Christmas.Done.

Christmas got off to a slow start - with our sad news still painfully recent, we decided to not attend the gangs Xmas dinner last Sunday. They all seem to have had a great night and the good news is, Helen brought my secret santa present home for me!!

I left work on Christmas eve and went to do a big food shop with Nikki and Shak. The supermarket was surprisingly void of madness! Not sure if the Aussies are more organised and so don't need to go shopping mad on Christmas eve or if we live in an area full of English people that know better than to go to the supermarket on Christmas eve! After our shop was put away, we headed over to The Oaks in Neutral Bay. It was a bit disappointing as a Christmas eve night out, so we left at around 10.30. I was lovely to see some of the gang though as we hadn't really seen anyone for a while.

Christmas morning saw the four of us spend all of 3 minutes opening all our presents - there was no waiting for each person to finish etc etc!
I then finished sorting our food out for the day, and off we went to Jo and Pauls!


Jo had done a great job of bringing a little bit of pommie Christmas to the orphans in Sydney! After a quick glass of pink fizz, we headed down to the beach. A few of them braved the cold water for a swim, the rest of us settled for a couple of hours of beach cricket courtesy of Shams present from Nikki, we headed back up to Chez Watters just before the rain started!


We then proceeded to tuck into enough food to feed a small African country!! Here are pics of SOME of the feast we consumed...




Coupled with the never ending supply of beer, wine, cherry brandy, pimms and rum we had, and the rowdy game of hum that tune, it was only a matter of time before someone gave in to the urge to have a little nap!

Naz found himself a strangely comfortable place to do just that!




Boxing day was spent braving the shops for a bit of last minute shopping for Shak. We also went to see Avatar at the Imax.
This was without a doubt one of the best films we have seen for a while!!

RIP Baa

Today, we have had the call that we all dread when we move so far from home...
Today our family lost our matriarch-our rock-our family's glue.
May her spirit give us all the strength to get through this difficult time, and may our prayers lay her soul to rest in peace.

We will never forget the stories and jokes we shared with our beloved gran.

You will always be in our hearts and our thoughts.

Love you forever baa

From Sham, Shak and Kunj

xxx

November 2009 - What a busy month!

So Heena left (after helping to pack up the kitchen!), and then, our busiest month here began:

31/10 We moved! Leaving the northern beaches of Sydney to enjoy the Inner West! Blamain is lovely with lots of bars, restaurants and boutiquey shops. The journey to work is now less than 30 mins. Here are a few pics from move day and of our new home!








2/11 Although we had signed a 12 month lease for our new house, we technically only had just over a month left on our visa. In fact, we still had a return flight booked for November 30th! So on November 2nd, my company lodged the application for our 4 year visa. The lawyers quoted us an approximate 4 week turn around...

3/11 Melbourne cup day in Oz is I suppose the equivalent of the Grand National... but its actually crazy. Getting on the bus at 7.30am, I was greeted by girls in full on racing gear - facinators, little frocks, the works... all very strange considering the races were in Melbourne - and we were in Sydney!! It was a REALLY REALLY hot day too so it was not going to be fun for these girls! Anyway, I won one of the sweepstakes at work so ended up $60 up! The oter thing that we won't forget about that day is that the temp reached 40 degrees! it was tooooo hot to do anything, so we took shelter in a nice cool cinema and watched the MJ film.

5/11 VISA GRANTED! This means we can now stay in Australia for the next 4 years (as long as I still work where I am now, we apply for residency or we find another employer to take over my visa)... the details don't matter too much - WE ARE STAYING!!

14/11 A few reasons to celebrate. With the new house, visa and my forth coming birthday all within a few weeks, we cobbled together a bit of a bbq/ curry afternoon with everyone that was around.






19/11 My first summer birthday. Sham had told me we were going for dinner - just the two of us, and it was a lovely surprise to arrive at the restaurant and have lots of the gang there!




