followed by Kingfish with aioli. Delicious!! Dean had a scotch quail's egg for his starter which looked like the greatest thing ever. It's a cool little restaurant, and the bar downstairs looked good too, although I imagine considering its location right in the city, it probably gets a little 'businessy' most nights.

After work was Aisling and Louise's leaving party (they are off back to Ireland), for which they came up with the ingenious idea of a trip to Luna Park, Sydney's famous, historic amusement park.

We caught the train to Milson's Point, just the other side of the Harbour Bridge, and trundled our way downhill until the lights of the great big Luna Park Face stood before us!



The entry is through the mouth! On Friday you can get an unlimited pass for all rides for $35, so with wristbands installed on our wrists, off we went. First up was the Tango Train, a music express ride that spun you round and round and up and down. Then, Mark, Geaspar and May went on the Rotor, while the rest of us sensibly watched from the viewing platform at the top. The Rotor is like a human-sized salad spinner - it starts spinning and then they take the floor away and you stick to the wall because of the centrifugal force! It made us feel dizzy watching it. Then, Aisling and I squeezed into a car on the Wild Mouse rollercoaster, which is a real olden days style rickety wooden roller coaster and is actually terrifying because it is right on the edge of the harbour and tricks you into thinking you are going to fall into the water!



Then we rode the swings which made us cold as we breezed through the night air, then Mark, Daniella, May, Geaspar and I went off to ride the Dodgems while everyone else went for the Waltzer. The dodgems were my favourite I think - it was amazing fun!!!



A lot of candy floss later and Daniella and I went to ride the Carousel whilst everyone else went on something more spinny and less charming.



The Carousel is a genuine 19th Century carousel and is beautiful! It plays music from an organ dating from 1904, all tinkly.



I rode a horse, Daniella rode a cockerel. Finally, we rode the ferris wheel, which, with this view over Sydney Harbour, is pretty much worth the entry price alone:



Then it was almost 11pm and time for the park to close and us all to go home to our beds, not least because it was a very chilly night and we had been swooping around outside getting chilled for too long. But we could not leave before Mark and Geaspar went on the Rotor again because they are INSANE. I'll have to go back to take Mark on the ferris wheel. I did have a surprising amount of fun at Luna Park - there are enough rides to please pretty much anyone, and there was a good mix of people there, not just big groups of irritating teenagers like you would get at british funfairs.