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Published: December 2nd 2008
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Hi All, not only is 'November Rain' a great song but it's a pretty good description of this November in Sydney. Cool (-ish), Cloudy and stormy. All of the things I wasn't expecting in Sydney in November (May in Irish months). The month has passed by so quickly that it's kind of hard to remember all that we managed to do. I know we got to see plenty of stormy weather and watch the spectacles that are Sydney Lightning storms - really nice to see, really wet to get caugh up in.
I think we even managed to have a quiet weekend in there somewhere. Earlier in the month was Maeve's work BBQ, to which I was invited. It was a really nice night and we were well catered for with plenty of nice food and drink. It was nice to meet more of Maeve's colleagues and there better halves. We stayed there until after 3. Unfortunately the promise of a night out in 'The Cross' was dashed by the reality that the cross stops accepting people at 3. It was a really nice night and I'm a bigger fan of BBQ food as a result.
I also started working as
a telesales representative for a well known make of photocopiers and printers during November. So my financial position has strenghtened lately, I'm still hoping that the consulting job does eventually happen, but after 6 weeks of waiting to start 'next week' I really had to look elsewhere for a full time job. As a result of not working properly for so long our savings aren't what we were planning, so our planned trip home at Christmas had to be sacrificed. It's a real pity as we were really looking forward to seeing everybody at Christmas and also we're going to miss out on the big wedding of Keith and Nicola, very close friends of ours. So I do appologise about this but we'll be thinking of them on their big day.
One morning at 1am I thought the alarm was going off. By the time I realised it was actually my phone ringing it was too late. Who would be ringing this late, a quick listen to the voicemail told me that my sister Fiona, her husband Peter, their 3 kids and my Dad were planning on coming over for a few weeks after christmas. This was a very unexpected and welcome surprise. We promised to help find accomodation and after a couple of viewings on a Saturday afternoon we had found the perfect place for them. So now we're really excited about their arrival which is now less than 4 weeks away. I think Christmas on the other side of the world will be much more bearable as a result. Christmas so far has been strange, seeing bright blue skies and Christmas decorations at the same time is really disorientating and will be down-right wierd when it gets warmer. At least with the kids around it will seem a bit more Christmassy.
I do know that the day after seeing the house we had to go and pay a deposit on the Sunday afternoon. We then went for a nice hungover snooze in Centennial Park which is just minutes away from the house. I just can't for the life of me remember what we were doing or where we were the night before. It might come back too me. It was strange to see eels, big fish and tortoises swimming in the pond as we lay under the sun.
Another weekend, again not sure which one (but definitely not the one where we lay out in the park), we went to the Rocks Markets on a saturday afternoon and then into the Merchantile for a few drinks and to listen to the music. It was nice to sit back and relax and just enjoy all that was going on around us. Apparently there's a really good Trad session in the Merchantile on a Sunday afternoon, we had planned a long time ago to go to it but haven't made it yet. We'll have to soon because we're running out of available Sundays. Also during November we've taken up playing soccer one night a week, it's been good fun so far and soccer skills are improving rapidly on a collective basis. Maeve even made an appearance last week, so we're all hoping that becomes a more permanent fixture. Also in November the end of the new Top Gear Australia series happened - thank God, and they're now showing the last new series from the UK. Finally we can both enjoy TG again.
Last Saturday we managed to make one of Aidan's dreams come true - we had an all day messy session in Scruffy Murphys. Anyone whose been to Scruffy's will know that just by entering the establishment it's already a messy session. Thankfully we didn't start in Scruffy's. We started at 5pm on King St. Whart in the Cottage or Bungalow. We had a good feed and kept drinking until about 11pm then onto Scruffy's in time to watch Ireland play Argentina in the rugby. As far as I can remember we got home around about 3am. It was nice to only have a 7/8 minute walk home as Scruffy's is actually on our street.
Now that I'm thinking about it there as one other session that I forgot to mention. One thursday afternoon on my way home from work I got a text from Maeve saying that all of her work crowd were heading across the road for a couple of drinks. When I arrived everybody was in good form, some drinking, some chating and some playing pool. We were there a lot longer than originally planned but it was a nice relaxing session. Apparently Maeve was the instigator, having sensed a general thirst in the office early in the afternoon her suggestion of a 'quick few' caught on and soon most of the office were quenching.
It's kind of typical of the life we have here. It's very relaxed and we go out drinking and enjoying ourselves much more than we would at home, that's probably a result of the general climate and that fact that enjoying yourself is much cheaper over here. I can see why people come over for a holiday and never go home. As Maeve was just saying the other day it's like living in a bubble over here. We're so isolated from the realities of home - crap weather, crap economy and high enjoying yourself expenses. I think we're in for a big shock when we get home.
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