She chose the 4 Pines in Manly for a relaxing Sunday afternoon lunch and sample of the beer; the 4 Pines is also a brewery and have a fine selection of their own beers. Mat and I had given Ruth, Henry and Cam a lift so they could drink and we met up with Wayland & Kirstie and Phil & Teri there. It worked out quite well as Manly is a good middle point for all of us and I had assumed this was the reason behind the choice in venue, though apparently it wasn’t; Ruth wasn’t as thoughtful as she appeared and had picked it simply because she had gone there the week before and liked it (I mean to say, how selfish lol)!

It was a beautifully sunny day but not quite warm enough to sit outside. The inside of the place was very nice though and they sold the beer in pints which made a refreshing change from the usual Aussie scooners. The beer wasn’t particularly cheap at around $9 a pint but the general consensus was that it was very good beer and worth the extra money for something a bit different and a pleasant atmosphere.

The food was exceedingly good and very reasonable averaging at $20 for a main course. There was a good selection ranging from the enormous mega burger, to fish & chips and Mushroom risotto. I chose the chicken pie and was not disappointed. In fact everyone reckoned mine was the best. There was heaps of chunky moist breast and pieces of bacon accompanying the vegetables topped with a lovely puff pastry lid. It was a good size and if I’d wondered whether I should have ordered chips to go with it I was very glad I hadn’t afterwards.

Henry surprised us all (apart from Ruth who has to cater for his bottomless pit on a daily basis) by ordering a mega burger and a main course dish of mussels and managing to eat them both but this was by no means a sign that the dishes were on the small size; they weren’t. Mat had the mussels as well and found them to be most satisfying, though I think he did pinch a few of Ruth’s chips!

Going round the table from the left: Phil, Teri, Ruth, Henry, Cam, Kirstie, Wayland, Mat and me.

After food we all went for a wander in the sun and I made myself incredibly sick by having an ice cream and large coffee. All in all it was a lovely day and great to catch up with everyone; Phil and Teri had just come back from two weeks home in the UK and we just don’t see Wayland and Kirstie as often as we would like because they live all the way out in the city (yes, we are very lazy – they don’t call Avalon the Insular Peninsular for nothing)!

Hint to anyone travelling here to visit relatives from their home country: Don’t take them any credit cards in their name; post them instead. After waiting over an hour for my brother a customs guy finally came out asking me for ID before handing me my Lloyds credit card that my brother had brought out for me from the UK. He stated that if anyone brings cards into the country that aren’t in their own name it becomes a matter for the federal police. They had kept my brother aside for ages, interrogating him and only finally believed his story when I tried to ring his mobile to find out where the hell he was. Apparently they wouldn’t let him answer it but were persuaded that it was me and came out to find me so I could validate his story!

Finally we got back to Avalon and had a relax before Mat went to bed as he had to work today. I stayed up with my brother and we were chatting away at our table outside when Rich suddenly started making noises to something under the table and said that a cat had just appeared.

“A cat?” I said. “We don’t get cats round here.” I looked down to see a brush tailed possum boldly sniffing Richie’s hand. He pulled it away quickly and then we both went to grab our cameras.

We get possum visits regularly in our garden if we’re outside late at night but this one was extra inquisitive and bold as brass. It was as if she had decided to give my brother a proper Aussie welcome and he was chuffed to bits. His first encounter with Australian wildlife couldn’t have been better.

It wasn’t until my second visit to the supermarket and I saw the same thing and had the same initial shock, that my brain finally put it all together. I realised that, yes, it’s October, and yes, Christmas is around the corner. In explanation: this will be my third Christmas living in the southern hemisphere in Australia but evidentally I still can’t get my head round it being in the Summer! My brain will not compute!

I don’t know if the fact I am a Pagan doesn’t help, being much more in tune with the seasons and relating them to the corresponding festivals. Afterall, in the northern hemisphere everyone will relate Christmas to Yuletide. The two just go hand in hand. But here in the southern hemishere we would celebrate Yule in July; a different time of year but still in Winter.

To me, celebrating Christmas in Summer is plain weird. The traditional Australian Christmas dinner isn’t roasted turkey with all the trimmings but fish; instead of spending the time huddled up all cosy inside one spends it out at the beach or in the garden topping up the tan; people put up Christmas decorations and lights but to appreciate the full effects one has to wait until after 9 o’clock in the evening for it to go dark.

