The joy of the internet

Yes, we are connected to the internet again and it has not been an easy trip.

You will recall that I tried to start the whole process a week before we moved in, but we had the wrong type of line. Then an engineer came and installed a new line, but before he left told me that it was still the wrong type of line. Then lots of people in lots of call centres assured me that it was not the wrong type of line and I just had to wait for it to be connected.

Then today I phoned up to find out if we were any nearer to being connected and do you know what they told me? We can't be connected because

We have the wrong type of line.

So, being a resourceful chappess, I had to fall back upon plan two. Clearly a lot of people have similar problems here so you can buy a "wireless modem" which communicates via wireless broadband. Not ideal, but now I knew this was the only option I phoned up to enquire and on learning that I could connect today rushed out to buy a modem.

I was so excited by the fact I could finally stop sitting outside Starbucks looking lonely that I forgot that I had a shopping delivery coming. Ooops.

I realised on my way back at about 11:30am (the shopping slot was 9:30 - 13:30 and they hadn't been in the hour or so before I left) and picked up my speed.

I wasn't sure what they would do if I wasn't there to collect the delivery. My mobile hadn't rung, but did they have the number? I checked under the door to the hall - no "We called to deliver but..." note. I checked in our mail box, in case someone had helpfully picked up a note and put it there. No. By 12:30, I was starting to feel like the idiot I was for rushing out when I was supposed to be at home.

However, everything today has a happy ending and they brought my shopping at 12:45pm. I am reminded of an even more happy ending we had last week. We had been playing our second new board game, Descent (a dungeon adventure game, similar to Warhammer Quest for those of you that know about these things) on the balcony. Perfect, we thought. We had reckoned without the winds, which can come across the balcony in quite a gust and being on the seventh floor can distribute any vital light games cards that they pick up across a pretty wide area, not all of it in the communal part of our block. We felt pretty sick when we saw two cards floating off in just this manner. Being an astonishing optimist, I suggested we go and look for the cards and dragged a dispirited Sean with me. And we found them both! Quite a way from our balcony on a higher level leading to another block. Hooray!

A final note about the internet connection intended to reassure any software developers reading: I uncovered two of the most stonking bugs I have ever seen in released software while installing the clever wireless modem.

Firstly on the install screen it kept getting to a point in the progress bar (it varied but was about 15%) and then hanging. This, it turns out was because there was a pop up behind the progress window (impossible to access as the installer was full screen at the front of the PC - you couldn't even get to task manager). I had to click around at random on the screen to OK it.

Secondly, my first monthly payment was £0 as it was the last day of the month. But I then got an error saying that they couldn't take £0 from my credit card! The first suggestion from the call centre was to try again tomorrow when it would no longer be the last day of the month but they eventually said that I could get someone to register me over the phone.

Now we're connected I can get back to posting about things that are not to do with internet connections.

Backgammon: Only points for turning up

After Sean's initial triumph, he had another success last week although this was not in the tournament. We had both been knocked out of the main tournament (there is no consolation) and We were playing in a $5 chouette (~2). People at the Sydney club don't seem to play for lower stakes; it's usually either $5 or $10.

The chap from New Zealand, Charlie, got a bit drunk and proceeded to lose many points, mainly to Sean. Sean ended up nearly $300 up! Unfortunately as Sean was the largest winner and Charlie didn't have enough cash, Sean only got an IOU. And this week Charlie wasn't there...

In the tournament this week, I went out so quickly (7-0) that I bought back in. There weren't that many people around (they only managed to scrape a 16 player tourney including several buy backs) and there weren't any chouettes going on so I thought I'd have another stab. I think I lost the first match partly because I took a cube on 4 when I was losing in the race something like 71-46 (or maybe by even more) but I'm sure I've been told that the race doesn't mean anything when it is that short. Maybe I'll have to learn some kind of wastage count.

