Sing-a-long...

Becky and I have been invited to a party next door this evening. There are only two other people on our floor-a gay couple with two cats. Well, they are hosting "Priscilla- Queen of the desert" sing-a-long and for some reason we agreed to go...I've never seen the film and so singing along could be tricky. I am currently drinking coffee and eating chocolate in an attempt to stay awake, nay arrive with a bit of get up and go (the problem is I've got up and gone earlier). The only appealing thing about it so far is that it is the only party I've ever been to where I will be able to turn up in my socks leaving my shoes at home! I will report back later, wish us luck... (and if it's all a disaster I shall blame Becky for agreeing to it in the first place...!)

Name that bird!

Anyone got any ideas what this bird is? I have one idea myself but I'm not going to influence you! Fire away!

I promised you a view

Ok, so this is the view from the balcony of the unit...it's on the 10th floor, and I already feel like I'd die if I jumped off the balcony, so I can't imagine what it feels like on the 18th floor (at the top). Of course there is the possibility that I'd land in the pool and that would break my fall, but it's not a chance I'm willing to take!

We look across the bay towards Sydney harbour bridge and the view of the opera house is currently obscured by a crane but it would be tucked on the left hand side of the bridge.

Below us on the road is the house that used to bring to Tom and Nicole (when they were Kidman) but she ended up with it after the divorce and sold it to buy a property further North. Jeanette talks about them like they were old friends...talking of which she used to often ended up with Joan Sutherland's flowers when she had to travel after a gig! What a solubrious life we are living (she says sat on the balcony in walking trousers and socks, having shared a sandwich for lunch because we couldn't afford one each!) Oh I have T-shirt on too, just in case you're wondering!

Anyway, enjoy the view!

Sunny in Sydney

Well, we're sitting in the sun in Rushcutters Bay Park eating ice cream looking out at the sea and wondering which high rise building is the one we are living in, and Melbourne with its coldness, traffic and Londonness seems a million years away.

We took a bus into Circular Quay this morning, home of the opera house and Sydney Harbour Bridge and mosied around, got some information from a shack with a big i, ate some lunch and then pottered home, through the botannical gardens and along the front round the coast.

When I say pottered home we haven't actually made it home, but when we do we will work out just which building we are in and probably go for a swim in the pool. At the moment we are watching a strange event where lots of Australians are dressed up in teams representing different countries...the England team have police hats on their heads...obviously...and are about to do some kind of race...!

In the background of the picture are the several options of where we might be living at the moment! Will let you know...

I remember the clowns!

Well it's been a funny old day. Packed up and left Melbourne this morning, long wait in airport compared to relatively short flight, landed in Sydney, lost car, found car, drove to "unit", had orientation session from Jeanette, ate dinner she cooked for us, admired the most amazing view of Sydney you'll possibly ever see (and you will see it but you'll have to wait until tomorrow, cos it's dark and I'm exhausted!) We are extremely lucky that Jeanette and Alan have allowed us to stay in their unit because it is truly beyond anything we could have afforded in our wildest dreams. And when I walked into my room I was taken back fifteen years, bizarrely, by the clowns on our beds-J makes them and you can put them into any position as they have all the joints (more or less). Strange what you remember! So I shall leave you with the clowns...

Sword-wielding direction-givers!

Just got back from a VERY long walk... probably about 7 miles, but it took all afternoon as we kept stopping to take photos.

To be fair we had a VERY lazy morning first...once i had escaped my own execution by running for miles despite having been beaten to within an inch of my life and avoided paying a fine for trying to turn my car lights on by pulling the handbrake whilst driving along... I didn't feel like doing much more than reading my book this morning! I have been having terribly energetic nightmares (and I'm not even taking larium!) and Becky has been waking up in the middle of the night...I don't think the two are connected although I did punch a canvas thing hanging on the wall last night... Anyway we both felt the need to lie around in our pyjamas this morning!

