The last 3 weeks in a nutshell...

Well! Where do I start. I think I will tackle this in chronological order in the hopes of jogging my meager memories.

First and foremost - I got the new job! This is very exciting for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the massive boost to my salary. I cannot tell you how pleasing it was to give my notice to my previous employers in the job from hell, and I have to say I very much enjoyed my exit interview..... It was possibly the best Christmas present I could have given myself. I start new job on the 7th, so still have a bit of time to go to prepare myself. I am working for the government department that looks after roads (racy I know) and in a twist that has had me laughing ever since, now have the word 'senior' in my job title. I must confess that I am starting to feel slightly nervous now, and hoping I am not going to be massively out of my depth.

Obviously being christmas season there has been a flurry of partying etc. The first event of the festive season was Stu's work christmas do at the Sirromet Winery just outside of Brisbane. This is a very lovely spot, set in rolling hills, with little wallabies hopping around in between the vines. It was a black tie do as well so everyone was really dressed up which is always very nice. As I am sure you can well imagine though, the after effects of a free bar in a winery were not so pretty and the evening pretty much degenerated into all round farcical drunkeness, with no-one looking so classy on the way back out... After the dinner and dancing at the winery was finished a coach took everyone back into town to the Casino to carry on the evening. This was a fairly disastrous decision on my part. I managed to get separated from Stu, so one of his mates from work was saddled with the task of leading me round by hand so I didn't lapse into some sort of coma. I then fell up the stairs (better than down I suppose), and at some point was asked to leave. This is apparently quite a feat, as the casino usually does not worry too much about drunkenness so long as you are spending money. Woopsies. I sprained my thumb or something on the trip up the stairs, and it has never been the same since....

The next event was fakemas at our house. We had decided that because it was our first Christmas away from home, and many of our mates found themselves in the same boat we would host a bit of a get together. Everyone was going to be a bit scattered round for actual Christmas itself, so on the 15th we had 14 people over for a traditional roast dinner.... The day did not start well when the turkey we picked up from the butchers turned out to be still completely frozen. Now I am aware that it is quite hot down under, but I was nonetheless sceptical of his claims that a 6.5 kilo bird would defrost in time for us to get it in the oven in oooh... about half an hour ago actually if we wanted dinner on the table for 3 as we had promised everyone. Cue a frantic dash around the other local butcheries to find a fresh bird. As it turned out this was the worst disaster of the day, and a bloody good time was had by all. Dinner was just lovely, everyone liked their secret santa presents (or at least had been practicing their very best pleased faces beforehand) and there was much eating, drinking, merry making, and singing. We have even been requested to make it an annual tradition which is very nice - however this does mean we cannot make any more friends as I feel that 16 people is about the limit of both our house and our catering abilities.

And so onto Christmas itself..... Stu's sister and her family are over here visiting, and they rented an EXTREMELY fancy house on Sunrise Beach just outside of Noosa, and they very kindly extended an invite to us to come stay for Christmas week. It was absolutely amazing - the house was fabulous, and it was really nice to see some family for our first Christmas away - kind of softened the blow a bit. It was also really nice to have little ones around, it makes Christmas just a little bit more fun eh? Not much to tell about the week really - the weather was a bit rubbish, but it incorporated all the elements of eating, relaxing, drinking, laughing and chatting that you would want from a holiday week. We went for a walk on the beach Christmas day morning which was certainly different - it did feel a bit odd to be doing stuff like that even if the weather wasn't that special. All in all we had a splendid week, and cannot thank our hosts enough.

Stuart Robinson has obviously been a very good boy this year as Santa was very good to him. Not only did he receive a voucher to climb the story bridge, but as a secret surprise I took him for afternoon tea at the Stamford Plaza. It was a very pleasant way to while away a couple of hours I have to say, and a nice wrap up to the festive season.

Christmas 2007

So tonight is new years eve, it's 18:15 and we have no idea what we are going to do. Just let me take this opportunity to wish you and your loved ones a very happy 2008 - I hope you are looking forward to it as much as I am!

Anzac Day

So yesterday was Anzac day, and a bank holiday over here. It feels very weird to have a bank holiday in the middle of the week (although when you're a lady of leisure like me then every day is a bank holiday!). We went out for a few scoops on Tuesday night, and decided that we would go to the dawn service at the war memorial, which is just down the road.

So up we got at 4am, feeling a little bleary, and not quite sure what to expect. For some reason I don't think either of us thought it would be a very big deal, but we left the apartments to join a massive stream of people heading towards the memorial. There must have been a couple of thousand people there - it was amazing. I can't even begin to imagine the turnout at dawn on an autumn bank holiday morning for a memorial service at home, but I can tell you Brisbane turned out very well indeed. The service started at 4.28 because that was when the Aussies landed at Gallipoli, and it was a really moving service. It was really nice to see such a massive effort for remembrance, even all these years on. Got a bit of a lump in my throat.

Not a lot of news really. We move into our apartment tomorrow, and I don't know when we'll get set up with internet access so this might be my last blog for a little bit. Tomorrow night we're going to the moonlight wine tasting which should be very nice - Stu won some tickets through some quiz thingy at work. We're both looking forward to it - I'm sure by that point the novelty of living in an apartment with no furniture or telly will have well and truly worn off, so some wine will be a very welcome distraction.