I lost the second match 7-4. Meanwhile, Sean had also had to buy back in and so I went to watch his second match. He seemed to be playing lots of complicated games, with lots of blot hitting going on. I think this was mainly due to his opponent's playing style - I'm sure I saw him look disappointed when he scored a roll that made his 20 point (not dynamic enough). Sean was leading for most of the match, I think it was 5-1 when I went over and from 6-2 onwards looked like he had it in the bag. But his opponent won the Crawford game and then scraped a gammon at the end. We were both out. As there were no chouettes we got to go home at a reasonable time, so not all bad.

The venue changes next week and we stop having to trek out to Bondi. The backgammon evening will be held in a pub by central station and we should just be able to walk there in 20 mins or so. Cool.

News on the ladder - I started scraping my way back and then Sean crushed me with a couple of large wins (including an 11 point match). Score at the moment is 17-7 to Sean.

Busy, busy, busy

We've now moved into our flat! We went shopping for furniture and things on Saturday and we now have 1 bed (we ordered this on Thursday last week so that we had something to sleep on on Saturday and Sunday!), 2 small desks for me to work on, 1 dining table and 8 dining chairs. We also have cutlery, sheets etc.

Tomorrow we get a further 2 sofas and 6 sets of drawers and our final bed is on order.

We keep finding loads of extra things we need but we are going to have to just pick them up as we go along.

We went to the theatre at Sydney Opera House on Friday to see a play called Doubt which was brilliant.

I'm still waiting for the internet to be connected and have about 5 mins here (I'm in Starbucks) until they cut my connection - until we get a proper connection I think all posts are going to be short and sweet!

Junk Mail

I had a new working experience today - working without any furniture. Not just without a special computer desk, without anything. In particular: no chair, no sofa, no table of any description, no comfy bed to sit on, no cushion, no kettle to make tea and no mug to put it in even if I did manage to make some.

The flats here come unfurnished and when they say that, they mean it.

Now this is not just a case of failed planning on the part of Sean and myself. Although we picked up the keys to our new flat yesterday, we are not moving in until Saturday. On Saturday we plan to buy the necessary cushions, sofas, beds and so on to make our life there a happy one.

Today I was working in an unfurnished flat for two reasons. Firstly a guy was coming to connect the phone line so that the Telco (I assume this is an Australianism? I've never heard this abbreviation in the UK) can initiate the broadband process. Secondly, a fridge was being delivered. And even though I suffered a sore rear, neither were achieved very successfully.

The telephone line was connected, but when I asked the technician if it would support broadband the answer was no. Apparently although he connected a new line, a different technician has to come and change the new line to a copper line. Hmm. Neither the company I am (aiming to) use to get broadband access (AAPT) or the Australian equivalent of BT who are in charge of the lines (Telstra) seem to agree that this could be the case. After much 3 way telephone tennis (as plausible a sport as it sounds), the situation remains that AAPT think they are just going to connect the broadband up tomorrow. We shall see.

The other reason for lack of success is partly my fault as I forgot to take my mobile telephone. I refuse to accept full responsibility for this though: fridges used to be delivered before people had mobile phones! Anyway failure number two was that the fridge delivery people turned up, phoned my mobile and went away again. The buzzer system is quite complicated so I am not completely surprised. I now have to go back tomorrow and wait for them again. I will be taking my mobile phone and I may buy a cushion on the way. They say they are aiming for 9:30am though so I may be back in my (now viewed as remarkably more comfy) desk chair soon enough.

The fridge company said that the delivery company had left me a card under the door to say that they had been. This I find hard to believe. They would not have been able to get anywhere near my door unless I had buzzed them in and they would have been crazy to leave a card under the main lobby door that clearly leads to lots of flats. Just to check this theory, on the way out of the new flat I checked the post. I thought I would look foolish opening an empty letter box, but I had failed to reason this through in advance. An empty flat receives as much post as an occupied one, it is just never emptied! So I had a whole armful of mail, some of which was actually for us: a resident's newsletter, an invitation to join in a local forum on the area and a letter from the Telco saying that they were happily charging my credit card (they got that bit right then). Of the rest, many letters for a mysterious Duncan Browne (Sound familiar Ickenham boys? Another of Duncan's shady off-shore scams?), and much junk mail.

