Hard-Fi

H and I went with Will to see Hard-Fi last night at the Enmore Theatre in Newtown, a part of Sydney that reminded me of Camden in London.

I'll keep it short and sweet.

They were bloody fantastic.

I'd listened to their album, Stars of CCTV, a number of times over the last few weeks and was really looking forward to the gig. The place went absolutely mental when they played Hard To Beat and Living For The Weekend, and we were at the front!

Rumours are that they are pretty huge back in the UK and we were lucky to be seeing them in such a small venue. Maybe the muso's out there can confirm?

Spring (III)

It's nearly the weekend and it seems a bit too late for me to write about what we got up to last weekend but work is dull and you don't want to hear about that so I thought I may as well. Besides, it was a great weekend. The weathermen were right with their forecast and we enjoyed a taste of what’s to come. We hit the thirty mark and then some. I spent most of my time in the ocean (the wound has healed) or on the beach.















I surfed for the first time in Australia without a wetsuit but I need to get a rashie at some point. The wax and the chest wig don’t get on too well.

H and I hooked up with some Manly chums on Saturday arvo and we ended up playing lawn bowls. Yes, that’s lawn bowls, someing neither of us have ever done before. My Nan would be so proud. It’s all the rage over here. It was a friend of a friends birthday bash and it was a really good laugh. It was a "Rock 'n' Bowl" club ("The Best Fun You Can Have On Two Feet!" apparently) so there was a bar which formed part of the attraction in the first place. A lot of the people playing were Scottish and it comes as no great surprise that a Pommy team beat them in the final – a team which H and I were in! They weren't very happy at all.

Here's some of our Manly chums. From left to right, Damian, Katie, Amanda and Claire (who lives in Neutral Bay).















Tony Alcock.















Erm, Ms Alcock?















The Birthday Boy.....




















I ended up in Kirribilli after the bowling, in a new chums flat nine doors down from John Howards. I’d gone round there to watch Liverpool play Spurs and Chelsea play Fulham on FOX Sports. It was the first live Premiership football I’d seen this season. Kirribillit sits on the northern side of the harbour, directly opposite the Opera House and next to the Bridge, hence the reason the PM chose to live there instead on Canberra (and who could blame him!).

This is the view from my mates flat. Not a bad spot for New Years Eve!





























Sunday was a scorcher although a little overcast. We hooked up with Damian and Claire and a few others and headed to Collins beach before heading off Damian and Katies’s for a BBQ. Their flat overlooks Little Manly Beach.















So it was another cracking weekend and having spent pretty much most of the time by the beach it felt a little strange going home via Manly wharf, sunkissed and sandy, and having to think about work on a Monday morning. It feels like we are on holiday, even though we have to go to work, and it's wierd to think that this is actually our new lives. And this weekend is a Bank Holiday weekend. We're going to see Hard-Fi tomorrow night and on Sunday we are off to the Parklife festival. It should be a good'un.

Go The Swannies!

Most Friday nights here tend to involve going out in the city straight from work. Everytime we have a great night. But last Friday I fancied something different. I have recently become a bit of an AFL fan. H and I went to a game with Mike when he came over to visit and since then I have enjoyed watching the the odd game on TV. The most notable one was when the Sydney Swans beat the West Coast Eagles by one point with virtually the last kick of the game. It was brilliant. It’s excellent hangover TV, especially when the weather is a bit ropey.

On Friday the Swans played the Fremantle Dockers in the Preliminary Final at Telstra Stadium and I had one eye on going along for most of the week. No-one else was really up for it and I was craving some big game atmosphere so I headed off on my own to the stadium. It was a balmy evening and I didn’t fancy a hangover on Saturday morning, especially when we were forecast such a hot weekend.

The Swans put in a convincing performance and easily beat the Dockers and now progress to their second Grand Final in Melbourne on Saturday. They are playing the Eagles again, a repeat of last years Grand Final which Sydney won. It was a great game and I’m glad I made the effort to go.

























































Once again, the referees put on a good show and I took these for Mike. He has written about his AFL experience, and why he likes the referees so much here.





























The Money Shot - Giving It The Fingers.....

Book Nine

It feels like it's been ages since I last finished a book and was abe to write about it but it's been less than a month so I'm not doing too badly.

This is Book Nine of my read-a-thon. I finished it earlier this week.




















H had bought it and read it before I had a go at it, and we both really enjoyed it. I'm not really one for writing book reviews so I'm not going to bother (besides, the surfs up dude!). If someone had told me a couple of years ago to read this book I would have told them to get knotted, or something similar. However, I am a changed man these days and I'm enjoying my new lease of life (and the daily commute into work on the fery which allows me a good hour or so of reading time every day).

Anyway, Book Nine = (all time) Classic = Well Done Me!

Sydney Harbour National Park - North Head

This is what happens when you nose dive off the front of a surfboard in a couple of feet or water. You smash you head on the ocean floor. I guess it is a bit like diving into the shallow end of a swimming pool without putting your hands out to stop the impact. I was very very lucky to come away with nothing more than an even bigger forehead than I've already got, and a sore neck. I did stay in the water after the accident though and made sure I caught a decent wave before calling it a day.















I had planned on going to watch Sydney FC on Sunday afternoon but everyone bailed on me, and after the suring accident, I didn't fancy the trek on my own. Will had made plans to come over and spend the afternoon with H so I hung around with them. We decided to go for a bit of a walk and I suggested that we go to the North Head part of the Sydney Harbour National Park, which is only a short walk from Manly.

The walk took us past Manly Beach and up onto the Eastern Hill.