If that’s not confusing enough there is similar confusion with Halloween. Non-Pagan folk are getting ready to celebrate this next weekend on the 31st October. However, as Halloween originates from one of the old Pagan festivals in the northern hemisphere, also known as Samhain, and these festivals were all tied in with the seasons, not specific dates, in the southern hemisphere Halloween should really be celebrated in Autumn around the 31st 30th [thank you Chris] April.

We couldn’t have asked for a better day. The weather was beautifully sunny again and, as last Sunday, we all went down to Whale Beach for a breakfast barbie: Mat and I, Nick and Kat, Henry and Ruth with their new puppy Mulch, Daveo, Jacinta and their children, some friends of Daveo’s with their children and Daveo’s cousin Phil.

After a greasy fry up the lads went for a surf (except Mat who just swam). As there was no wind this time and it was so warm I went for a proper swim in the sea too(unlike last Sunday when all I did was get my legs wet). I reckon the water temperature was around 17°C whereas outside was about 27/28°C.

After coming home, showering and relaxing for a short while Mat decided we should go out for a meal to celebrate so we headed off into the village to find somewhere nice to eat. We opted for a classy looking tapas restaurant, The Different Drummer, but we were a tad early as they didn’t open until 6pm so we went for a romantic walk down to Avalon beach and back first.

Back at the restaurant we were both very impressed. The decor, lighting and music was all very ambient with a wonderful log burner in the middle of the main room. Being upstairs, there was also a semi-enclosed balcony area which was equally inviting but unfortunately off limits tonight as it was reserved for a private booking. The food and drink certainly didn’t disappoint either. We shared a mixed meat tapas consisting of lovely turkish bread and dips, harissa chicken, marinated lamb kebabs and a seafood platter of calamari and prawns. We also had some mushroom risotto balls as an extra. For drinks Mat had two glasses of the house red, which he said were really nice and I had an awesome creamy cocktail consisting of Baileys, Cointreu, Creme de Cassis, cream and chocolate sauce, so yummy I had to have a second one. We finished off sharing two desserts which were equally as scrumptious as everything else; an orange creme caramel and churros (mini sausage shaped doughnuts) and caramel sauce.

The total bill ended up being $150 which included a 10% surcharge for it being a Sunday; not cheap but certainly not expensive for a wonderful fine dining experience. We will definitely be going back again, ideally with a whole group of people as it’s perfect for sharing and trying lots of different foods.

And so our lovely day draws to a close and I look forward to spending many more years with my beloved. Who would have thought that our first date, consisting of a cinema trip to watch The Bourne Identity followed by sitting in Stroud McDonalds carpark chatting until 2am, just ten days before Mat was leaving for Australia, would lead to this!

I love you Mathew xxx

Mat recently procured a recipe from a friend and we tested it out at the weekend. We have both been enjoying it for breakfast since and I thought I would share it:

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups self-raising flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon/mixed spice
1 tbs margarine/butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg lightly beaten
1/4 cup milk
2 bananas mashed

Method:
1. Coat a loaf pan with cooking spray and pre-heat oven to 200°C.
2. Combine flour and cinnamon in a bowl and rub in marg with fingertips.
3. Stir in sugar, egg, milk and banana.
4. Put mixture in the tin and bake until golden.
NB. Add anything you like to the mix, e.g. nuts.

The measurement in cups is becoming ever popular versus good old pounds and ounces, even grams, but we just threw the ingredients together in a fair approximation, doubling everything for a larger loaf, and it worked. We added some chopped pecans for a little extra something and didn’t even have a loaf tin so improvised with a large soufflé dish.

I can’t remember how long we left it in the oven but when it started to look cooked on top we stuck a skewer in it and the middle was still very sticky. We had to put it back in the bottom of the oven on a very low heat and cook for quite a while longer. The end result was delicious; in fact I would go as far to say as it was as good as any I have tried in a café. Mat seemed to think it wasn’t sweet enough and needed either more sugar or more bananas. Apparently it was supposedly a low calorie recipe but personally I would have found it too sweet with more sugar. It obviously just depends on your palate so it may take a few tries to get it just right for you.

Anyway, early Sunday morning (1 March 2009) Mat came back from the shops with milk and bread declaring there had just been a shark attack on our local beach at Avalon. There were helicopters still scanning the area after a young lad had been bitten whilst out surfing with his dad. We now know he will be ok; the shark bit into his leg damaging his calf and thigh but it’s not too serioius so say and he is already talking about getting back out into the surf.