I think we are making a trip to Ikea to acquire the more essential furniture items on Saturday and we should be living in the new flat from then. You may remember that this was Sean's first choice of flat and not mine. However going back last might and looking at the view I have re-assessed. Panorama to follow when I have composed it...

It's been another couple of very busy weeks for me hence the lack of postings. Work is very hectic at the moment. There is a lot to learn in terms of the mechanics of the contract, my team is quite large (22 people and set to rise) and we are entering the budgeting round for next year which means that I am wrestling with lots of spreadsheets. Lots of balls to juggle and not a lot of time to try and turn the site round in terms of performance. Still, it keeps me interested!

Apologies to those people who have e-mailed me who I have not responded to. I now have a Blackberry which is helping me keep on top of my emails much more effectively - if you receive a semi-literate response to an e-mail with no formatting then chances are that I have written to you on my new toy.

I am getting used to the drive to work - it now takes me about an hour to get home rather than an hour and a half. I think I have finally cracked the Sydney road jungle.

Zoe has already posted the highlights of last week. I enjoyed the commedian we saw. The Turkish restaurant was very authentic (the lamb tasted very similar to the lamb I ate in Antalya). Unfortunately we had to rush our main courses as we were running a bit late for the show.

Yesterday we went out for dinner at a Chinese restaurant 2 minutes down the road from us. The lobster was absolutely fantastic. I may go back tomorrow and have the crab. All the seafood is cooked from live and brought out in a bag before cooking for your approval. Excellent. We had the lobster with a ginger and shallot sauce. Very tasty.

Today we stayed in and played the new game we have bought: Runebound. Its a bit like Talisman only much better. Zoe adores Talisman and she really likes Runebound. Personally I would rather play backgammon but Runebound is still fun.

On the subject of backgammon I feel I have to reply to Zoe's post. I do not study the game for hours. I don't have the time any more. I am just naturally gifted! OK - I study the game as much as I can but that is a lot less than I used to be able to. At least now some of the study is paying off in results. 10 -2, 10 -2, 10-2, 10-2, 10-2 ,10-2, 10-2 (to be sung repeatedly to Zoe to the tune of Amazing Grace). And I have a 100% win record in our games of Runequest. Not that I'm competitive or anything.

I promised to post some backgammon positions from our time out here - here are a couple of early cube decisions taken from our 19-point match.

The score (after 0 games) is: Zoe 0, Sean 1 (match to 19 points)
Sean (Blue) on roll, cube decision?

Pip counts: Zoe 142, Sean 110

I doubled Zoe took.

The score (after 0 games) is: Zoe 0, Sean 2 (match to 19 points)
Zoe on roll (White), cube decision?

Pip counts: Zoe 119, Sean 151

Zoe doubled I took.

Apologies if you are not interested in backgammon. I can only suggest that you take it up!

Please keep posting comments to the blog and e-mailing Zoe and I. It is really great to hear from you all.

Sean

Backgammon: The Sean and Zoe Ladder

a.k.a. The Super Series

We have missed out on a couple of backgammon tournaments this week. We wimped out of the regular Tuesday evening session as we were both feeling tired.

Also last Sunday was a larger all day tournament, which is hopefully going to run monthly. We had to decline this initially as we were invited to Kim's in the evening, however we were going to go along during the day, play a bit and maybe have some lunch. However, after our flat finding mission on Saturday we had too many things that needed to be sorted out (forms to fill in etc.) to be able to make it down. There's always next Sunday...

In the meantime we are occupying ourselves with the Sean and Zoe Ladder. As you may be able to tell from the name it is a ladder between just the two of us! It is going to run to the end of the year when, I expect, I will be pleased to reset the counter to 0! I think in part this is a way for Sean to prove that he's better than me and that I just get lucky in tournaments (and quizzes).

We are using a kind of Fibs hacky score (it's not so complicated for only two players) of the square root (rounded up) of the match length. This gives extra weight to match wins over match length.

