Christmas Time

Just like every year, Christmas has snuck up on us all. A few weeks ago we had our first Christmas party, which was dinner with the admin girls and the IT boys. Altogether there were eight of us, including our colleague who went on maternity leave in July. It was great to see her again, and I think she was just as glad to get away from the house!

On a Friday evening after work we went into the city to a place call Gaylord, an Indian restaurant in Chinatown. I’ve been there a few times and it’s been great, so I suggested it for our small group dinner and it was welcomed by most – and those that didn’t, didn’t say anything until it was too late! So that we could try different things, we each ordered a curry and shared, with rice, roti and garlic naan. The lamb saag, butter chicken and a prawn curry were the favourites of the evening. It was very enjoyable, mostly because it’s a relaxed atmosphere where you can be noisy and have a good time.

After dinner, my manager suggested we go to a cocktail bar she likes, called 1806. I’m not a big cocktail drinker – I enjoy a martini and a margarita sometimes, but mostly, they’re too sickly and too expensive! This place had a good atmosphere, pleasant and knowledgeable wait-staff and was quite quiet. We stayed for a few drinks (I enjoyed the martinis) before we both called it a night and headed out into the rain.

The next Christmas party was a lunch organised by the heads of the department. A larger group, of about 20 people, fit into the large and stylish Hu Tong Dumpling House in Market Lane. I hadn’t been there, but a colleague recommended it, and I was happy to try real dumplings as opposed to those as Shanghai Dumpling House! Sharing a banquet meal and some wine (for those that weren’t lab staff), we were able to try a variety of dumplings and meat dishes – including a Sichuan style chicken dish with plenty of chilli. All in all, it was an enjoyable meal, and because it was reasonably priced, I’ll probably be returning.

The last Christmas party was last night, and that was for the whole of the department. Altogether about 60 people has RSVP’d in the positive, but only about 50 went. It was held in the Fad Gallery in Corrs Lane, also in Chinatown (sense a theme here?)

As I know that just two doors down there is a delicious Sichuan restaurant, I tried to round up some people to come to dinner with me beforehand. Due to forgotten lunch parties and family illness, only one person actually came, but it was no less enjoyable. We shared the potato threads and tofu with leek (he is vegetarian, and those dishes are delicious), which filled us up nicely before we headed back to the party venue.

The Fad Gallery is an interesting place, with a variety of artwork throughout upstairs and downstairs. We had the upstairs are to ourselves (after last year where we shared a room with another group) and a bar too.

The music was supplied by ourselves, and games were played, with prizes, and then was the time to dance the night away. I headed off early, not feeling so great (the dizziness isn’t help by noise, alcohol and dark rooms), but I must say it was a good night. I managed to take a couple of hundred photos, as requested by the manager, which might be ready to go on the network on Monday. I decided to keep it simple with digital, and try out my new lens, the 28mm f/1.8. It’s fantastic, wide enough for confined spaces, without distorting. The speed was very useful in the dark bar too.

In the week coming up, we have our work Kris Kringle party, and then that’s about it until New Year. I’m looking forward to a quiet Christmas and a short break until the New Year.

Common Sense

Now that it’s summer and the government still aren’t investing enough into public transport (see, it wasn’t all Connex), I’m beginning to get used to the three-carriage trains during rush hour. For those that don’t know, it’s half the length of usual train on our system.

Today was no exception, so as we piled into the train, I was lucky enough to get a seat with it’s (slightly more) rigidly allocated personal space (as opposed to standing). As I approached my stop, Royal Park, I stood up and began to move toward the door. As I said excuse me to a larger lady in my way, she said that she would be getting off too. I accepted this, took hold of the seat in front of me and followed her off the train.

As we left the now less crowded train, there were still people standing in the doorway that were necessary to push past in order to get off. The lady I was following commented how silly they were, and I responded that there was just no common sense, they could have moved down the aisle.

She agreed with me.

As we both left Royal Park station, I veered in one direction toward the path, which runs through the golf course and keeps me (relatively) safe from stray golf balls. She however, headed straight through the golf course, onto the green where a group of young men were putting. We both headed in the same direction; I kept to the path, safe and shaded, while she continued to walk past another group of young men, this time driving a long distance. At once stage I noted that they had to wait for her to pass to avoid injury.

This behaviour of someone who just agreed that people needed more common sense.

