Pootling and bumbling

After two weeks of running every morning at 7am (well, 90% of mornings!), I can now not only get all the way up the hill but half way down the other side without my heart and lungs feeling sick! Today is Saturday and involved a successful extra-long run. I will become healthy, I will! I feel much better already!

We went to see Mary and Max, Adam Elliot's new claymation film. I really enjoyed it, it was so funny but also really heartwarming and I almost cried at the end! It's about the friendship that develops between a lonely 8 year old girl in Melbourne and an equally lonely obese man with Asperger's Syndrome in New York.
She picks his address out of a US phone book and writes to ask him where babies in America comes from. Receiving her letter triggers an anxiety attack in Max, but eventually he writes back, and the film follows the ups and downs of their relationship and their separate lives over 20 years.
It's also quite funny in its send-up of Australian suburban life and you should all watch it. There's a bit where Mary sends Max a Cherry Ripe too and it reminded me that I must send EVERYONE a Cherry Ripe. Best chocolate bar EVER. UK Cadbury's should SO make them.

I went to the dentist on Wednesday and had my teeth prodded and cleaned to within an inch of their lives. It was so good, even if it did cost me $200 ! OUCH. I also got to go on the new Epping-Chatswood rail link which was exciting (yes I am tragic).

This week was SO cold. A couple of days were only 15 or 16 degrees and it apparently went down to 5 degrees overnight! Waa. The platypus, Mr L. Rogue, even registered a formal complaint about the cold with the platypus embassy, although we doubt he got very far. We bought a big electric radiator on Friday, and it is SO good. Heating me up all nice. Today the weather was much nicer though - it felt like a lovely English summer's day. After my run I did not one, not two, but THREE loads of washing and pegged it all in the garden. We had eggs and toast and coffee for late brunch and now Mark is working away on his shiny new Mac. I am going to work on a short story I have been poking around with for about 3 months. Spaghetti for dinner with Pie Special Tomato, Garlic and Basil Sauce, if I can remember how to make it!

Cherry Ripe

This is Platypus. He came to live with us recently from Sydney Aquarium. He likes to sleep under my pillow at night.

We got a fridge and a washing machine delivered this week. Which was a relief. Considering how many thousands of years human beings must have coped without fridges, we found being without one for a week rather hard going. And the washing machine is a nice touch too. And it's nice to be able to hang washing in a garden instead of in the corner of an apartment as we have been used to doing for so many years.

The past weekend was so much fun. On Friday Mark and I went for drinks with the Sydney postgrads in Surry Hills. The weather on Saturday was so warm - I think it hit 25 degrees. We caught the ferry in and pottered around in the city, then saw Lovers Electric at the Apple Store. I liked them. Mark bought their CD today but it's not so good recorded - I don't like the production on it. Live they were much more raw and energetic. Then we got pizza at Hugo's Bar Pizza in King's Cross. The pizza there is so good but it's so swanky! Full of cocktail-sipping rich kids... tanned skin and designer handbags....and everytime we've been it's been kind of on a whim and I've always been looking a bit rough. Haha. I don't mind though.
Sunday involved sushi, Otto Dix at the Art Gallery of NSW, and the Fair Trade Cafe in Glebe. A good combination I found.

Last Thursday I watched a French film at the cinema called Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis. It was very good, very funny. Apparently it is now the most successful film ever at the French box office. I don't really know why, since this accolade is surely normally reserved for some kind of big budget Hollywood blockbuster trash? But, hey, I'm glad it is. It is deserving. It is about French stereotype of the inhabitants of very Northern France; Nord- Pas de Calais, who are known as Ch'tis after the dialect they speak. Despite the jokes about the dialect not always translating effectively into the English subtitles, and the dialect itself not being something that most English speakers would be familiar with, it was a good story, well written, and in parts hilarious!

I forgot to mention that I also finally saw In Bruges a couple if weeks ago. This was also pretty brilliant. Basically the premise is these two hit men, hiding out in Bruges under instruction from their boss after doing a hit. The dialogue was brilliantly written, and it had this way of being one moment laugh out loud hilarious, immediately followed by quite shocking moments as more was revealed about the characters' histories. Highly recommended.

I am also in love with this chocolate bar:



Like a Bounty, BUT WITH CHERRY! CHOCOLATE CHERRY COCONUT!!!! Why don't Cadbury distribute these in the UK? I would like to shake the hand of the person that invented this!!! GENIUS! I am actually quite addicted. I spend most of everyday thinking about when I might be able to get my next Cherry Ripe. There is also Cherry Ripe ice cream. I almost died of joy.