Field Day 2007

1st January 2007

I think a few of you may have been waiting for this blog, so here goes.....

The Field Day festival, which is held in part of the Royal Botanical Gardens, in the heart of Sydney was one of the events on our calendar that I was most looking forward to.

Last year the temperature was 46 degrees. Thankfully it wasn't that hot and we hit the high twenties in the afternoon. With the sun out and the music pumping, everyone was up for it, including those casualties who clearly went straight through from NYE. The rain made an appearance in the evening, but only for a bit. It was enough to get a thorough soaking though, but only seemed to add to the atmosphere.

This was my second Sydney festival and it didn’t disappoint. I loved it and had the best time. And it was excellent having everyone over from the UK, as they all got on famously with our ex-pat and Australian (yes, that’s you Simo!) mates who had tickets for the gig.

Personal highlights included seeing Hybrid (although there were on from 1-2pm, so we only got to see the last half of their live set), Kid Kenobi (I wish I had seen more of his set though), the Freestylers and the Plumps do their thing on the fantastic Fuzzy Breaks stage. Unlike the main stage, where we saw Mylo (who was also very good), this stage was tiny and the crowd weren’t going to go there unless they were well and truly up for it.

I managed to max out for SD card as well, taking over 300 pictures of me with randoms both during the event, and in the streets of Sydney afterwards (including a few in and around the rather fancy Radisson Hotel in the city centre). There is a selection below.

Also, check out the videos here (random!), here (I love that tune!), here (featuring the Stan of old!) and here (I didn't take this video but let's just say, it helped fill one of the many blanks! Brilliant!).

Happy Days!

Book Eighteen

I'm not going to write much about this book because I have so much other stuff still to catch up on.

But what I will say is that is was another cracker.

I enjoy books with a beginning, a middle and an end. I started Book Nineteen today and, if the first 30 or so pages are anything to go by, it's going to be a beauty.

New Years Eve

Carl Cox was playing at Luna Park and the Basement Jaxx were at Bondi, but there was only ever one place that H and I was going to take everyone for New Years Eve.....the Harbour.

I had seen the Millennium in at the Botanical Gardens and it was pretty obvious that we should hit Circular Quay nice and early to secure a good spot, so we rocked up at 4pm. We didn't have any plan. We were just going to see what happened. Luckily there was still plenty of room next to the Opera House (the only let 6k people into that area) and we all decided that that was the place to be. There was beer and food on sale and one of the best views in Sydney. The weather was pretty poor though, as Sydney was set to welcome in 2007 under a blanket of cloud. Undeterred we grabbed a decent space on the concrete and waited. For 8 hours! Mark and Kim managed to blag their way into our area once the 9pm 'Family' fireworks had finished.

There was a big group of us and we all enjoyed the experience. Time flew by and excitement grew as we approached midnight.

It was a bit strange when the countdown begun and the New Year was welcomed in. Everyone was just watching, photographing and filming the fireworks (check out the number of cameras in the fireworks pictures below), which were of course amazing. It was only when they had finished that everyone began celebrating.

Anyway, here's a load of pictures. There are many videos of the fireworks on You Tube if you fancy watching them (and if you didn't see them on the news). You may be surprised to hear that I didn't film anything. Instead I used the 'continous' function on our new camera and took over 250 pictures of the fireworks.