It's just like watching Brazil...

Just a short post as I don't claim to be the world's expert on football in the UK(soccer to you Aussies), but I was chuffed to wake up this morning to the news that the Super Reds Barnsley FC had been promoted to the first division after what seems to have been a nail-biting play-off in Cardiff.
Alas, my time in the UK will no coinside with the season, but I can imagine they were out singing and dancing in the streets of Barnsley last night.

Night fever, night fever...

I'm on nights at the moment and feel like I'm in a perpetual state of jet lag.
The work hours are 4pm to midnight (which is rapidly overspilling into 1am as the Socceroos beat the Euro Champs Greece, NSW took the first Origin game, Aussie troop have dropped into East Timor for an urgent peacekeeping mission... the list goes on).
I'm making things ten times worse for myself by INSISTING that Bo and I get up for the gym at 5.15am. Atleast four weekdays a week.

This may seem over-ambitious, but since she's at TAFE three nights a week and I'm on nights until I go to the UK (which is when my next day off is), its the only conceivable way we can get to the gym together (for support, inspiration, pulling muscle-Mary faces at eachother).
But I am BUGGERED.

I'm wide awake and starving when I get back, but by 9am I'm asleep and my day is totally ruined. Hmmmmmmmm.
Not sure what the solution is - answers on a postcard please.

I'm an authentic Australian now...

It's bloody freezing in Sydney at the moment.
The last few sun-drenched days of Autumn have ebbed away and it seems like Winter is well and truly upon us.

And with my fourth winter down under, I think I can officially claim the title of Aussie.
Those of you who know me from the UK may remember that in the year before my departure to (ahem) sunnier climes, I bought a khaki-green parker coat - think more All Saints the British girl band rather than Quadrophenia. Regardless, it was my absolute pride and joy.

When I moved to Australia I debated what do to with it. I couldn't see the sense in bringing it all the way here, but at the same time, I couldn't part with it. Consequently, it has languished in my wardrobe for close to four years, and doubled as a make-shift sleeping bag...
until today.

Baltic-like temperatures in Bondi have meant that Sydney has been at a low of 10 degrees today (and a high of 18). Had I still been a Brit, I would no doubt be stripping off to my bathers in 18 degrees.
But today, in chilly Sydney, I put on my beloved coat. It's a bit bigger on me than it used to be, but its as warm as ever.

Don't believe the hype - or the movie reviews...

An avid reader, I've been hugely annoyed at my inability to get past the first chapter of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.

I've tried on three occassions over the last 18 months and it just didn't hold my attention.

However, after seeing the movie this afternoon, I can see why the rest of the book-reading world might have been hooked.

I know the movie has been panned more than praised, but as a newcomer to the intricacies of the plot, I was absolutely hooked. And late for a work as a consequence - the movie is almost three hours long.

My only issue was the monk. I'm sure I'm not giving the game away by saying that he's a pretty sinister character throughout the piece, and appears for the most part in full length brown robes. Unfortunately, the ABC in Australia released Da Kath and Kim Code last December - a 90 minute Kath and Kim special peppered with Da Vinci Code references. Oh, and Barry Humpries as the mad monk, running around Fountain Lakes in a brown hotel bathrobe.

This flashback had me stiffling giggles each time the monk appeared on screen.

It may be the Catholic upbringing and schooling in me, but I was hooked. Go see it.

Leaving on a jet plane...

Just dropped Jo and Lou off at the airport - they're off for five weeks around Europe, including a spot of retail therapy in London (no doubt).

Dead jealous, as I wish my trip was today, but loved going to the airport all the same. There's something about airports that make me go all funny. Goosebumps and stuff.

I think it's because as a child, all my relatives lived in far-flung corners of the globe (well, as far-flung as Canada and Australia seemed in the 1970s) so visits to the airport were always joyous or devastating, depending on whether someone was arriving or leaving.

Film director Richard Curtis tried to encapsulate the whole 'everyone at an airport has a story' theory in the opening and closing sequences of Love Actually.

The Channel Nine network here in Australia have done a much better job with their addictive show Hello, Goodbye which chronicles the arrivals and departures at Sydney airport. It's harrowing, heartbreaking, and wonderfully mesmerising.

I'm in hardback...

Its been almost four years in the making, but I'm about to be a published author... well in a manner of speaking.

On a sunny weekend in Brisvegas in Nov 2002 I met a uni lecturer/popular culture theorist from the University of Queensland. I was searching for a new pair of trainers at that time, we got chatting, and the next thing I knew, I was being asked to submit a 2000 word chapter about a beautiful object.
18 months later, the 2000 words had swelled to 5000 and my beautiful object - the Nike Air Max Classix TW - had been committed to paper forever.

I've just heard that there will be an Australian book launch in October (we're published by Blackwells) and I'm already on Amazon! Woohoo...

Miner miracle

It's the story thats kept me checking news bulletins in the dead of night to make sure I hadn't missed anything, but after 14 nights trapped underground, Tasmanian miners Brant Webb and Todd Russell are finally free.

Trapped almost a kilometre below the earth in Beaconsfield, Tasmania, relatives feared the worse, but against all odds the two survived the earthquake the trapped them.

A fantastic Aussie Battler story, and the start of unbroken sleep for me.

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside...

Just back from a lovely weekend at Callala Bay - the best kept secret in Jervis Bay (so shhhhh).

We went to our usual holiday cottage, which is pet friendly and has everything you could possibly need. Plans to fish were abandoned in favour of beachwalking and a bbq. Oh the trauma...

Elvis has just woken up from his post-holiday exhausted state. But he had a ball as always.

And as for us - great wine, great food, great company and a hilarious game of Scattergories.

Next trip away will be the BIG ONE to the UK, but I've one eye on the end of the year a couple of trips planned - to the Hunter and to Sticky Beak Creek.

It's a family affair

With my sister's child due to appear any time soon, my Mum popped over to the UK from her Spanish retirement retreat for some moral support.

They look like they had a ball and my sister's partner Ruick made a real fuss of mum - she had a fantastic trip.

Makes me wish I lived closer as we edge ever closer to the baby's arrival, but 58 days until I'm there...

Paris Hilton I ain't...

... but with the arrival of the cooler weather in Sydney, we've had to get Elvis a new jumper for winter.

I've never been an advocate of dressing animals. Nor people who walk rabbits, but thats just me. However, as the doting co-owner of a beautiful daschund-chiuahua cross, I've realised thats its more about neccesity than image. Unless, of course, you're Paris Hilton or Nicole Richie.

Elvis is a short-haired little thing and in the cooler mornings shakes non-stop until he warms up. He's perfected this for when we leave the house too - making us feel guilty as hell for leaving him.

But hopefully this new patriotic Aussie jumper will keep him warm, comfortable and shake-free in the coming months.

And if anyone knows of any other cool dog outfits to keep him warm, please let me know :-)