In other news, nationwide Internet censorship is on it’s way into parliament. If I was more knowledgable of such matters and could write a controversial post disagreeing with it, I would. Instead, I’ll just to the basic facts that it will inconvenience many, cause more problems than it solves and will be all-round frustrating. Go politicians, go!

Juicy juicy green grass

Tonight I finally fulfilled my childhood wish of seeing Peter Combe in concert.

He’s been doing some shows this year aimed at people in their early 20s who grew up with his music as kids, and they’ve been very popular, with most selling out (and me missing all until now). This show, being so close to Christmas, obviously included some of Christmas hits. Although I’m usually quite negative about Christmas songs, I’ve concluded that his aren’t so bad! Or perhaps it’s the memories associated with them from when Christmas was still fun.

The setlist also included most of his hits – Juicy Juicy Green Grass, Toffee Apple and Newspaper Mamma, as well as many more. The crowd sung along loud and proud to all of them. Of course, I’m too dignified for that, so I sat at one of the conveniently placed tables at the side and tapped my foot in time. Being at the Corner Hotel, I was shocked to see that they had set up some small tables and chairs to one side – although quite impressed. Although the venue was fairly full (not quite sold out), people sitting were still left with a decent view of the stage.

The band were mostly new, apart from Phil Cunneen, who I think is the keyboardist from the video I used to watch when I was little (from the late 80s). Two of three backup singers were Combes, and one, according to Google, is his daughter. Some of the band were from Adelaide, and everyone was fantastic. The songs were all done just as I remember them (although with Christmas edges in the case of a few). It all came together very well.

The support act was the comedian/musician The Bedroom Philosopher, who apparently enjoys making fun of Melbourne stereotypes. Of course, that’s easily done, but he does it in an entertaining and musical way. He’s currently doing a residency at the Toff in Town, and I’ll definitely keep an eye out for him at next years comedy festival.

Usually between acts there is some background music playing, which nobody pays too much attention to. This time however, they played old TV show themes – including The Smurfs, Gilligan’s Island and The Addam’s Family. This kept the crowd entertained as a group near me choreographed dances to match each one. It was a pleasant change to the usual background music, and matched the crowd perfectly.

Bat-lame-ia.

Today Jes and I headed to the City Museum for the second last day of their Batmania exhibition. I haven’t head too much about the place, but was of the impression that it was a reasonably sized museum with Melbourne history. This was fairly wrong and it actually only consisted of a few rooms (upstairs, the gold vaults cost extra downstairs); the Batmania exhibition was two rooms plus some hallway. The information was fairly boring and poorly written (with many inappropriately placed apostrophes), and very few things to look at (a few notebooks and drawings). The other rooms had some mildly interesting items relating to the founding fathers and the immigration. There were several references to the gold mines and men who made their fortune on it. I don’t think I learnt very much about anything.

After that we decided to go to the Ricky Swallow exhibition at the NGV in Federation Square. This cost twice as much, and was worth every cent. The carvings were of amazing detail (and size). They were accompanied by the usual over-the-top descriptions but the pieces themselves were interesting and beautiful. It was inspirational to see something which had obviously taken time and talent to complete.

The afternoon after that was completed in pleasant laziness. We had a beer at Beer Deluxe (I had Warsteiner – a refreshing, flavoursome lager and a Sinha Stout – something different but tasty) and then headed for some lunch. After the first choice of a Chinese restaurant was shut, Shanghai Dumpling House beckoned and provided us with cheap food.

This evening we went out to see the new release, Zombieland. It was a movie that certainly didn’t disappoint. It’s a comedy, which was genuinely funny against what is usually a horror or drama background. There were only a few characters, which helped to develop each character, but followed one in the narrative, leaving some about the others a mystery. Abigail Breslin (of Little Miss Sunshine fame) was one of the characters and, as with her other movies, was fantastic. She’s a great little actress, and certainly has grown up since I saw her in Nim’s Island! The other three were definitely not a disappointment, including Bill Murray in a cameo role!

The movie was refreshing, even with the predictable love story worked into it. The ideas were nothing new, but it was brought out as something new. Best movie I’ve seen in a while.

Bodyjar and Beer Deluxe.

Friday the 13th was far from unlucky for me. Bodyjar are currently on their farewell tour (not a la John Farnham), and I had tickets to go see them at the Corner. A quick dinner at our regular spot Gigi in the city and Jes and I headed out to the Corner.