I am sorry to say that I did not get off to a good start. Until last night I was 8-0 down. Last night I won a quick 3 pointer (it was very quick: double and then gammon) - hooray! - but then Sean won one too. So the score currently stands at 10-2 to Sean.

If anyone has any quick tips that can improve my matchplay without too much effort, email them to me! I need a secret weapon to use against the fact that Sean spends hours studying!

I will keep you all updated on how the ladder progresses.

Australian Comedy

Last night we went to see an Australian stand up comedian. We were a little worried before we went as Sean went to see an Australian comedian with William when he was last in Brisbane and found it completely impenetrable.

This chap (Carl Barron) had done a world tour, so we decided he couldn't be that Aussie specific and booked some tickets. The show was at the Enmore Theatre in Newtown. In fact I noticed that the tickets were for sale when I was buying Keb Mo tickets for the same venue. We're going to see Keb Mo on Monday 10th before the Rolling Stones on Tuesday 11th. That will be a musical week.

We drove through Newtown briefly on our quick tour of the Sydney suburbs with Gloria. Both of Sydney's universities are in this area, which apparently makes it very cosmopolitan. The two main roads we went down were both quite cute with lots of shops and restaurants - very different from high rise central Sydney!

We went to a Turkish restaurant beforehand. It seemed very authentic and the food was good (I had Yoghurtlu lamb) but it will sadly never replace the (now gone) Mezerama in Willesden. Two blokes tuned up some Turkish instruments for a long time while we were eating and then played them for a bit at the end, which was nice.

Carl Barron was not what I was expecting at all. He was very funny, with a good line in what I can only describe as pedantic humour. ("My father used to be very particular about how we spoke. I'd say 'Me and Tom are going to the beach' and he'd reply 'Tom and I are going to the beach'. So I'd say 'Good - can I get a lift?'" and so on.) He emphasised a lot of things with large gestures and seemed to make silly noises whenever possible.

His show was entitled "The best bits from my two DVDs" so I suspect the DVDs are worth watching if you come across a copy.

We are now all go for moving into our new flat next Wednesday. We will probably keep living in this flat until we get kicked out (the following Sunday) as it will take a while to sort out the internet and so on. We will need a trip to Ikea to buy some cheap furniture as well...

We got the flat!

I got the phone call today - we've got the flat! And at a slightly discounted rate thanks to our homesearch consultant's negotiations.

All we have to do now is sign the lease and then we can move in next Wednesday. We don't have to move out of our current place until the Sunday after so this gives us a bit of overlap for taking things across.

I'm going to have to make the most of our time remaining here - I don't think I'd really realised we were going to have to leave so quickly! Things to do before we go include: eating battered baby octopus from the fish shop, taking more photos of the view (if it does anything exciting), going to the falafel shop for lunch and loads more things that I haven't even thought of yet.

I hope it's nice in Pyrmont.

Flat Hunting

We've had a busy weekend!

To start with we went out every night of the weekend. On Friday we went for a diner a deux at Aria restaurant overlooking the Opera House - very plushy.

On Saturday we went to a Mediterranean restaurant in Surrey Hills (south Sydney) with Sean's colleague Robin and his wife. The most noticeable feature of this restaurant was that we were provided with coloured pencils, which we worked out at the end of the meal were to draw on the paper tablecloth. This reminded me of Feynman working out physics on a napkin and I wished I had something intellectual to write. I didn't, so I left the table as it was. I would go back to the restaurant just to draw on the tablecloth though!

Finally on Sunday evening we were invited to join Sean's boss Kim's family for Sunday dinner. We took a ferry over to Manly at about 4pm - the sun was shining and the vista was great. We had a great home-cooked meal and took the ferry back at 10pm - a completely new experience in the dark but equally spectacular. I tried to take a photo coming into Circular Quay but it was too dark. Maybe when I've saved up to buy a new camera...

In between all this we have almost managed to find a flat to live in when we get kicked out of here next week.