21/11 Summer in full swing! The gang spent Saturday afternoon in Centennial park - public bbq, beer and football/ cricket in the park. Perfect!





23/11 - 27/11 3 interviews and 2 job offers for Sham! He started his new job on the 27th - for the first time in the year we have been here, we both have permanent jobs!

Message home from Sham!

Hi all
I am still working on getting some pics together from Heenas trip, but in the meantime, here is a copy of an email Sham sent to family back home... kinda rounds up the last few weeks for now... more to follow in the next few days!

Hope you are all well... Apologise for not being in touch for a while
but thought I would let you all know what has been happening with us.
You can look at http://shahsinoz.blogspot.com to have a better idea of
what has been happening throughout our time here, but here’s a quick
update...

I stopped working about a month ago as my contract was up... In that
time we had a friend over from the UK so I was being a tour guide.
Kunj was working hard, making sure we had food on the table and a roof
over our head! The lease on our flat in Manly also expired so we
needed to find somewhere new to stay and say goodbye to having a beach
on our doorstep! We decided to move closer to the city for the
convenience of work and also a slightly cheaper cost of living... We
moved to Balmain... email us for address and phone numbers!
We’ll send some pictures of the new place soon. It is a lovely little
house and nice area. People say it is similar to Muswell Hill back in
London. We moved well with the help of a few friends and are now
settled.

We also got some good news this morning that Kunj’s sponsorship visa
has come through which means we are allowed to stay in Sydney until
2013!! We have been trying to get something like this sorted since we
came here (nearly a year ago) and finally it has come through! Talk
about last minute! This is really good news for us as we can properly
start to live. I can go back to work in the next week or so too!! BTW
– this also means that you can come and visit us now as we are here
long term!

On the down side... we did have a return ticket booked to come back
home in Dec, but this is now unlikely. We will probably come home
sometime next year for a proper holiday and see all of you guys!

I think that’s all folks! Keep an eye on our blog for more regular updates.

Until next time...

Take Care and we’ll catch up soon.

Love Sham and Kunj x

Old friends to visit!

Sorry its taken me so long to post this - Its been a VERY busy month or so!

As I mentioned in my last post, two of my oldest friends have been visiting Australia.
Natasha and the gang had a jam packed schedule of jetting around Australia for a few weeks and Heena managed to do lots in Sydney and manage to get a decent suntan considering we had the wettest October ever!

I did get to spend some time with Tash and her mum while they were here - and if I am honest, it really made me miss my mummy!

Hopefully her mum will tell my mum all about the meal I cooked and about how well we are settling here... that should have the desired effect of making my mum book her ticket over!

Sham was Heenas official tourguide and managed to take her to Palm Beach (of Home and Away fame), did the Bondi - coogee walk, visited Taronga zoo as well as various other must-do Sydney treasures!

I met them in the evenings after work - we took Heena to the Night Noodle Markets and she even managed a night out with the girls!

We did manage to pack lots into the weekends too with the Blue Mountains, a day at the races and a fun day of wine tasting carnage in the Hunter Valley all covered!




Heena would no dount name one thing as the highlight of her trip (apart from gossiping with me!!) and that is THE BRIDGE CLIMB!

More visitors = more fun food!

The last week has brought us a few visitors- my oldest friend Natasha arrived with here mum, cousins and aunty last Friday. Her brother Neal has lived here for a couple of year so its about time some family came to visit!
It was really weird to see Tash and her mum here. It was really lovely spending time with her mum - she is officially our first grown up visitor! Seeing her did make me miss my muumy though - especially when she was teaching me helpful cooking hints!

Yeaterday morning, one of my best friends Heena arrived! Bless her for braving that LONG flight all by herself to come and see us! She is staying with us for 2 weeks and Sham is in charge of being her tour guide! We have a few things planned for her though so she is going to get a taste of the life we love here!!

After getting to see my friends, the second best thing about having them over to visit is that they have all come bearing LOTS of crisps and chocolates!! I am considering setting up a stall at the market one weekend - I reckon I can make a killing selling Wotsits and Wispas!!