Supports weren’t off much interest, but we did see most of 28 Days’ set, as my friend recommended them from the night before. They weren’t too bad, but I was itching to see Bodyjar more than anything; it’s been a fair while since I’ve seen them perform.

The set was, of course, filled with their hits, as well as some of their older tunes. The crowd loved it, even if they were aging slightly. I definitely enjoyed it, especially as I had perched on the smaller stage and could still see.

I ran into a friend from Sydney I don’t see often too and now that I know he’s in town, we’ll arrange to catch up properly.

On Saturday afternoon, a group of us from Flickr met up at Beer Deluxe in Federation Sqaure to discuss an idea for an exhibition we have. The discussions were relatively productive and many ideas have been tossed around, but now we have to get down to work. Just as a side note, if one wants to spend an afternoon drinking, Beer Deluxe can get very pricey.

Beer Deluxe is a place that Jes and I have visited frequently in the past few months. It’s conveniently located near to ACMI, where we find ourselves every few weeks or so, and serves such a wide variety of beers that we are pretty much working our way through the menu now.

The beers aren’t cheap, but as most of them are imported or from microbreweries, one doesn’t expect them to be. There is an extensive range of dark beers, lagers, tap beers and trappist. One of these days I shall use the menu online and complete a list of those that I can remember having and what I thought of them. In the mean time, I’ve definitely tried these two.

As it comes into hotter weather, I often feel like a light larger or wheat beer. The wheat beers I’ve picked recently have mostly been too sweet for my liking though. The Erdinger Dunkel was a tasty, heavier version that I’m used to. On Saturday I also tried the Erdinger Weissenbrau, which is new on tap, and that was fresh and light, without being too sweet.

In the cooler weather, the ales and darker beers are to my taste. Again, I’ve had a bad run picking the sweeter ones, but there have been a few gems in the list. Birra Moretti La Rossa and Timothy Taylor’s Landlord have both turned out to be winners.

There will obviously be many more to come, and I will have to start notes on which I’ve tasted – a bit like with the books last year!

That’s Hot.

As Melbourne continues to heat up for the sixth day running, I thought it was about time to vent again.

I like the heat. I like summer, sun, warm weather and everything that goes with it, including going inside where it is slightly cooler. Apparently our place isn’t like that, and summer is going to be quite uncomfortable.

This week when it rose to 35 degrees outside, our third (and top) storey apartment also rose to 35 degrees. With the curtains shut, windows open and fans running to try and move the air even a little, we might have got it down to 34 degrees. Even outside there was a slight breeze, but nothing inside. As I said, I enjoy the heat, but when it gets so that you can’t even sit still without sweating, it becomes an issue. Yesterday afternoon it was down to the early 20s by late afternoon, and I had hopes that this would transfer to our house as well. It dropped to around 29 degrees inside. Our place isn’t too old, I think from the 60s or so, but the insulation is non-existent. Of course, because we’re renting, the landlord and real estate agents have little care for our comfort, so it would be up to us to purchase air conditioning. Unfortunately, the portable air conditioning units are expensive to buy and run, and chew up electricity – which leads to a vicious cycle with climate change and emissions.

Now, obviously one early season heatwave itself doesn’t indicate climate change, the fact that it’s becoming more frequent, particularly in areas where it’s been unusual (far north or south of the equator), raises the questions of climate change and whether we are eternally doomed because of our pollution and emissions.

I believe that yes, there is such a thing as climate change and we are experiencing it, if only in the early stages. I believe we should be doing a lot more to stop the damage that is occurring and the irreversible changes. Just yesterday there was someone from a wilderness charity who stopped me in the street. She asked if I cared about the forests – and the obvious answer is yes, yes I do. However, if we’re going to save the planet, you’re going to have to do a lot more than tell us the forests are dying and can we please have a few dollars a month.

Every little bit helps, I believe that, but we’re at the stage now that without major support from the governments, we are in big trouble. A lot of the deforestation and water pollution that has occurred already is irreversible, and to prevent any more damage will take a huge amount of money and effort.

Talking and Comedy

On Friday 30th, after a sunny day off work, my friend Jes and I went to see our last event of the Hello Darkness mini-festival, a talk and slideshow by Ken Warner about his photographs of Halloween from San Francisco.

I hadn’t heard of him before, but a quick search online found some photographs of high interest and good quality. He visited or lived in San Fransisco for twenty-odd years, and photographed the Halloween street parties which were based around the gay community there. He discussed how the parties came about, what people thought about it and some of the experiences he had while there. He showed us colour photos, as he had published a book of black and white photos and felt that the colour photos were something new.

