Fireworks Over Sydney


Friday night saw fireworks north and south of the harbour bridge. Here is the view from our balcony...




A video I took is posted below.

Friday night we went out with Pam and Rob to a pub in Surrey Hills. We had a great time. Saturday we went out to the Meat and Wine Company with my team from Mt Druitt. The evening was a bit sad but good fun.

Cake!

Now Sean is a gentleman of leisure, he has taken up cooking me muffins daily from the muffin cookbook he bought me for my birthday. As such I now have a personal muffin chef!



Sean cheffing

Here's a summary of the delights I've had this week:

Monday: Glazed Passionfruit Muffins



Glazed Passionfruit Muffins

The inaugural muffin. These were delicious straight from the oven, they were really fluffy and delicately flavoured with passionfruit. One slight downside was that the seeds were a bit crunchy, but still very good overall.

Tuesday: Best Blueberry Muffins



Best Blueberry Muffins

The "Best" is the title of these muffins in the muffin book, but they were in fact the best blueberry muffins I'd ever had. I think this was due to the addition of a small amount of cinnamon. They were nice warm from the oven but even nicer once they had cooled down.

Wednesday: Gooey-Chewy Fudge Squares



Gooey-Chewy Fudge Squares

In the photo in the book, these looked like they had a kind of caramel topping, so it was a surprise to find out that they had almost 200g of chocolate in them. Ours also looked like they did so we think that maybe the people in the book used the wrong photo.

These were really lovely, much richer than any of the muffins, but I still didn't feel too ill when I ate most of the batch on Wednesday night.

Thursday: Zucchini and Parmesan Muffins



Zucchini and Parmesan Muffins

I thought I'd better try some of the delicious looking savoury muffins. These were fantastic; Sean said they tasted a bit like cheese breadsticks. I think this was the first day we ate the whole batch in a single day.

Friday: Pizza Muffins and Coconut, Cherry and Cream Cheese Muffins



Pizza Muffins



Coconut, Cherry and Cream Cheese Muffin

We had two batches of muffins today as Carrie and Daniel have come to stay with us. Both fantastic as usual (the pizza ones were a particular success). Sean's also started another batch of Gooey-chewy fudge squares for tomorrow. What a guy!!

Sleeping Koala

I've just been trying to post the video of the sleeping Koala (a birthday present from Pam and Paul) via the "post to blog" link in Google Video, but it just seems to give up so I'm trying a new way.

If the other post eventually appears, I'll just have to delete one of them.



Sleeping Koala

Backgammon position of the day (as requested by Anonymous below)

Zoe and I were playing a 7-point match. Zoe had lucked her way to a 2-0 lead, had given a risibly early cube, had mistakenly taken a recube to 4 and then rolled her way into the position below (at least this is how I remember the turn of events).

Zoe owns the cube at 4 on roll leading 2-0 match to 7 - cube action.
















Zoe cubed and I took. Zoe rolled a non-double so did I and it was all over.

To work out the correct cube actions for both sides here you need to know the chance of black winning in this position and the match equities associated with taking and dropping.

First the match equities:

Black can drop to trail 6-0 with about 10% mwc. Given that if he takes he either definitely wins or definitely loses he needs over 10% winning chances in this position to take.

White is risking 35% mwc (her chances trailing 4-2 match to 7) to gain 10% (her increase in winning chances from 90% to 100%).

Double Point = Risk/Risk + Reward.

Zoe has a doubling point of 35/45 which is approximately equal to 78%.

What are the actual chances in the above position? Well for Black to win White needs to roll a non-double followed by Black rolling a double. i.e. 1/6 X 5/6 = 5/36 = 14%

So Zoe has 86% chances of winning if she doubles which is greater than her averaged 78% winning chances if she doesn't double and as such she should double (this is a last roll position so Zoe should double as soon as she is in the window). I have 14% match winning chances if I take and only 10% if I drop so I should take.

A good example of how drastically cube action differs from money play with big cubes close to the end of a match.

We do a lot

Another post with lots of subsections....

My birthday

My birthday was last Thursday and although I was working I had a good day. Mike and Donna had left me a present before they went and I'd already been bought some clothes from the Chinese dress shop by Pam and Paul. I hadn't been able to get the exact dress I wanted since (as suspected) my bum was too big for that style of dress but I got a top in that style and two very nice and slightly more modern Chinese dresses. Pam and Paul also bought me a sleeping koala (video to follow in next post). I got a "How to be a Roman" kit, some non-alcoholic cocktail cards, a gigantic birthday cake, a new singstar CD and some books from Sean. Pam and Paul took me out to Nick's for lunch and I had lobster, as it was my birthday.