Finally, a massive Happy Diwali to everyone at home for the weekend - and we both wish you all a very properous new year!

xxx

A busy few weeks... in no particular order...

Apologies in advance for a long post that talks about lots and nothing all at the same time!!

Our new footie team!

A couple of weeks ago, we went to see a live football game. Sydney FC were playing North Queensland Fury (seriously, thats what they are called!). The significance of this game is that one Robbie Fowler (or God as Liverpool fans apparently call him...) now plays for The Fury. The game itself was a bit like watchng a not very good game of Sunday league football. The highlight was watching the die hard Liverpool fans (about 100 of them) going mad when Fowler scored. One guy actually ran onto the pitch and threw himself into the celebrations - he would have got fined about $5k, but I know a few Liverpool fans who would call that money well spent!

Dust storm
Our bedroom curtains don't quite meet in the middle. This is normally not something that bothers us, but last Wednesday I woke up to an orange glow... at first I thought that I was thinking "red sky at night sheppards delight...etc etc" but then I got about 3 texts from my friends one after the other along the lines of "is anyone else freaked out..." and "wait till you get outside and start to eat dust". When the original panic of whats happened etc died down, I put the TV on to see what was going on. I know you all heard about it on the news, but here is what it looked like for us!

This is the normal view from our bedroom

Thank you for the messages etc to check we were ok. It was funny because by the time the UK were waking up to the news, it was completely over for us - apart from the film of dust that was left behind on EVERY surface, you would never have known anything so spooky had happened less than 12 hours ago!


Kunj makes a killing at the races!
This Saturday was Ladies Day at the races here in Sydney. A few of the girls booked a day out and we had an absolute blast!

I, in particular, had a great day... I managed to turn $40 into about $250... although after a couple of bottles of wine, a curry and a cab home, I came home with $90 - not bad!

I love it when a plan finally comes together!

As I write this, our life in Sydney is more certain than it ever has been!
This week, I started back at CMC Markets doing my old job... only this time, its more permanent as they have offered to sponsor me! We are trying not to get too excited as the government still has to grant me the visa, but this is closer than we have ever been!
We hope to lodge the application in the next month or so and then we will just have everything crossed...
Right, it's lunchtime!

If Carlsberg made cinemas...

... they would be a bit like the Gold Class one we went to last week!

There is an offer on Magnum icecream packets at the moment where you get a free cinema upgrade with every ice cream. Luckily, we are having a winter of 25 degree days, so it wasn't too hard to eat a magnum or four!
We went to see District 9 with Mark and Anita. It was lovely having a glass of wine, some chips and a chocolate fudge sundae while watching the film - Sham had pies of course! Unfortunately, the food, wine and beer wasn't included, so although the upgrade was free, we spent a fortune on the food!
Was a great experience and I don't think I will ever want to slum it in a normal cinema again!

My bejeweled days are numbered!

Firstly, for those that subscribe to the blog, sorry for bombarding you with posts this week!

So - we have the hat trick for good news!
I had an interview for a contract marketing role this morning... I got there after nearly missing the ferry and being really hot and flustered, and managed to turn on the charm to the lovely lady that interviewed me (I can be such a suck up...!) and at the end of the interview, she just said when can you start!
I start on Tuesday and the contract is until the 27th of Nov. This means that from the second week of Oct it will be my turn to bring home the bacon while Sham gets dinner on the table every night!!

Right... I am off to buy a scratchcard to check if we have used up all our luck this week!

The nicest our flat has ever looked!

Our landlord has decided to sell the flat we are living in!
Its ok, we won't be homeless - they have to give us 60 days notice and we are coming home at the end of November anyway!
As I am home during the day, I got to be here when they staged the place for the pictures. It was funny cos they moved furniture, rearranged the kitchen and even moved pictures around!
Here is one of the pics they took...



If you are feeling nosey click here for a butchers of the listing!

Winners!

It's been a lucky few days for us!