There were some very interesting images involving people with costumes that were certainly worthy of some analysis. The highlight I think was the man who, apparently year after year, wore a costume consisting of pads and tampons with blood-red paint (at least I hope it was paint).

The room it took place in was on Brunswick Street, in an upstairs open-plan place. It seemed like the ideal place for a party, and although we headed off early, it seemed that a party would go on into the night. I even managed to sit on the hard wooden floor for the few hours it lasted. The crowd was an interesting mix of friends of friends of people who organised it, artistic types who were interested in the photos and quirky gothic types who just wanted to go to everything Halloween themed. I’m not sure where I fit in, but I was wearing plastic mini jack-o-lantern earrings.

The longer weekend was fairly quiet and lazy. Saturday afternoon consisted of an impromptu pub crawl and the evening a delicious dinner at the old Dainty Sechuan in Chinatown. Sunday was again, lazy, and involved watching
Flesh Gordon 2: Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders’. We’d seen the first earlier this year, and this was significantly worse, but still amusing and lightly entertaining.

Unfortunately I had to work Monday, breaking up what could have been a five-day weekend. However, Cup eve evening was spent eating good food, drinking good beer and watching good comedy. We had dinner at Red Pepper at the top end of Bourke Street, a tried and tested Indian eatery. At only $6 for a veggie curry, and slightly less for an alcoholic beverage, it’s a great bargain.

Next up we headed over to Spleen, where there is free comedy on Monday nights. Although I’ve had the intention of going many times, this was the first time I actually managed to attend. Adam Rozenbachs was acting as MC and there was a huge set of other small-name comedians. Adam used a lot of the material he had at the comedy festival and when I saw him at the Comedy Club, but had added some new bits and delivered the old stuff in different ways.

Otherwise, Sammy J was fantastic, Felicity Ward was great and Troy Kinne was fairly good too. They were the highlights, but the others weren’t all bad. I think I’ll have to make an effort to go again, but not when it’s too warm – the air-con wasn’t very good!

Melbourne Cup Day was an enjoyable public holiday, and to avoid the racing rabble we headed to the cinema. We saw ‘The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus’, which I suppose is also called the movie that Heath Ledger was making when he died.

Overall, I liked it. It wasn’t amazing, and Heath Ledger didn’t get much of an opportunity to show how great he was, but it was an enjoyable movie and done well, particularly when you take into account what happened. I understand that they had to re-write chunks of it to enable three other actors to fill in (Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell). I can’t say in comparison to how it was before, but the re-write definitely worked and the other three actors stepped up to the mark and did fantastically. Tom Waits also deserves a mention; I think I’m becoming a fan of his.

Otherwise, the movie is a long one, but doesn’t seem it. The story is interesting, if a little confusing. The special effects are beautiful and the costumes are especially impressive.

After that, it was all downhill and back to work today.

Hello Darkness

A friend had pointed this film festival out to me, a special horror movie run just before Halloween. It was to be shown at ACMI, which has become a frequent haunt of mine, with their ‘Freaky Friday’ features. With an interest in most of the movies showing at this festival, we bought one of the four movie passes and picked the following:

Paranormal Activity
There has apparently been a significant amount of hype around for this movie, but I hadn’t heard too much about it other than a website petition for the movie to be shown in certain towns (a rather successful marketing trick). This showing was sold out, but I had low expectations – a hand-held self-filmed movie? I couldn’t help but think of the Blair Witch Project. Thankfully this turned out much better. It seemed to last for a long time, but only because it was so tense all the way through. Despite this the characters created some natural comedy, but not enough to override the tension, particularly later on. I found myself sucked into the story and about half way through I had to remind myself that it was only a movie and it wasn’t real.

I won’t give too much away, but the story was great, if lacking in detail in places and the action was simple and spectacular. The ending I saw (one of three according to most websites) was good, but I felt added too much comedy to it rather than fear. The other two endings that I have heard about sound better, but whether they were executed well is another matter.

The Last House on the Left
This was the recent remake of the original from the 1970s, and I saw it only half an hour after ‘Paranormal Activity’, so obviously my expectations were fairly high. As it was fairly different, it wasn’t hard to expect different, and there was definitely a comedic gore factor to it, as well as some social and moral issues lightly tossed in.