Chinese dress 1



Chinese dress 2



CAKE

In the evening we went to see a play called Noir, which was produced by a lady who works with Sean. It had quite a clever plot - I won't spoil it in case you go to see it, which might happen as it was written in the UK - and was very enjoyable.

Easter weekend

We had a pretty easy Easter weekend. Saturday morning was the farmer's market and we were looking forward to showing this to Pam and Paul. Unfortunately there was an unseasonal downpour and we had to hurry round, pick up some lamb, duck and hot egg and bacon rolls and scurry home. On Saturday evening we went to see Priscilla, Queen of the Desert at Star City (the Casino). Pam and Paul had already seen the film and apparently the characters in the stage production weren't quite as deep; the performance was mainly done for laughs. It was very entertaining though and some of the costumes were fabulous. Some were just odd.



A costume for "I will survive"

We had been planning to visit the Easter Show to see "The Real Australia" (their tagline). Somehow we were misinformed that it was shut on Easter Sunday so we went along on Easter Monday. The live animals were pretty good; we saw pigs, goats, sheep, cows, alpacas, horses and poultry. We also saw a few food demonstrations. The pie one was slightly disappointing, as follows:

• get prerolled pastry from fridge


• drap over tin containing segments for many pies


• add dollops of generic meat filling (I don't think they would have been demonstrating how they made that!)


• add another layer of pastry


• put in oven

The sausage demonstration was slightly better.



A sausage demonstration

The fresh food tent was reasonably interesting to someone who likes eating as much as me, however as with the Good Food and Wine show that we went to in Darling Harbour, there were too many packet foods and it was stuffed full of people. There were some pretty displays made from food.

We had hoped to eat at the Easter show, but after all their displays of fresh meat the food options were disappointingly fast: burgers, chicken and chips, kebab, doughnuts. It made an odd contrast with the rest of the show. So we went back to Zaaffran and had some curry.

Uluru



It's a big rock

Tuesday after Easter we flew off to Uluru (Ayer's Rock). This was the one place that Pam had Paul had said they would like to visit and as Sean and I hadn't been we had booked this for just after Easter to avoid the rush.

The flight was about 3 hours and passed very quickly. Our rooms weren't ready so we had some lunch in the hotel bar and booked a few excursions while we were waiting. We made sure we only booked morning and evening excursions so that we could stay out of the heat and this worked well for the few days that we were there. We got up at about 5am, went back to sleep at 11am and then got up for dinner. Very civilised.

The first evening we participated in "The sounds of silence". This was a fantastic experience. Dining tables are set up in the middle of the desert and the evening consists of:

• Canapes with didgeridoo playing. (We also got a talk about the didgeridoo - or yirdaki in the local language - from the musician.)


• Soup, followed by an "Australian Outback" buffet with crocodile, kangaroo, barramundi and native flavourings


• A talk about the night sky, with opportunity to look through telescopes


• Dessert Buffet (I had a good chocolate brownie and a large helping of middle-of-the-road chocolate pudding.)

The food was not amazing, although the crocodile Cesar salad was quite nice. The kangaroo was unfortunately in a quite revolting sauce of some native Australian berry.

The best part was the talk about the night sky. As soon as we started eating we all noticed the stars starting to unfold. The view from the desert is quite remarkable; there isn't really anywhere in the UK with so little light pollution (certainly not London...). After our main course they turned the lights off. We learnt all sorts of facts about how the different constellations have viewed in different cultures and I was most struck by the fact that most of the same star groups seem to have been picked out by many different peoples. We are all one race.

The icing on the cake was looking at Saturn through a telescope. I looked at some stars, admittedly one had a smaller orbiting star, which was quite cool, but still not quite as cool as Saturn. We could see it all just like in a picture. It was small but clear. Most remarkable was the realisation that it looks like a star but close up it is much more exciting.

Next morning we were up early to do a sunrise tour of Uluru. We caught a mini-bus into the National Park where the rock is.



Nearly sunrise



Then it went red

As we had been positioned to see the sun shining on Uluru, we could also see it rising behind Kata Tjuta (the Olgas). This is another impressive large rock formation (Kata Tjuta means "many heads"), although access to a lot of it is restricted since it is important for Anangu (the local people)'s mens ceremonies.