It has not been confirmed how big or what type of shark it was but it is the third attack in this area in less than three weeks. The media has been warning people not to swim at dawn or dusk or even to avoid the water altogether.

A navy diver lost a hand and a leg to a 2.7 metre bull shark within sight of the Sydney Harbour Bridge on 11 February. The following day, a 33-year-old surfer was lucky not to lose his arm after an attack by a 2.5 metre great white shark (or white pointer as the Aussies seem to call them here) at the famous Bondi Beach.

Amongst others, there was the famous shark sighting at Long Reef on 29 December 2008. We had moved to Avalon from Long Reef just nine days previous; maybe it is following us lol. The story here was that two guys were kayaking about a kilometre off the Reef when a 4 metre great white started circling them. One of the guys actually fell out of his kayak and was lucky enough to be rescued by some fishermen out in their tinnie nearby before the shark decided to have a nibble. They tied their kayaks to the tinnie and were dragged into shore whilst the shark continued to circle them for about ten minutes. I don’t reckon the shark could have been particularly hungry or they would have been munched for sure. Apparently one of the guys, despite his near death experience, managed to capture the shark on video. I will search for this when I get home and post it here as apparently it is on Youtube.

Personally, I am not going to overly concern myself with these horror stories; as one guy keeps saying – you are more likely to get run over by a bus than get attacked by a shark, and I think this is quite true. I can’t help thinking how lucky those kayakers were to get an up-close-and-personal experience with a great white in its natural environment, capture it on video and escape unscathed. That beats paying to go cage diving to see the magnificent fish, (something that me and my brother intend on doing when he comes out for a visit) though perhaps you would not fully appreciate the situation until you were back on dry land and the adrenilin had stopped pumping nineteen to the dozen!

Council Clean-Up comes around every six months and allows everyone to throw away any junk that they don’t need anymore and won’t fit in the normal waste bin. People pile up all their unwanted items outside their houses on the nature strip (grass by pavement or curb) and then the council comes along and removes it.

It’s a brilliant service for so many reasons. We bought a new (second hand from Vinnie’s) three piece suite on Saturday ready for our move as our old one, which was kindly donated to us by Ant when we had nothing, is now more than a little past it’s best. We were thinking we were going to have to take it to the tip but Council Clean-Up means all we had to do was drag it up the drive and start a pile to which we can now add more stuff we no longer need.

Another huge bonus is that Council Clean-Up = FREE STUFF!!!

We spent Sunday morning driving up and down the roads looking for anything that we could make use of, and we sure found some little gems:

A big and wonderfully solid outdoor wooden table – perfect for our new communal BBQ area.
Two solid pine desks with drawers – in need of a little rub down but otherwise perfect for our respective spare rooms; one for me and Mat and one for Kat & Nick (if they wish).
A perfectly good plastic full-length reclining chair – just missing a cushion which will be easy enough to get from somewhere.
A funky wicker box with lid – perfect for storing stuff in.
A little wooden table – ideal as a coffee table or possibly a bedside table.
The top part to a pine Welsh dresser which I will use as a bookshelf.
A lap top – missing it’s power cable and without an operating system but certainly worth looking at.

The list goes on and people are still adding to the piles so depending on when the Council picks everything up, we may aqcuire some more free stuff yet.

On top of it being a massive free-for-all it’s got to be one of the best ways to recycle and re-use. You find all sorts of people trawling through the piles from tramps to people out to make a quick buck by re-selling others’ cast-outs. As you can tell, I’m very enthusiastic about it, but then how could you not be?

Mat’s dad is visiting in March and hopefully my bro and my dad will be coming out at some point as well, and with only a one bedroom flat we won’t have much room for visitors. Nick and Kat both fancied finding somewhere a bit bigger as well and the consensus was that if we club our budgets together we could afford a much bigger place if we shared. Both Mat and I have had house shares in the past which worked really well so I think it should be a good move for all of us.

We have had a couple of Saturday’s now where we have gone round looking at places. The Australian’s have a strange system where instead of organising appointments with Estate Agents to suit you all properties, for rent or sale, have specified viewing times on Wednesday’s and Saturday’s. It’s called “open house” and each one is normally “open” for fifteen to twenty minutes. You have to draw up a schedule of all the places you want to see and hope you can get to them all in time. We were lucky with ours, none clashed and although it involved a lot of driving up and down the peninsular, we managed to see everything on our list.