On Saturday we were picked up at 9am by Gloria, our homesearch consultant, and her husband John (the designated driver). She'd done her homework and we were booked in to view 14 flats before 2:30pm.

First we went out to Balmain (west Sydney) to see a property. It was nice, and the area was nice but I felt it was a bit far out and didn't meet my expectations of living right in the centre.

Most of the flats we saw were in Pyrmont, just past Darling Harbour. Now all the flats we saw were absolutely wonderful. When you're used to looking at cramped one-bed flats in Willesden Green 20 mins from the centre, all shiny new 2 bed apartments in the city look great! So to start with it was more a case of elimination than selection.

The first elimination was in a fantastically trendy block called the M building. Apparently apartments there are in such demand they go almost instantly. Owing to our tightly packed appointments we were short on time and asked to be shown straight to the available flats rather than the show room. This was the first point of elimination: the chap who was showing us round was so cool he just ignored us and showed us the show room anyway. He appeared to be so busy affecting indifference that he didn't have time to cater to what we wanted to see. This was not the sort of attitude we expected and we worried that the occupants might be similarly afflicted. The second problem was that the main room was so trendy that there were holes cut in the kitchen wall through to the bedroom. Plus points for style, but a greater number of negative points for practicality - if we have a second bedroom, we want people to be able to sleep in it undisturbed!

The second elimination was a flat with a Formica kitchen. All the flats had had gorgeous modern kitchens and this one was so ugly it had to go. Yet another flat was offered on too short a lease.

We hit gold where Sean was concerned when looking at a flat on Point St, overlooking the bay. "Overlooking the bay" does not quite do the view justice. Two walls are floor to ceiling glass, with a view encompassing the Harbour bridge. Everything else was a disappointment after that for Sean.

My favourites came as we looked at some further into the city proper as opposed to Pyrmont - the extra 5 minutes walk meant I still felt Pyrmont was a bit "far out". In particular there was a two-bed flat in our current block with a great view of the Anzac bridge. I love where we're living and don't feel it can be much improved upon - it's the equivalent of living in Leicester Square! The other flat was further north even than our current place - right in the city - and you could see a tiny bit of the Harbour bridge from the window (not really up to the standard we've come to expect though). We were getting into prime location by now though so we only got a 1 bed flat with no balcony for our money (plus a cubby hole they claimed was a second bedroom but I don't think would even have fit a bed). The flat was nice inside though with the top floor overhanging the bottom (I forget the architectural term for this).

We have been assured that the rental market in Sydney is vicious and judging by the number of people we saw looking at flats this seems to be true. We kept bumping into one couple who were looking at the same sort of properties as us! So we've had to make up our minds quickly...

We've decided on the Harbour bridge view flat as our number one choice and taken the forms in today. Contrary to expectations it looks like we might get it! We've just got to wait until tomorrow now to see whether the landlord approves of us (he can reject us for no reason if he thinks we might not be good tenants).

Fingers crossed!

On another note: I've decided to compromise on the backgammon / non-backgammon post issue. Backgammon posts will continue, but I will prefix them Backgammon: so the non-initiated can skip them!

Food issue 1: Eating in

So here it is, the first "food special" post. Being as how I am obsessed with food, expect this to be the first of many such posts.

We haven't had a chance to go out much yet, as we have to get up early and have been quite busy. We've only been to three restaurants and the last two were certainly not worth writing about: we tried to get some food before going to the Mardi Gras, but could only find a poor - medium poor hotel restaurant and we've also been to a nearby Italian for lunch (this too was poor).

But, not going out has not been a problem since (as I expected) the food here is brilliant.

Until last weekend, however, I thought there were only two things that were absolutely fantastic: fruit and seafood. Then Sean went shopping and bought me a treat and I had to revise my opinion.

So here are the three things, in order of discovery.

1. Fruit



Mango, plum and kiwi salad

There is a wide range of fruit here and it is almost all grown in Australia as it is so warm all the time! However even the imported fruit tastes good (unlike e.g. peaches in winter in the UK).