Went up to the Yarra river bend this afternoon. After about 40mins of London-ish walking, up the main road from where we are staying, we suddenly found ourselves in the middle of the countryside! There was a lovely walk along the river and plenty of rainbow lorikeets to keep us entertained-they have a very loud squawk so they're quite easy to spot. I'm not sure if we had gone far enough for it to count as "the bush" but I have had yearnings to go into the outback...I'm reading Bill Bryson Down under and he goes on a train from Sydney into the middle of nowhere...I think Becky might wake up one morning and find that I've gone to live in a village with a population of 40 and more snakes than humans...

Sorry, back to the land of reality...on our way back we were looking a little lost, which is our usual state and seems to tug on the heartstrings of passing Australians who offer us help without even being asked. On this occasion the woman happened to have a small boy with her, holding a sword, and she was holding a sword herself...or perhaps it was more of a cutlass. Well it was very entertaining to watch Becky taking note of all the directions being flung at her whilst dodging the sword, also being flung at her. The woman seemed utterly oblivious of the fact that every time she gesticulated left or right she nearly took Becky's nose off with a plastic cutlass! She even said she would have given us a lift if it wasn't for the boy, the dog and her car being full of rubbish...I was tempted to join her despite all these drawbacks (after fighting for my life last night my limbs are still aching!) but Becky had visions of losing other parts of her body and quickly declined!

We made it home in the end and have just had another enormous plate of pasta with cheese...we are trying to eat up all the food that A&T left behind which included a kilogram lump of cheese...it is still barely dented!

Sorry, I forgot to take any pictures on my phone today so I will have to show you (any of you lucky enough to live near me!) the video of our beautiful walk when I get back to England.
In the meantime you can have a picture of the Englander I am missing the most! Apparently she was given an accommodation upgrade from her crate to being allowed to sleep with the other dogs...but has blotted her copy book by trying to pull up the new kitchen floor tiles so she will be back in her crate tonight!

Bird people, cat lady, duck lady, kookaburra!

This morning we waved a final fond farewell to Tracy, Andy and Molly as they drove off in a taxi to the airport. Their next adventure will be settling into life in Singapore just in time for the arrival of Molly (after much discussion on names last night it was decided that to keep things simple the new baby should be called Molly too)

Talking of Molly, Rebecca and I took Molly 1 out for a walk and a swing at a little park down the road this morning while A&T packed up the last few things. She was as good as gold, no tantrums...a good thirty minutes in the swing and then she went to watch the birds being fed by some slightly crazy-looking hairy bird people! You can see her in the picture with Auntie Becca...I thought it wise not to point a camera at the hairy bird people who had just torn up almost two whole loaves of bread for about four pigeons!

Then we saw a cat in someone's front garden and stopped to look at it from outside the gate...then unfortunately "someone" turned out to be in, and also slightly batty and waved us away -grr...cat ladies!
So we walked on and found another park with a slide and eventually Molly got tired so I carried her home for some lunch. I think we are both (and particularly Auntie Becca) missing the gorgeous cuddly bundle of fun that is not running up and down the living room. Hoping that she is enjoying her business class seat on the plane-they have got one each, so plenty of room compared to cattle-class! The flights came with A's new job-v.good news.

This afternoon we pottered down the road to the botanical gardens, which given it is winter weren't too bad-not exactly colourful but there were some bird of paradise plants in bloom which are pretty and also some palm trees, cacti and enormous aloe vera plants (which always excite me...not sure why, think it might be something to do with the aloe vera farm on my kitchen window sill at home.)

We had a cuppa by a lake- chai tea seems quite popular here-i had some and it's really good-tastes like African tea. We also watched another crazy duck lady feeding the ducks and an enormous black swan, right next to a sign that said "Do not feed the birds!" I hereby conclude that the Australians like their animals just like us but of the representative portion I saw today there are more finicky fruit-loop fanatics here.

Just as we were about to leave, a kookaburra flew past and landed on a tree surprisingly close! On this occasion the Australians carried on their work around the park while the crazy English tourists stood and photographed the tree for hours! We walked around to the other side of the tree and it stayed there the whole time and let us get really close! Very exciting...it even winked at me...the only thing it didn't do was laugh...but then I suppose I didn't do anything funny.