The National Park is another beautiful part of Sydney, and it's hard to believe that you are actually within the city boundaries as you walk through it. It looks just like parts of the outback.





























The North Head at the entrance to Sydney Harbour. This is the view towards the South Head. You can't see Bondi from here but it's in that direction.















And this is the view towards the City.

We also saw some dolphins, which is always amazing, and I got to take a lot of panoramic pictures which don't do the view the justice it deserves. The view from the North Head is one of the best views I have seen of the city, and you can't even see The Opera House (and you can only just see the top of the Harbour Bridge)!

Collaroy

On Saturday H and I were invited to a BBQ with some friends (who we hadn't actually met yet), in Collaroy, which is four beaches north from Manly. Martin and Sarah had applied for their visas at the same time as H and I, and I had become mates with Sarah on the British Expats website. So after more than two years of chatting in cyber-geek world, the time had come to finally meet.

The morning had got off to a bit of a shocker for me and H. I'd woken up feeling particularly bad after another big Friday night out and decided to go into the ocean to try and sort myself out. The weather had come good again and it was another beautiful day. The thing is, as soon as I went down to the garage to get my surfboard I noticed that something wasn't quite right. A couple of the boxes we had shipped over (and which still held photos, cds and records) had fallen over and there seemed to be a lot of debris on the floor. Closer inspection revealed why. There was a two inch water line on the walls of the garage, and on everything that had been on the floor. It was pretty obvious that our garage had been flooded during last weekends storm. It tooks us a while clearing out the damaged boxes, but luckily there doesn't seem to have been too much damage. It was just a lot of effort with a stinking hangover. Anyway, by the time we had finished I didn't have time to get in the water!

Martin picked us up in the early afternoon and drove us the short dive north. Collaroy is another beautiful beach in this part of the world.





























The beers and the BBQ in the afternoon sun went down a treat. Once again, I was a bit crap at remembering to take pictures of people, although I did get this one of H with Martin and Sarah's baby, Lilly, who is four months old.















After a bad start to the day, it all turned out good in the end. It was great getting to know more people in the Northern Beaches and finally being able to put a face to the names.

Spring (II)

Ok, so it's not all sunshine and clear skies. Sydney has been under siege.















Over the last few days Sydney has been hit by a depression (I think that's what the weather people call it). This has meant grey skies, lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of rain, thunderstorms and huge ocean swells.

The weather turned bad last Wednesday. We had a storm throughout the night and I was woken up at about 6am on Thursday by the sound of a torrential downpour. I wondered how I could make it across town without getting too wet. The answer was to go to work in shorts and flip-flops and get changed there. It worked a treat, although I probably look ridiculous in the howling wind and rain. My umbrella, which was supposed to protect me to the wharf died within two minutes of leaving the flat. It was probably a good thing considering there was lightning in the air.
The ferry ride is always good fun when the swell is huge. As you cross the Heads (which is where harbour meets the ocean) the ferry's get knocked all over the place. During this part of the trip it, and when there is a big swell, it often feels like being on a rollercoaster. You get that nice 'stomach in the mouth' feeling as you drop into the trough of a big wave. I love it but lots of people don't. I find the odd sh rieksquite amusing.

Anyway, the ferry ride isn't good fun when it is cancelled. This happens occasionally, and on Thursday after they got all the commuters into the city the authorities decided to shut the service down for the day. Luckily they had begun to operate in time for rush-hour. Well, I say that but I got to Circular Quay for the 6.20pm ferry only to find out that it had been cancelled. Luckily the 7pm one ran and as we boarded we were all given a warning that it was going to be a rocky ride, which it was. H and I walked home along Manly sea front and I had never seen the water come up so high (in the four months I have been here anyway). It was like the beach had been swallowed by the ocean. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me then, and it was dark anyway.

I was hoping to get a surf in on Saturday morning (it would've been the perfect way to get rid of the leftovers from another excellent Friday night out in the city) but I thought better of it. Instead I went for a walk and took some pictures.











































Looking towards Shelly Beach and The Cabbage Tree Bay Aquatic Reserve.







































































The photo's don't really do the waves the justice they deserve, but there is a surfer in each of the two pictures below which helps you see how big the waves were.



































































































H and I went for a walk on Saturday afternoon to the Aquatic Reserve. I took even more pictures (as always).







































































(Lots of) Rain.














From left to right; Manly Beach, Freshwater Beach and Curl Curl. Shelly Beach is in the foreground.









I finally began to get annoyed with the weather on Sunday when I woke up to find a leak in our flat. Water was slowly dripping from the light bulb in our front room. I was a bit miffed as to how water can get into a unit on the middle floor. The landlord knew what the problem was straight away when I called him. Apparently it will be getting in via the unit/balcony join above us (he mentioned something about shoddy workmanship and cowboys). The thing is, the bloke who lives above us is out of town (he's gone to London!). We've left it with our landlord to fight it out with the Body Corporate who manage the property. The latest update is that some guy will be out to fix in on Thursday. The water wasn't pouring through. It's more like a continuous dripping which gets more frequent as the rain intensifies. Our landlord tried to get the problem fixed 12 months ago when the problem last happened. At least it only rains like this once a year.....and when it does rain here, it bloody rains!

The rain continued to come down throughout Sunday night and into Monday morning. I decided to give the shorts and flip-flops a miss on the way to work and got a proper soaking. It's not very nice sitting in work with wet jeans on.

The weather improved a lot today. Well, it pretty much stopped raining which meant our leak has now stopped. I also saw the first bit of blue sky seen in these parts since last Wednesday.















Apparently it's going to get even better tomorrow. Hopefully it'll be like this again soon.