The most exciting fruit I've found is a dragon fruit, which I haven't tried yet but is definitely on my list of things to do.

We buy most of our food from the local supermarket, which has a good range of fruit (including aforementioned dragon fruit). The food hall of David Jones, the "posh" department store (they have a pianist! in the Prada section), is also fantastic and has a large range of frozen fruit. I tend to use frozen fruit for making smoothies at the moment as it makes them taste like ice-cream. Genius.

2. Seafood



Our local seafood emporium

Seafood is the one thing we don't buy in our local supermarket. This is because two doors down there is a fishmonger, who sells us seafood and fish.

We have had three what I consider to be seafood feasts since we arrived. The second night we were here we made a mixed seafood stirfry (baby octopus, prawns and calamari). The calamari is gorgeous - really soft, unlike the tougher squid you often get in the UK. Then last night we had a mixed seafood platter - prawns, baby octopus, scallops, calamari and lobster tails. (We did have to go to David Jones to get the lobster tails though.) The final example doesn't rate as highly on variety: just cod, but the fillets were gigantic.

The other plus point about the local fish shop is that it doubles as a take away: point to any fish and they'll batter it and fry it for you with chips. And it's not only fish - we've only had cod so far but I full intend on having battered baby octopus next time we go!

3. Homer Hudson beyond Fudge Brownie Ice Cream



The ice cream itself

So this is what Sean bought me. He did pretty well; when we went back to buy a second tub it was really hard to find amoung some lacklustre looking alternatives.

This ice-cream is good! I ate well over half of it the first time I got hold of it and then was very disappointed the next day because the remaining serving was too small. The object of the photo is a new tub.

It certainly beats B&J's brownie ice cream and anything by Haagen-Das. The ultimate goal would of course be to beat cookie dough ice-cream and I think it scrapes past by a whisper. I had to leave my ice-cream machine at home, but I no longer mind if this is the standard of Australian shop-bought!

Backgammon: Sean's win record is 100%!

We made it to the backgammon last night. It is held in a slightly dodgy pub called the "Mill Hill Hotel" in Bondi Junction. We went on the train from Town Hall station (a couple of minutes walk from our house) and it took about 15 mins.

I went out in the first round to a New Zealander called Charlie. He had actually been the first person we met when we arrived so we had had quite a good chance to talk to him. He's quite hard to describe - certainly a character!

After I went out, I went straight into a chouette as there is no consolation tournament. I played for quite a while and ended 7 points up which at $5 a point paid for my $30 entry. Nice.

But meanwhile Sean was steaming through the tournament. He beat Jay (acknowledged by Charlie to be a "very good player") in the first round and then avenged me against Charlie in the second round. He then took on Sol in the third: I looked over and it was 6-1 to Sean but when I looked back considerably later his opponent had clawed his way back to 6-6. Needless to say, Sean put paid to his comeback and won a place in the final.

The other semi-final had not even started and it must have been about 10:30 by this time. As we have to leave by 12am when the bar shuts it didn't look like the final was going to happen. At 11:30 or so Sean agreed to split the winning and took home $200. There was a roll-off for who "won"the tournament and Sean did. 100% win record!

Sorry for those of you who doesn't know what any of that was about - I'll try and keep backgammon tales a bit short next time! Still we bought a new game last weekend. It's called Runebound and looks a bit like Talisman. We started a trial game but didn't manage the 4 hours for a full game. Maybe next weekend...

Technological experimentation

We had our first experience with Skype and a video camera on Sunday. First we spoke to my parents early morning. It was reasonably successful for a short while although the sound wasn't as good as a landline and our internet connection went down after a few minutes.

We tried again with Sean's parents in the evening, this time with two way video. It was a bit stuttery but certainly feasible, except for the fact that we couldn't keep our connection up for more than two minutes! And then we had to reboot to get the connection to work again.

I called the support line on Monday and it turns out that the problem was this: (anyone technical - let me know if this sounds like a load of rubbish) the modem was connecting via a USB port and so was the video camera. Apparently there is only a certain amount of power available to all the USB sockets. I've now connected the modem via it's ethernet cable (I don't know why they didn't tell me to use this to start with!) and I'll let you know how that goes.