On Sunday, we went to the local RSL club for dinner with Mark and Anita. An RSL club is on paper, like an old drinking mans pub - cheap booze, cheap food and pensioners... in reality, RSL clubs in Australia are great! There is cheap food (a roast dinner any day of the week for about £5), and cheap beer. There are also lots of old people. There are also lots of young families and couples. It is basically set up for gambling and major sporting events - lots of slot machines and big screens! I can't really describe it - you kinda have to see it to believe it.
Anyway, every weekend, they have a raffle. The prizes are the most random things... you can come away with a basket full of grocery shopping! Last time we went, Mark won a tray of meat that kept them well fed for a week!
This week was my lucky week! I won... wait for it... 2 casserole dishes!!The funniest thing was walking through the RSL club with this massive package! Obviously, I made Sham carry it!!


Our winning streak continued on Monday. ArsePool United (the name is the result of the boys being allowed to name the team during a drunken night out!)The boys, who managed to not win a single game last season, pulled off a miracle this season and won the league! Helen and I went to watch the last game (on the promise of drinks at the pub after!) It was actually quite good fun! The highlight was Chris' excitment and pride at winning - and so he should be - he did a great job as manager of this odd squad! (Marco, Naz and Paul missing!)


WELL DONE BOYS!

A bit of an RE lesson for you!

MICHHAMI DUKKADAM
Thats for all the jains out there!

For the non-jain readers of my blog, yesterday was the end of a religious phase of 8 days. During the 8 days, practising jains meditate and either fast (completely - no food!) or try and eat a simpler diet without garlic, potatoes etc...
Every year Shams dad tries to make Sham not eat meat for this 8 days... sorry dad, he didnt manage it again!

At the end of the 8 days we all say the phrase above to eachother. It basically means we are asking for forgiveness if we have offended, hurt or upset you.

This year, we have a few family members that did fast. Congrats Bhavin... hope your new wife was supportive!

If anyone wants to know a bit more, good old wiki is the best place I have found!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism

Home is....

not just where the heart is....

We have just got back from a surprise visit to Kenya for Shams cousin Bhavins wedding (we had sooooo much fun - there will be a seperate blog post for it!)... it was so nice to see Shams mum, dad and brother - and of course other members of the extended family.
As we had suspected, saying goodbye again was just as hard - although knowing we will see them again in a few months should have made it easier - it didn't.
Having said that, we are both glad to be home. Yep, Sydney feels like home (even though its really cold!)
I have to say its taken me by surprise - especially because I have been feeling particularly unsettled without a job and the uncertainty of the residency application etc.
Don't get me wrong, we are both still having the occaasional wobble when it feels like everything would be easier if we were back in London, but then we remind ourselves that this is where we hope to have our future...

So, for me, home is definately where my heart, head,and more importantly, dreams are!

Keeping in touch

I recently had a conversation with one of the other expats about keeping in touch with people at home... we decided that we were both surprised at who we did hear from... the people who we thought we would never lose touch with are the very same people we have hardly heard from!

Since we have been here, I have spent a small fortune on cards, learnt to use Skype as an accepted form of communication, and of course, started a blog!

Now, I know lots of people read this blog - some of you even subscribe to it! Please, please, please let us know what you are up to and whats going on at home - I miss the gossip!!

So, whether its an email, a Facebook or Twitter message, a card or a Text... don't be strangers!

x

Sydney stone... as in 6.35kg!

"Oi fatty - what you been eating?!" That was pretty much the first thing Shams sister said to him when she visited last week! I put it down to the fact that he has shaved his hair so looks more like a pea head... but Sham then came out of the bathroom to check if the scales were right... and if the tracksuit bottoms and tshirt he was wearing might add a stone to his weight!!

They say weight gain is a sign of contentment... I say weight gain is a sign of too much beer, cheap take aways, a compulsory pie on the way home from a night out and his wife finally learning to make yummy indian food!