As I haven’t seen the original, I can’t say how it compares, but I can say that it was a good movie. The acting was fairly good (especially the ‘bad guys’), and the special effects of blood and guts was fairly realistic for the most part. It was a scary movie in a different way, because there wasn’t too much tension building (and what there was was short-lived). The fear came in the believing that people could act that way, and that revenge could be that easy.

As I said, I wasn’t scared by this one, but it was still a good horror movie.

Sheitan
The first of two foreign language movies, I was quite looking forward to this one. I’ve seen some French movies, and quite enjoy their quirkiness, but was unsure whether that would continue into the horror-style movies. It certainly did. This movie definitely did not disappoint – there was tension, violence, sex and generally strange things. It was fantastic.

I feel the camera work is also worth a mention, with different techniques being applied to bring out the different moods throughout the movie. This was a strong point for me.

Overall there was a certain element of humour throughout this movie, right until the end, and it helped to confuse the audience. The moments of humour would come at unexpected points, or be so closely linked to the fear that it gave a very uneasy feeling. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.

Haute Tension
The last movie of my four, and another French one. A quick look at IMDB indicated that this would be different to the oddness of ‘Sheitan’ and a more traditional horror slasher gore-fest; it certainly didn’t let down on the last count!

The story was a little predictable, with an inkling of the ending in the back of my mind. However, the execution was fairly good, with the build up, the action and a prolonged conclusion all being of high quality. The acting was hit and miss at times, but the soundtrack, camera work and blood made up for this for the most part. The plot was also missing in parts, but I still thought it worked.

Probably the weakest of the four I saw, but going by the high quality, it was definitely not a bad movie.

After re-reading this, I feel that I’m being faithful to my ‘resolution’ of sorts to watch more movies!

Phillip Island

My housemate and I decided to take a last minute weekend trip down to Phillip Island. We left just after 7am Saturday morning and headed down the Princes Hwy. We made good time, arriving at Grantville by around 9.30am. I’d read about the mini-golf at Maru Koala Park, and being the mature 20-somethings that we are, we just had to stop for a game.

We were the first customers of the day and after a quick coffee we headed out to the extensive pirate-themed course. It was quite an impressive set up, with a large boat (that you’re not allowed on) and several other decorated buildings and themed music. The golf itself was quite disappointing, being fairly easy (not that we were trying too hard). I’m fairly sure we missed a hole at one stage, and at the end, the ball disappears into a Aussie-outback-themed hut. As I only hit mine in, we headed back in with the other and I was getting ready to apologise for losing a ball when they informed me that that’s where they’re meant to end up. Very confusing. We skipped the koala park part and kept moving down to San Remo.

By the time we got to San Remo, we needed some more air, so went for a nice walk down the beach away from the crowds.

Eventually we headed back to the car and we decided to head across to Phillip Island. Within just a couple of kilometres, we saw a sign for a farmers market on Churchill Island, so decided to take a detour there and to the visitor’s centre. Thankfully we managed to pick up a map of the island and were given advice about some beaches to visit and about the Penguin Parade, which we decided we might as well see while we were there.

By the time we looked at the farmers market, it was approaching the time we had indicated to the B&B we would arrive. The place was called Otira, and was easily found by their instructions. We were met on arrival by an old dog (Dougal), followed by Robyn, the owner of the B&B.

Check in, such as it was, was no problem, and the room was beautifully presented in the main house. As noted on their website, we had afternoon tea on arrival (although it was even lunch time) with a delicious homemade carrot cake. Robyn’s husband John came out and told us all about the farm, how it used to be (he’s lived there all his life), how it is now, and offered to take us out to feed the 2 1/2 month old lambs.

Clutching warm milk in old Corona bottles with a rubber teat, we headed out with John to a small paddock. The lambs devoured the milk and headed off for a nap, while John took us down to the shearing shed and show us Dougal at work as a sheep dog. It was great to see a small herd of very fuzzy sheep (the shearing was happening when his sons arrived the next day) and an old dog doing what he loved.

As Robyn had suggested a beach at the end of Ventnor Beach Road, we decided we had nothing to lose in heading down and taking a look. We found an almost empty sandy beach with small areas with rock pools – it was fantastic. We took a lazy walk down to a point and then headed back again to go and get some lunch. We headed into Cowes and tried to find somewhere that wasn’t taken over by tourists – unfortunately that meant eating Burger Edge. There’s something wrong about going away and eating at a chain restaurant/eatery.