My other piece of technological experimentation was trying to show the comments on the main blog page. I couldn't find a check box for this but I did find some kind of pseudo HTML that I hacked for a bit. I managed to get the comments up but thought that I had lost the sidebar in the process. However looking at the blog now, the sidebar is still "lost" (i.e. down the bottom) on their default setting. I'll put them back now and maybe I'll look at getting a new layout.

Apologies to Aunty Sally and Uncle David for not being notified of the blog - still you can now read quite a bit in one go...

Mike - I haven't forgotten about food! I'm just saving it all up for a special food related post (with pictures).

And Cat - I'm not sure that I'll be letting you use the facilities if you think that's the wrong way to flush things down the toilet!

In other exciting news - we're going to see the Rolling Stones in Telstra Stadium! https://tickets.rollingstones.com/

The Past Week

I didn't get a chance to post last week so I thought I'd write a bit about what I've been up to. Monday I started in my role as Business Centre Manager for WorkDirections in Mt Druitt. The people there are all very friendly. They welcomed me with a selection of traditional Australian delicacies that included vegemite sandwiches, pies and a green cordial that I wisely declined to try. I wouldn't recommend vegemite either.

Wedneday, Thursday and Friday I was on training in Cabramatta. I had been taking the train to Mt Druitt and Cabramatta but on Wednesday afternoon I picked up my car from the office and had to drive it back to central Sydney. I have not driven regularly for years and have never driven an automatic so the drive was interesting to say the least. I got home in 2 hours - the journey is supposed to take just under an hour. However that time also included driving round and round World Square looking for the car park.

I took the train into work Thursday and Friday!

Yesterday (Saturday) we decided to try a trial run in the car to Mt Druitt. We got half way there before the sun decided to come out from behind a cloud. It suddenly got very hot and we realised that we hadn't put any suntan lotion on so we decided to come home again. As it turns out it was a good job we did as we got back just before all the roads in the city were being closed for the Mardi Gras parade.

Saturday evening we joined 500,000 other people on the streets of Sydney to watch and support the Mardi Gras parade. It was kicked off by the Dykes on Bikes who were very cool and very, very noisy. There were about 200 riders and the roar of the engines was really quite something.



Then came the procession of over 100 floats with many thousands of supporters, dancers and marchers. We've got some good video footage which I will try and post to MySpace when I get a moment. The party atmosphere on the streets was contagious with the crowds cheering, dancing, clapping and waving. As might be expected the main themes of the parade were love, equality, diversity and togetherness - all of which were very clearly (and colourfully) on display.

It's now Sunday morning and I have just finished a bacon sandwich and am updating this blog.

Sean

Settling In

No backgammon news I'm afraid -Sean had to work late on Tuesday as it was the last day of the month. Still this will make us more determined to make it next week!

Sean's been on training this week so he's been in to Cabramatta as well at the Mount Druitt office where he is based. Cabramatta is slightly closer but takes just as long on the train (partly because the trains aren't very frequent). He's got a car now - it's a beast! It only just fits into our parking space in the car park here. I guess it is true that we will get used to big cars out here and when we come back to England we'll think they're all piddly. Sean hasn't tried driving to Cabramatta in case he gets lost, he's going to wait until he's back in his permanent office. At least his journey will be air-conditioned then, unlike the trains.

Yesterday I spoke to the lady who is going to arrange our home search. At the moment she is trying to get an idea of where we want to live but she may want us to go and look at flats at the weekend. Apparantly flats go very quickly once they come onto the market so we should be ready to pounce! I told her that we really like living here (although we would like to go and see other places) so she's going to contact them to find out if anything is available.

Andy's posted a comment so it can be done! I get an emailed copy of these but they don't seem to be very visible on the website. Maybe this a setting I can alter somewhere.

I still haven't manged to do anything exciting with photos. Maybe at the weekend...