Sunny Sydney

I've been having a pretty relzxed time over the past week or so. The recruitment agency that I'm with haven't been coming up with the goods so I've had a few days off, which is no bad thing. Managed to get my birthday off which was great as the weather was glorious. So whilst Jenny was slaving away at the hospital, I was stretched out on Bondi which she wasn't very impressed with. Needless to say I had a great time dozing in the sun. We went out for a swanky meal that night (care of mother and father - thanks again) at cafe sydeny. Cafe Sydney a really smart, popular restaurant right down at the wharf looking out over the harbour. We had a great table on the outside balcony with great views over the bay and out to the harbour bridge.

Unbelievably, considering that the weather had been so so good until this point, when we sat down it started blowing a gale, the temperature dropped right down and it started raining. Despite the awning and mushroom heaters, we got rained on and Jenny had to succumb to looking like an old granny wearing a blanket on her lap and round her shoulders.

To be fair she wasn't the only one that resorted to this, and there were even some guys taking them, big nancies. In spite of the wind and the rain the meal was spectacular. So good. We started by having a couple of cocktails then tried some local fare as entrees, in the shape of Yabbies and Bugs. Yabbies are like big fat bastard prawns with claws. Really really good, if you like that sort of thing. Ever the touch of class I couldn't restrain myself from getting a photo of myself man-handling them, and making them wave at the camera, in spite of the disgusted looks of the snobs at the table beside us.

Bugs are like miniature, really ugly, flat-headed lobster. Again really really tasty. Kind of a cross between lobster and crab. I had tuna and Jenny a seafood Bouillabasse for mains. Both excellent also. All in all, in spite of the weather, the meal was magic. And we had a couple of expensive bottles of wine which was a nice change from the cheap rubbish that we've been drinking since we got here.

In fact it's been very difficult to revert to drinking the plonk, well it was for the first bottle, after one the second always goes down easier, as Jenny proved at the weekend. We went out for a BBQ at russel and nic's friends house. Barbecues at the weekend are kind of a national institution for Aussies. Especially as it was grand final weekend. They go mental for the AFL grand final. You can't escape it. It's almost the only thing on TV for a week prior to the actual game, and on the Saturday the whole of Australia, certainly Sydney, is covered in a layer of sweet smelling meat flavoured smoke.

We walked around for a bit trying to find the BBQ we were supposed to be attending, and literally every 2nd house had a stream of smoke coming from the back garden. Our BBQ was a good laugh, watched Geelong whip Port Adelaide in the Grand final then ate some snags and drank some stubbies, true Aussie style.

Turned out there weren't actually any Aussies at our BBQ, mostly English, so chat centred around the Premiership as opposed to AFL. Was all good though, apart from the fact I managed to carve my toe open on a rusty nail at the party. It happened quite late on, after quite a few bevvies had been consumed, and so I was provided with a make shift bandage which, amazingly, did the job.

Jenny was clearly very thirsty that night, and I basically had to carry her home interspersed with a bit of her rolling about on the ground, which was a bit of a role reversal for us.

She spent most of Sunday crawling about the toilet and rolling about in bed groaning that she was never drinking wine again, lesson learnt.....we'll see.

Yesterday was a public holiday in Sydney, so we both had the day off. The weather has been glorious for the last week or so, and yesterday was really warm, so we decided to take a trip out of Sydney to Palm Beach. Palm beach is about 1 1/2 hours North of Sydney by bus......or 2 1/2 hours if your bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere and you have to wait for the next one, as we did. It was worth it though, as the drive up there is very picturesque, driving up the cliffs looking out over the Tasman Sea. Palm beach is pretty spectacular, with great surf. It was also pretty familiar, as it is probably better known as Summerbay from Home and Away. So we took some photos pretending we were on the show and went to see the Surf club.

Turns out that the surf club in reality is a public toilet block. We could have arranged to go to Palm Beach when they film episodes, as you can find out from the internet when their going to be shooting, but I decided that was too sad much to Jenny's disappointment. We spent a while lounging on the beach before taking the 2 hour bus back down the road. We spent a lot more time on the bus than we did on the beach which was crap, but it was well worth the visit.

We've had a breakthrough with the noise problem in our building, in that all the complaining that we have been doing has resulted in the noisy buggers across the hall being evicted. We came back to find them being told to leave and got a bit of a shunning from them. Brought a smile to my face and serves the tossers right. So since then we've managed to have a good run of proper nights sleep which has been a luxury. No ear plugs. No yelling and screaming. It's been great. Just pray that the landlady doesn't put another bunch of reprobates in the room in their place. Only got 1 1/2 weeks to survive now so it's all good. Anyway don't have work today but better go as Bondi beach is a strict mistress.