Kata Tjuta

The driver waited for us to see the full sunrise and then dropped us off at the other side to do a walk around. We saw some cave paintings and marvelled at the size of the rock. We were then picked up again and dropped round to the cultural centre before being taken home. The cultural centre was interesting. The Uluru and Kata Tjuta National Park is the most significant example of traditional land ownership in Australia. This basically means that the land has been proven to have been looked after by a group of (I think about 50) local people and hence to belong to them. They were only granted this ownership on the grounds that they immediately re-lease it to the park (i.e. the Australian government) for 99 years. It will be interesting to see what happens when the lease runs out. If you are interested in reading more about this, wikipedia has a good article about Native Title here.

The centre was clearly reflected this co-operation between the traditional owners and the lessees. There were a lot of quotes from local elders, especially regarding taking photos of the rock (taking photographs of people or significant sites is considered disrespectful), although photos were actually used in the displays. I think this was the correct decision since they will communicate their message more effectively to the visiting tourists.

That evening I had a swim in the pool just after sundown - no chance of burning but the pool was still lovely and warm - and then we had drinks followed by dinner in the hotel restaurant. The food was very nice, but overpriced: an example of monopoly pricing.

Yesterday, our last day, we got up at 5am again and made our way out to the front to wait for a coach again. This time we were taken to a farm just outside the park to do a sunrise camel ride.



Sean and I on Di and Pam and Paul on Bendigo

Pam and Paul were on a bit of an energetic camel. He managed to break his nose chain and started taking great chunks out of passing greenery. Luckily his neck was still tied to the camel in front otherwise he would have been off. Sean says he will always remember Pam saying "No, Bendigo. Come back Bendigo." as their camel ripped off another passing branch.

We got back to Sydney about 5pm and had a quick wash before dinner in Quay restaurant for Pam and Paul's last night. We've been to Quay quite a lot so I won't post in detail - beautiful food, stunning views sums the experience up quite well.

Pam and Paul fly home

This morning we went out for breakfast and then had a last drink on the balcony before taking Pam and Paul to the airport. They were very sad to leave (and we were very sad to see them go) and it reminded us that it won't be long until we're heading home. So we'd better make the most of our next three weeks in Sydney!

Leaving Australia

Some interesting and significant events for Zoe and I have occured recently. A few days ago I was offered a position as Development Director with a company called Serco who are interested in entering the UK's welfare to work market. I have accepted their offer. I let WorkDirections know that I would be leaving giving three months notice but they thought it best that I go immediately. As such I am now officially on gardening leave until mid-June! Zoe is going to take some leave from the 7th May and we are planning on travelling Australia for a few weeks before going to Shanghai for a few days if we can get a visa. We will be back in the UK early June. See you all soon!

Sean

More football

We didn't do much once we got back from the Blue Mountains. I was working Wed - Fri and Sean was working Thurs and Fri.

On Saturday we took Pam and Paul to see the Mighty Waratahs at the Aussie Stadium since Mike and Donna had enjoyed it when they went.



More rugby

The 'Tahs were playing against a New Zealand team called the Crusaders. The odds against the 'Tahs were 7:1. Paul spotted a few players from the All Blacks in the opposition, which may explain this. The 'Tahs rose to the challenge of a decent opposition team and upped their game enormously. In the end they only lost 33-34 and had they converted either of their last two tries they would have won. Well played by both sides; a good game. The stadium was a bit fuller too, there are a lot of Kiwis living in Sydney and I think this ups the rivalry.

In the interval, we were treated to some competitive wood chopping by both sides. The 'Tahs redeemed themselves by winning this.



The Crusaders' wood chopper. They can play football, but can they chop wood?

On Sunday we went and had a wander round the Indian Holi festival. According to my diary Holi was a few weeks ago, but this was definitely a Holi festival; there was an arena where you could go and chuck coloured paint at each other. I wanted to go in but no-one else was particularly struck by the idea. One day I will go to India and chuck coloured paint at people.

We then hung around Darling Harbour until Zaaffran opened. Sean and I had visited this modern Indian restaurant before and vowed to go back but this time it excelled itself.

We ordered the Chef's Special Banquet served on a silver platter and served on a silver platter it was. All the curries were good, beef vindaloo (second from the right) was my favourite and butter chicken (second from the left) my second favourite.



Mmmm, curry