Some were good and some were not worth the money but after a non-successful application for a really big posh place last week Kat spotted this advertisement:

We weren’t sure what the actual house would be like before we went as the advert concentrated on the amazing views. When we got there, last Saturday, we discovered there had been a bit of confusion as the agent wasn’t there but we decided to knock on the door anyway and were lucky enough that the owner was in and didn’t mind showing us round. He was a lovely English gentleman from XXX and was letting the property because he had to go back to the UK to look after his elderly mother.

The house itself was fantastic. It had two bedrooms and a bathroom on the ground floor just off the main living area with the master bedroom opening out onto the main balcony with the amazing views of Pittwater. Then there was a set of spiral stairs leading down into another living area with two more bedrooms and a bathroom with the same layout as upstairs. The bigger bedroom again leading out onto another balcony also overlooking Pittwater. It was exactly what we were after because it meant we would each have our separate space and room for guests.

We discussed our plans with the owner and thought we were in with a chance because he seemed to like us. Even though we had to apply through the agency it’s the owner that gets final say.

Anyway, the following Monday we received our application forms and collated the hundred points of ID we needed to provide. This is another Aussie thing where you have to photocopy a million and one different documents to prove you are who you say you are (I explained it in a bit more detail in a revious post). Personally I think the country is a bit Big Brotherish as I often have to provide details to people which I think, quite frankly, are just none of their business. Like, for example, the agency wanted to know all our driving licence numbers and car registrations (? how is that relevant to renting a property?) and when I started my new job they wanted a photocopy of my driving licence as well as my passport (I can understand passport as I am foreign and they need proof of my visa but two lots of photo ID is a little excessive in my opinion). Anyway, there are heaps of other examples I could bore you with but I digress from my story.

Kat faxed our applications off on Tuesday and yesterday I was sat at my desk when my mobile rang; it was Kat. The agent had called to say we had been successful and could move in on the 20th! How cool is that? The only downside to it is that will be further to travel to work and will take me probably around forty minutes instead of my current fifteen. However, I think that will be a relatively small price to pay for the luxury of loads of space, fantastic views and being in stumbling distance of DaveO’s shed and our other friends, Alex (The Sheriff) and Anoula!

We were going to walk but the weather was absolutely foul so we drove round to Sol and Jodie’s who live about the same distance as us but in the opposite direction. We had been invited round there for pre-party drinks and hoped that the rain would ease before leaving. As it happens it didn’t but Jodie wasn’t drinking so she drove the girls (Sparky and Bryony had also joined us) and the lads made do with umbrellas.

It was really lovely to see everyone from Plateau again, quite a few I hadn’t seen since I was made redundant back in July. There was free beer (VB), wine and champers and assorted trays of food so obviously the majority of people took full advantage. It wasn’t long before most of us were in varying states of inebriation. I do wonder on the reasons behind having the party on a Sunday arvo as opposed to a Saturday night as everyone had work in the morning (except for me hee hee ha ha) and it didn’t seem as though anyone was letting that thought hold them back at all.

It wasn’t too long before things declined slightly and people started getting thrown out for various mishaps including dancing on the tables, frisbying drink trays, moonies and peeing on the balcony! At the time I didn’t think to take any pictures unfortunately, though I suspect that is not such a bad thing. Especially when things got so bad that the police were called to extrodite some of the more difficult culprits.

There is something you need to understand for those readers in the UK and that is that it was nowhere near as bad as it sounds. Australian bars are very intolerant to drunk people, something I consider to be a little odd considering the main purpose of a bar is to serve alcohol which invariably leads to some customers becoming as such. Anyway, basically, over here, if you look at all drunk in the slightest you will not get served and if you are as quiet and inoffensive as a mouse but the barstaff happen to notice you can’t quite walk in a straight line you are in danger of being thrown out.

None of the Plateau party were being rude or offensive as far as I know (apart from perhaps the peeing and frisby throwing) but by 6pm ish there were very few of us left. Not really feeling like going home, Mat and I accepted an invitation to DaveO’s house together with Alex (aka The Sheriff), Bowie, Wayland and Kirstie. It’s in Avalon, a fair way up the peninsular towards Palm Beach, so we all managed to clamber on the bus after a little disagreement between Kirstie, the bus driver and a sticky-beak customer who seemed to think we were too drunk to travel (?!). I must point out that I had stopped drinking a while ago and was the most sober person there.