Anyway best go and get on with my chores for the afternoon. Expect a big update whenever I next get back onto the interweb!

x

Settling in

This one might be a bit of a long one - sorry.

Last few days have been mostly taken up with exploring, and slowly killing ourselves with alcohol. In the event of my untimely demise there is a strong possibility that I may not need embalming.

It all started innocently enough on Saturday night with a game of Canasta. This is an activity usually undertaken with the Darkinses, and as with most Darkins related activities it would be rude not to have a few scoops to mark the occasion. As we had invested in a bottle of Havana Club at the trusty duty free we thought Cuba Libres would be appropriate. So we sank a few of those. Then thought as we didn't want to drink a whole litre of rum in one night we would switch to red wine. Then happily finding ourselves still awake at midnight we decided to decamp to the local where the West Ham v Arsenal game was playing (Stu being a Hammer and me being a very dedicated wife). Naturally, watching football involves drinking beer (can you tell where this is headed yet?).

Turns out as well that this pub is the meeting place of the Brisbane Hammers for most of their match watchings. At some point in the second half I lost the will to live, ability to walk and talk etc, so decided to head home. I had the intention of leaving a key for Stu on reception so he could get in whenever he came back, but for reasons which are somewhat hazy I didn't. I then realised some time later that he wasn't there, so went out looking for him. The pub was all shut up, so I came back again, and the very nice man on reception in our apartment thingies asked me if I was looking for a drunk pommy. I confirmed that was indeed the purpose of my search, and it turned out he had just let him in. We are neither of us any the wiser as to where he had been, or how we had managed to pass each other.

We decided to carry on with the cuba libres - after all what use is a half full bottle of rum to anyone? Might as well empty it and get it in the recycling. Awaking at 2pm the next afternoon with a herd of wildebeest stampeding in my head I realised the folly of this decision.

So there we were on our first wedding anniversary, absolutely hanging and with no inclination to do anything but hide from the day. But we dragged ourselves kicking and screaming out, and went to the Jade Buddha on Eagle Street Pier for the barbecue option - and very nice it was too. No anniversary news to report though due to our absolutely death like states.

Easter Monday was slightly more successful - we went out for a great big walk round the South Bank (very nice - wee market on and it's where the city beach is which is slightly surreal but nice), then over to the Botanical Gardens, which was a bit of a blast from the past as myself and Alison Flanagan once hired Rollerblades for the afternoon and chose that location to demonstrate to Australia a lack of co-ordination the likes of which had never been seen before. We then headed over to Kangaroo Point (which is on the short list of suburbs that we would like to live in, in the event that we win the lottery at some point in the next few weeks). Refresher in the Story Bridge Hotel and then got the ferry back over to town for a bit of a wander. I'm hoping that has satisfied Stuart's sight-seeing demands for a little while as I am far too fat to be enjoying such exertions.

Anyway - I'm boring myself a bit now, so I'm sure I must have lost your attention by now. I'm off out shortly to visit some of the old stomping grounds from my previous visit to Brisbane 6 years. How very nostalgic of me! Stu went off to start his new job today, so fingers crossed for him everyone! Below is a wee album of a few bits we've seen/done so far if you haven't totally switched off yet.

Robinsons Down Under

Hot in the city

Verdict on Singapore - like it! It's a funny wee place - it has loads of ethnic quarters which are lovely, all next to the colonial old school bits. It's kind of like an Asian theme park, with Little India, Chinatown etc, but you just don't get hassled by loads of annoying touts. It's ever so nice. We did get stalked by one rickshaw driver for a couple of hours yesterday, but other than that we have been unscathed. Bought a couple of nice things (could have bought several hundred more nice things to be honest) so feeling very fulfilled by our trip.

We were feeling pretty perky the afternoon we arrived due to our high class travelling style, so we went to Little India for a bit of a scoot around and some tea. We spied a pub called the Prince of Wales (not particularly authentic) and stopped off for our inaugural Singapore beers. Then we pottered round a bit, and went for a bloody fantastic ring stinging curry eaten off banana leaves. It was fab. Curry for 2 with about 6 different dishes - about £4. 2 Beers - about £6. First Singapore lesson learnt - food cheap, beer expensive. Back to hotel and bed.

Yesterday was a bit of a full on walk around sight seeing day. Did a walk from our wee guide book called the Arabic Amble round the (you guessed it) Arabic quarter, which was really nice. If a little warm. The onto Raffles Hotel for the obligatory Singapore Slings and throwing peanut shells on the floor. We met a couple of very nice ladies there who were wierdly enough from Brisbane and gave us loads of tips. Small world.

Stu then dragged us on to look at some cricket ground (yawn) and then we wandered on into Chinatown for a bit of a potter. Got offered the chance to have about a million suits made for us, but resisted. We were so knackered after all this that we couldn't rightly be arsed to do anything particularly authentic for tea so ate in the hotel and got a bit tiddly. Second lesson of Singapore - food cheap, wine expensive.

Away to Brisbane this evening, arrive at about 6 tomorrow morning which is particularly unfortunate since we can't check into our apartment thingies til 2. Pants. Going to a museum today, will report later as Stu is hassling me to help him pack.

x