It is all balanced out at the moment - we walk a lot due to not having a car, and Sydney is quite hilly so its pretty hard to avoid a cardio workout almost everyday! Sham is also playing football once a week with Arsepool United...the team that is made up of the husbands and boyfriends of my friends. He also manages some golf and even an occasional game of basketball!

I on the other hand, have lost half a stone since we have been here and have developed some muscles in my legs!! My fitness level is still pants, but I am certainly moving more than I have for a long time!

so, we are eating more here, but are also getting more excercise... that can't be bad can it??

Oh, I forgot to mention the British Draw in the kitchen full of goodies B brought us... Wispas, Toffee Crisp, Hula Hoops, Prawn Cocktail crisps.... oh dear!!

The calm after the storm...

... or at least whirlwind!

We are still recovering from my uni friend Selina and her new husband Chris and Bansi's (Shams sister) visit!
The Edis' were with us for a week and B's was a flying visit - just 2 jam packed days!

Its been fun being a Sydney tour guide, but as I said to Sel, I felt more tired than Sham who was working the whole week!

It has been great fun - and they managed to cram a lot into the week - Hunter Valley, Blue Mountains, Shopping, Sky tower, Manly ferry, Botanical gardens as well as various drinking holes and restaurants in Darling Harbour, The Rocks, Manly and the City!



We even managed to introduce them to the Aussie tradition of a barbie...


We got to meet some of their other friends that are living/ visiting Sydney too!



Sel and Chris - hope the rest of your travels are awesome... and hope we might have convinced you to come and live in Sydney!!


Bansi, hope you had as much fun as we did! And thank you sooooo much for bringing us all the goodies!!





It has been really nice spending some time with everyone - its been hard saying goodbye, but hopefully, we will have some more visitors soon??

The weekend of Hunter Valley - warning! LONG post!

Last Friday began with a very early morning text not so gently breaking the news of Michael Jacksons death: "MJ dead"... thanks Sham!

So after watching Sky News in my PJs for about 2 hours, I got showered and ready to pack for our weekend in Hunter Valley. We had planned the day in great detail (Helen doesn't do late!). At midday, I got a phone call from a friend of a friend of a friend...(I kid you not!) asking me to come in for an interview in 2 hours!
As most of my friends here and at home will be able to tell you, I am going mad sitting at home, so am not in a position to turn down any interviews!
So it was all change... Hels was a star and raced around the mall with me while we did our food shopping for the weekend and then took me to my interview! I haven't heard back yet, so will keep you posted as to whether I got the job!

So we finally got back home at 4, finished packing and left ours at 5.30 - picking Chris on the way!
An amazingly clear run got us to our cabin in Pokolbin in about 2 hours.

We were the last car to arrive, but all the rooms in the cabin were the same so we were ok being the last ones to pick! The log fire had been started and we set about making pizzas! Pizza/ wine/ beer/ ipods/ drinking games went on till 3.30am!

Up we got on Saturday morning only to realise that Helen had a flat tyre!!


as luck would have it, the garage in the town got it fixed up in 30 minute - for $30!
So, all piled in to 2 cars (thanks Helen and Naz for volunteering!) and headed off to the McGuigans wine making tour... the guy taking the tour was a FRUIT LOOP! It was like he had stumbled across the vineyard and fancied a go at being a tourguide!
We all survived the tour (due to a LOT of giggling!)

Next stop - De Bortoli!
This was the maker of the yummy pink fizz we discovered at the Manly Food and Wine festival!
Here we were greeted by an Italian version of Victor Meldrew! He was hilarious!! He was brilliant at telling us lots of useful stuff, but we were too scared to actually ask him too many questions! So loaded up with bottles of the pink fizz and some 2005 semilion which can apparently be kept for up to 9 years - like it will last that long, off we go! So, we get outside, and there were some people with a camera... filming. We decide that we would quite like to get a group picture, and so, Paul asks one of the guys if he could take a picture... he misunderstands, and decides he wants to be in the picture rather than take it for us!!
Apparently, he is a famous guy... John English?? No, none of us had a clue who he was!

