Happy birthday to the Sydney Harbour Bridge...

Another hectic weekend - on Saturday we went to the New South Wales Art Gallery to check out the entrants for the Archibalds, Australia's annual portrait prize.
I love going to this gallery - it overlooks the harbour and is just so lovely. A real fave.
But big news in Sydney this weekend was the 75th birthday of the famed Harbour Bridge. In honour of the 'coathanger' as the bridge is affectionately know locally, the bridge was closed to all road traffic on Sunday, and Sydneysiders were invited to take a 3.6km walk along the eight lanes of the bridge.


250,000 proud Aussies took up the invite, and it was a real experience. Not in the way that climbing the arch of the brudge - you just felt you were part of history. Real goosebumps.
A true Aussie icon, the bridge has now become a National Treasure. And rightly so!

Happy St Patrick's Day...

How to have the craic in Dublin...

From boyband to manband...

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know I'm 36 this year, but I still feel about 22, and that's how old I was when Take That first hit the charts.
True, I was never after them for their boyish good looks, but I have always been a sucker for a catchy pop tune and a dance routine.

Then there was the whole Robbie Williams debacle, the Take That split and the Gary Barlow solo albums (I bought the first one, Open Road).
Then I grew up and moved on...

... so it was both amusing and ironic that I was queuing up with mates at stupid o'clock yesterday morning to see the newly-reformed Take That - ten years on - perform a few tracks at Martin Place in Sydney.
A pedestrian thoroughfare, they were performing there as part of the Australian breakfast TV show Sunrise.
They performed their latest Australian hit Patience, which was apparently a huge smash in Europe.
But hilariously, all the fans were around my age, and most of them had strollers with them... the man-band vote.
Still bloody brilliant though.

The biggest gay festival in the world...

Despite having been here for five years, I've successfully managed to avoid Sydney's Mardi Gras parade.
Dubbed as the biggest gay and lesbian celebration in the world, I always feared it would be too OTT for me. I'm not really a flag waver for anyone - more of a flag hider-under.

However, I was convinced to give the Mardi Gras a go this year. But in perhaps a little more stylish fashion than normal.
I paid $120 to take seats in a grandstand (called the GLAMstand)... with a great view of the parade, a commentary, toilets and a bar. I sound so much like a Nana, but really it was the best way to experience the parade.

There were 127 floats - my personal faces being the Surf Life Savers and the Impossible Princess: Kylie float.



The event goes on for two weeks, culminating in the parade and a huge party, which I respectfully declined. The paradae was enough.
But quite a spectacle - and I would even consider going back next year, butit would have to be in the GLAMstand :-)