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Published: January 2nd 2008
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I don't have any blog for Em and her travels around Scotland and Wales, but, as she had the camera, I do have some photo's which are the ones shown over the next few weeks. Just don't try to link the text with the photos or you'll be confused! ********************************************************************************************************************
Wednesday 8th August Tonight I had to pack for Oz! I was going back to surprise Matt and catch up with friends and family. Before that though I had a last minute appointment to check out a flat in Putney. Nice area, but it was a bit small and the noise from Upper Richmond Rd was quite high. At £200/week I thought I'd just keep looking after I got back.
Em was still touring around Scotland with the folks, all seemingly going well.
Thursday 9th August It took about 75 min to get from Clapham to Heathrow on the tube and my plane left at about 10.30pm. All aboard Emirates flight from Heathrow - London to Perth via 2 hour stop over in Dubai.
Friday 10th August The plane flight totally sucked from London to Dubai. I couldn't get
any sleep at all in the uncomfortable seat and even worse, my movie screen kept falling back into the chair meaning I had to hold it up if I wanted to watch something. Because I'm from the Pilbara, I just toughened up a bit more and dealt with it. I sat next to a blind chick who'd been travelling around Europe by herself. Pretty gutsy effort I say! She was getting some assistance along the way, but good on her for getting out there and seeing the world.
From the air Dubai looked very sand blown with not much visibility at all. No greenery...no sights of any 7 star hotels...no flying Lamborghini's. Just sand, on the ground and in the air (and probably under the water too). Oh, apart from sand there were lots of residential and commercial building works going on. It seemed like a lot of the buildings were just plonked on top of sand dunes. The airport was like the huge beast from Dune, an overgrown anaconda...with windows. Inside it was quite luxurious, with a plethora of duty free shops, restaurants, palm trees and the odd Arab (funny that!). I only have time for a few
quick withdrawals (genie lamp for Matt, vase for Kylee and shisha for Benri) and one quick deposit (where I discovered the Arabian method of sanitation).
From Dubai to Perth I had a much more relaxing time, having 3 seats to myself I got a chance to grab 40 winks (although I needed about 240) and touched down in Perth at 1am and a chillsome 3C. Geez, I thought London was cold! Twas good seeing Kylee and Benri for the first time in a while. They were both a bit spun out at me having lost a bit of weight recently (thanks Galway!) and vowed to fatten me up for Mum.
Saturday 11th August Although being told I would be allowed to wake up in my own time, I awoke to find myself surrounded by Kylee's tribe at about 1pm. It was cool seeing how much the kids had grown up in 6 short months. I gave them their pressies and we had a good ol' chin wag.
Later that day we all headed out to Cannington for a quiz night to raise some mula for my cousin Matt (and his family) who had been fighting
cancer for a year or so now. It was awesome to see all the people that had showed up in support, including a lot of family and friends who I hadn't seen for ages. Around 250 people all up occupying 25 tables packed into the little club house (they say they could have sold more tickets if there was space). At our table we had Kylee, Paul, Ben, Tash, Davo and me. Rochelle made a cameo appearance (we couldn't get rid of her in the end, she was having too much fun!) at the start of the night delivering a very moving speech and giving everyone a glimpse into what life for the Jackson's is like at the moment. Once underway, everyone had a ball. The MC was excellent and we took up 10 questions per round to be scored by the panel of markers. Every 2 or 3 rounds we would have a special quiz that needed to be completed by the whole table (some were quite hard!), raffles after every few rounds kept everyone winning some of the great donated prizes on offer and novelty games such as closest coin to the bottle of whiskey were crowd favourites.
Also on offer were some sporting memorabilia that could be won or bid on. An Eagles 2006 Premiers signed football ended up selling for $1500 and a signed Danny Green t-shirt went for a few hundred. Vicky (my cousin) was the lucky winner of the Eagles guernsey, although what part luck played was debatable after having bought 45 tickets 😊. I bought a $50 balloon which won me (well Kylee & co really) a family pass to Adventure World and I won a basket of goodies in one of the raffles as well, stoked! Phil tried his hardest to sabotage our tables chances by plying me with shooters which I couldn't resist, but in the end we did quite well, finishing 3rd in the end. The winners were a bunch of professional quiz nighters doing the circuit so we won't really count them. At the end of the night, after a lot of fun, a whopping $18,000 had been raised by the bunch, a superb effort thanks mainly to chief organiser Leah.
Sunday 12th August Today we all gathered around Kylee's house to give Matt a bit of a surprise. He didn't know that I'd flown
down under the day before so when Kylee asked if anyone wanted a drink, I replied "Now your talkin!" while coming out of the bedroom. That threw him a bit! Was good to see the Moo instead of just talking to him all the time. He was a bit bloated from the treatment he'd been receiving and was as bald as a badger, but he still had the same sense of humour as always. I headed back to stay with him for a few days at their block in Bakers Hill. It's always very peaceful out there (apart from when Darcy and Pierce are around 😊 ), but the contrast coming from London meant it seemed even more so. I whipped out the Aerobee frisbee and we all had a bit of a throw around the back paddock (no need for parks when you have a backyard like this one).
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"I sat next to a blind chick who'd been travelling around Europe by herself. .........., but good on her for getting out there and SEEING the world."? Class mate... Did anybody get any snaps while you were over there? Would love to see the crew!