Time for lunch! off we go to the Blue Tongue brewery.


Average food, strange beers for tasting, weird live music, strangely dressed travellers and a VERY drunk man proposing to his girlfriend in front of 100 people... that was lunch!

Its now 3.30, we have been drinking since 11 and will be drinking for a while yet! So Helen and I decide we could do with a sit down, a cuppa and a slice of cake before the evening drinking begins! So we dropped the others off to what looked to be the one pub in Pokolbin and went back to the cabin. We get back to the pub at 6.30 - having spent 2 hours trying to start the log fire, and everyone is HAMMERED!

The pub seems to be the wedding reception venue for a couple that couldn't afford to get sole use for somewhere... it was very strange to see a bride trying to get peoples attention when everyone is watching the Rugby! It gets to 8.45, and we are in a minibus on our way back home!

An evening snack of cheese and crackers and another 3 hours of trying to get the fire going (we think the logs were just damp!) and we are all tucked up in bed by about midnight!

Sunday morning - breakfast, cheese factory, chocolate factory!
We decide to have spot of lunch before we all head off back to Sydney... we ended up at a pub version of Fawlty towers!
My bean nachos arrived with beef, then came out as burnt nachos with cheese and half a tin of kidney beans thrown over them.
Jo have sausage and mash with stone cold lumpy gravy, the boys had a roast beef with veg that had been boiled to within an inch of their lives and more cold gravy. Sarina had a stinky prawn cocktail! It really was so funny, you couldn't make it up! But I guess it was the landlord who had the last laugh as he still got paid for it all!

That was our eventful weekend in Hunter Valley!

My university house mate Selina and her husband Chris arrived in Sydney on Tues and are here for a week!
They have been travelling around Australia for 5 weeks. I am their tour guide in Sydney!

Winter festival abandoned....

... due to bad weather!
We had planned to go to the Winter Festival in the city on Saturday, but the weather was AWFUL! It bucketed down the whole day... so we had Helen/Chris and Jo/Paul over for pizza and watched the first series of the Inbetweeners!

The rest of the weekend went like this:

Friday - lunch with the girls to welcome Kim back from the UK... and to collect the goodies she so kindly bought us!

Friday night - Ross Noble at the Acer Arena. We had free tickets thanks to Sali and Andy. Noble was soooo random, but very funny. The highlight of the night was shouting Cramlington at him with Julia and Jo. Cramlington is his home town, and also happens to be our Julia's home town!

Saturday - as described above!

Sunday - a complete change in weather! It was lovely and sunny... so we enjoyed a lovely brunch on the beach followed by a big food shop.

This low key weekend will be offset nicely by our trip to Hunter Valley next weekend! There are 10 of us and a dog going. Really looking forward to leaving Sydney for the first time since we have been here! Don't feel too sorry for us - we live on a beach - everyday is a holiday!!

Food shopping- no room for snobbery

I always had different shops for different food at home -
Asda/ Morrisons for staples like crisps/ baked beans/ detergents/ fruit and veg/ branded stuff (always had offers so good for stocking up!)
Tescos for fresh pasta/ dips/ nice bread etc
Indian shops for masalas/ indian veg and pulses
M&S for treats like Percy pigs/ tea cakes etc

Here, life is a bit more complicated!
There are only 2 main Supermarket chains - Woolworths (I guess Tesco) and Coles (Asda/Morrisons). The main problem is that they pretty much sell the same things, Woolworths is just more expensive!

The added contender here is.... Aldi!
The snob in me would never have dreamt of buying none branded Baked Beans etc in Aldi at home (I wouldn't normally even buy a supermarkets own brand for most food things unless it was Tesco Finest!)
New country, new rules! I figured that most of the brand names here would be new to me anyway, so why not try something different...
The added bonus is that Aldi here often have English imports too - I recently bought Marmite and McVities Digestives (milk chocolate and original!).