After that we went for a drive and completed a loop of the island through Rhyll before heading down to another beach – Smiths beach, which is popular with surfers. There were more people here, but we had a walk down to the rocky end of the beach anyway before moving on to see the Nobbies. Heh.

The Nobbies were even busier than the beach, with several busloads of tourists visiting when we arrived. We stopped for a cup of tea in the generic visitor centre and looked at heading down the boardwalk to take a better look, but the crowds of tourists and seagulls put us off. Instead we went back to the B&B for a rest before the Penguin Parade.

The Penguin Parade was quite an experience. The tourists and crowds were frustrating, but for the most part all behaved themselves. The penguins of course were cute, and arrived just after the sun went down and continued for over an hour in dribs and drabs. I’ve only ever seen them in the wild at Granite Island, in much smaller numbers, so this was very impressive. After they come up over the becah, you can walk along the boardwalk and watch them heading up to their burrows, even see some of the chicks coming out to meet their parents.

An early night was calling, so we grabbed a snack and went straight to bed. Breakfast the next morning was quite an affair – a huge choice of courses including cooked, all fresh and delicious, served in the well-presented dining room with silverware. I could almost get used to that. Another couple had arrived late the previous evening so we stuck around and had a chat with them before settling up the bill, saying goodbye to the lambs and heading off with a loaded car.

Before we left, we thought we’d try one more walk so headed to Pyramid Rock, where you can walk along the cliff down to a beach. We walked to first lookout and found ourselves nearly getting blown away by the winds that had come in overnight and decided it would stupid and probably dangerous to continue, so got back in the car and kept moving.

A few stops on the way home and we were back in the living room by 2.30pm or so. A wonderfully quick getaway.

Heritage

After hearing about the Tesselaar Tulip Festival about a month ago, I found out that this weekend would have a Dutch theme, with food, music, dancing and crafts. Knowing that it could be an improvement on the one I went to at Southbank in April (where high winds and rain buffeted all day and it was all but shut down as soon as it had started).

With a forecast of a chance of showers and moderate winds, we decided to risk it and headed out on a train. The train should have taken us to Lilydale, but instead stopped at Ringwood for a replacement bus service. It was already raining by this point, which we should have taken as an omen. We got to Lilydale station eventually, and the connecting shuttle bus had just left. Another omen. After seeking shelter out the front of an estate agent, we were about to move into Coles for warmth, when what I think was unscheduled bus turned up. Never one to complain, we made a run for it and were on our way, crossing our fingers that the rain would stop soon.

Unfortunately it just varied between heavy and light rain for most of the morning, rendering the grassy areas sodden and the fields of brightly coloured tulips uninviting.

Hoping to find the Grolsch tent that we had seen noted on the website, we went for a short walk and found a small tent serving non-Dutch food, with a fridge containing some bottles of beer and lots of people sheltering from the rain. Braving the weather, we moved around a little bit and I went on a search for some delicious food. First of all I found some Rookwurst (with mustard), which was devoured. After wandering a little more and sheltering in tents with various crafts, we gave up even thinking about taking photos. I had some croquette (with mustard) and bought some siroopwafelen for later.

After one last round, hoping the rain might ease up, we noticed that a previously empty tent was now selling various chilli sauces – Death Sauce, Stupid Hot etc. We had a quick chat with the stall owners while deciding which to buy (I settled on a four-pack, two milder and two hotter Death Sauces).

After this, there seemed little point in hanging around getting wetter, so we headed off to wait for the bus, which came thankfully quickly. It was good to be on our way back to civilisation.

Judging by my recent experiences, I think it’s safe to say that unless the weather forecast is ‘No possible chance of rain, fog or high winds’, I won’t be leaving the house voluntarily soon! I reckon it could have been improved greatly by some rubber matting laid down on areas of grass into/out of the tents, and perhaps an extra tent or shelter or two. As it was, it was unbearable for any extended period of time.

Yesterday was slightly better though. After a bit of research, we headed to the Penny Black on Sydney Road to watch the Grand Final. We had a quick lunch at a place called ‘Empire’, also on Sydney Road (quite good food, fairly standard) beforehand. We had a table reserved, giving a lovely view of the projected game, just next to the bar. It was a shame about the result (it would have been nice to see the Saints win, and more importantly, Geelong lose!) but at least it was a good, close game to finish the year off.

Now however, being a Sunday afternoon, it’s time for warming up, drying off and kicking back until Monday morning arrives.