After a much extended walk up what seemed like a very steep hill we eventually arrived at DaveO’s at about 8.30pm ish. I’m not sure where all the time went but we were all hungry so set about ordering pizzas and getting some music going before ascending the steps to DaveO’s famous shed.

Mat and I have been to DaveO’s shed a couple of times before and it must be said, it’s a rather cool and special place. He basically has a lovely house on the side of the hill but the garden slopes up massively at the back. He has made good use of the space and made steps all the way up to the top where he has his “shed” and a patio that are nicely tucked out of the way of the main house. This is especially useful at time like this where people have a tendancy to be a little rowdy but it is important we don’t disturb his wife (who is heavily pregnant) and his young children. DaveO, being a tree lopper, has many interesting things made out of wood including lots of “little people” that sit amongst the bush behind the patio. They are simple upturned branches specially selected with three forks so they sit in a tripod fashion. In the dark they give the appearance of little men and can look quite creepy, especially when one has been drinking or having a smoke!

DaveO also a love of fires so it wasn’t long before we had one raging and I set about trying to get some pictures taken. It is difficult to demonstrate DaveO’s Shed exactly, as it is always dark when we are there. However, here are some various pictures of us all chilling out:

By about 10pm ish Kirstie started to panic slightly as both she and Wayland had to get back to the other side of the city before work the following day. They managed to call a cab and as they would be passing through Collaroy on the way Mat and I jumped in with them. I’m so glad I didn’t have to work the next day. Mat managed to get up for work the next day and amazingly I got up at the same time (5.55am!) as I didn’t want to waste my day off. As far as I know I don’t think anyone called in sick due to the previous day’s debauchery so if I were the boss I would be pretty impressed.

Well, after the non existent storm that was promised to rage over Sydney last night it did at least begin to rain this morning. Of course it was dry by the time I left for work but it wasn’t long before the drizzle and intermittant showers started and by 8.45am the consensus was to jack it in for the day. Once home I set to doing a little tidying and what not and decided to put some music on. After deliberating for a while I decided on the radio and started listening to Triple J through the computer. Just recently I have heard some good stuff on this station and have taken to listening to it in the car instead of my usual cd of choice, just because I thought about all the good stuff I would have missed out on if I didn’t (I am not usually a huge fan of the radio, easily bored by music that does nothing for me).

Anyway, about an hour ago my ears perked up when I heard an intrumental guitar piece that instantly grabbed me. After the opening bars a fantastic electric guitar came in and I thought to myself “that sounds a bit like Neil Young and Crazy Horse”; my absolute all time favourite artist.

I listened keenly to see if the DJ would announce who it was afterwards, not holding out a lot of hope as they have an annoying habit of not doing this very often. Anyway, to my delight they said it was from the soundtrack to the film Dead Man, and to my surprise went into a little bit more detail saying that it was in fact written by Neil Young (my musical ear is obviously more finely tuned than I think it is). Not only that, the soundtrack was not recorded from a score but instead Neil Young apparently just sat down and played from his emotional reaction to watching the film. This just goes to show that the man truely is a Legend! Here’s the piece from youtube:

(Mum, this is a video, not a picture and to play it you click on the little sideways triangle!)

I was just thinking to myself, “Bloody Hell, Triple J has introduced me to another little gem” when they went on to mention that Neil Young would be touring Australia next year. “”Oh my god!!! Can it be true?” If I could see anyone live in the whole world it would be Neil Young and he is actually coming to Australia?

Yes, but only three shows: one in Brisbane on 21st January 2009, one in Sydney on 24th and Melbourne on 28th. “Gold, he’s in Sydney!” “F*&@, all the Sydney tickets are sold out already!”
“This is too pants to be true!” I was already thinking of my dad who said he might be coming out in January and how fantastic it would be if we could go together (he introduced me to Neil Young when I was little).

My thoughts instantly turned to ebay and I did a quick preliminary search. To my delight there are quite a few on auction already, starting from around $450 for a pair. If it is within my power I will be going to that concert. I remember years back Neil Young did a tour in the UK but my dad only found out about it the same day or something and it was too late. I do not want to miss out again.

And that is the story of how fate whispered in my ear for me to listen to Triple J who introduced me to what looks like a great film, a fantastic soundtrack and the tour of a musical legend!