We always have to do a top up shop in Coles as you can't get everything in Aldi, but this new attitude has allowed me to not only reduce our shopping bill by about a third, but also led me to the discovery that Aldi Houmous is infact MUCH nicer than anything I have bought from Coles and Woolies!!

Lastly, Sydney has not yet suffered the death of the High Street like London has - there are lots of lovely delis, speciality shops and bakeries to buy yummy stuff - at a price though! I could buy proper Bisto gravy granuales from the Expat shop as long as I don't mind paying the equivalent of £4 for it!

On that note, please can I remind everyone that might be visiting soon to bring us any of the following:
Hula Hoops, Skips, Prawn Cocktail Walkers,Squares, Toffee Crisps, Mini eggs.... oh sod it - any crisps and chocolates!!!

Talking to strangers...

Having grown up in London, my manners end at please and thank you, holding doors open and sometimes not pretending to be asleep and giving up my well earned seat on the Northern Line!
So when we first got here, it was a bit weird that the woman in the bank wanted to know all about what we had planned for the weekend!

Don't worry - I have adapted well... I quite look forward to going to pay the rent on a Thursday now... last week Chris at Commonwealth Bank in Manly told me all about how May-June were the warmest months to go for a swim in the sea (yea, I think I will take your word for it!)

Clothes shopping is still a bit scarey as the shop assistant insists on following you around and taking anything you pick up from you and leaving it in the changing room for you!

The funniest story I heard was from a girl I used to work with who knew the first names of the 3 bus drivers that were on her route to work (one bus, different driver depending on what time she came in, I think!)... she knew their kids names and even bought them Christmas presents! Bless her!

It still freaks me out sometimes though... a few weeks ago, Helen and I were in a bottleshop (an Off Licence to some of you).. this old lady who looked like Pat Butcher at 80, leppard print coat and all, was starring at me. So I apologised for being in her way and got my vodka (what?? it was for sharing, honest!) and moved out of her way. As I walked past, she touched my arm and told me I was "a beautiful colour"!! All I managed to do was say thanks!

So, although I think its lovely that school kids always give up their seats on buses here and everyone thanks the bus driver when they get off, I think it will be a while before I am on first name terms with him!!

I am, after all, British, and we are taught to not talk to strangers!

I take it back!

I take back all my moaning about the weather! We went to Balmoral Beach for brunch with Mark and Anita today - it was 19 degrees and amazing!

I went to the Dirty Dancing Wrong Prom this week with some of the girls.... it was basically a mass dance lesson put on by a dance school in Sydney - was a great laugh... and we now have a little routine we will no doubt be showing off at our next girlie night out!

Sydney is currently hosting a festival called Vivid Sydney- Sydney's festival of Music, Light and Ideas. The coolest thing about this Festival is the light projections they are dong on the Opera house... they change every 15 minutes and are very, very cool!


Photograph courtesy of Helen Roebuck!

For those of you that aren't on Facebook, click here for some pictures of our winter in Sydney... so far!

A weekend of much food and drink!

Things really are different here - we are having a bank holiday weekend, and the weather has been AMAZING all weekend!


We spent Saturday at the Manly Food and Wine Festival... or as I came to know it, the Wine and Wine festival!

In my defence, there was a noted lack of vegetarian food... and I am told that the Indian food stand was sub standard... so, if we are still here next year, we are seriously going to look into having a stand at the festival!






The rest of the foodie weekend included a Sunday roast (although I missed out on the Yorkshire pudding), Homemade apple crumble with the Apprentice final and a yummy Lebanese feast in Surry Hills!

I will not be stepping on the weighing scales for a few days!

The Apprentice final deserves a special mention...
I refused to log onto Facebook and Twitter yesterday until I had watched it - and boy was I glad I did! No lees than 17 of my Facebook friends had Apprentice related statuses! My personal favourite was Priyen threatening AGAIN to apply... put your money where your mouth is P Man... not that we need another Shah embarassing us - once was really enough!!