Easter Show, Monday 5 April

12.41pm MotoX Finale at the Royal Easter Show

What I've learnt recently

Now that I'm becoming accustomed to 'office speak' again I remember that the verb 'to learn' has a noun version -  'learning'.  

So here are my recent learnings.

Learning #1: Having a chef on your trivia night table is a good thing. That is until the MC fines your table $50 for having restaurant-quality food.

Learning #2: If you combine champagne and the general good humour that surrounds a school trivia night you are sure to come home with the class art prize - at great expense.

Learning #3: Champagne is safer than Sambucca. It's lucky I wasn't the one one our table who drank a bottle of Sambucca. She went home with prizes she didn't realise she'd put a bid on.

Learning #5: Wearing black all winter is a little bit, well, wearing. So I've splashed out on a summer party dress that is in no way related to black. It's long and I will wear it with red cork wedges.

Learning #6: Know when to give in, just a little. After 12 months of telling the tween that she should wait just a little longer before she reads Twilight I relented. She read it in 48 hours. Over two school days. She's on Team Edward BTW.

Learning #7: I'm more hopeless than the tween. I thought I'd quickly re-skim the books to satisfy myself that it was okay for her to read them and ended up re-reading them all, including the 12 released chapters of Midnight Sun, over a weekend.

Learning #8: Re-reading was a good thing. I've told her Eclipse and Breaking Dawn are out of the question unless she wants to have an embarrassing talk with me.

Learning #9: Talking human to human is almost extinct in the modern office.

Learning #10:  If I want to make a point in a meeting I'd be better off sending it via email across the table.

True story:  a couple of weeks ago I raised a point during a meeting.  After the meeting had finished I went back to my office to discover that the person who was sitting opposite me had responded to my question via email (via his BlackBerry) while the discussion was in progress.

What have you learnt recently?

Sydney, 6.28am

This was our view of Sydney harbour and surrounding houses at 6.28am this morning.

I woke thinking we had the most amazing sunrise. With fog. Only to realise that it was the biggest dust storm since about 1938. The sky was orange until about 8.30am. 

The dust is coming from dry, drought-affected properties in the West of the state.

Dust is everywhere and in everything.

It was in this weather that I sent my 9yo baby off to his first school camp. He seemed happy enough.

Bondi 2pm

Gosh, winter in Sydney is tough.

Queenscliff and Manly, 11am

We cycled to Manly again today.

The beach looked so inviting, I wish we'd worn bathers/swimmers (or whatever you call them in your part of the world).

We arrived as Nippers was finishing up for the morning,

... as people were thronging to the beach,

... and just as the Cole Classic started at Manly beach.

The south end of Manly was closed due to dangerous conditions this morning so the Cole Classic had to start and finish from Shelly beach a short walk away. All other beach goers seemed to simply ignore the 'beach closed' signs.

Pool's empty but nobody cares

I truly believe I am slowly melting here in Sydney at the moment. Summer has finally hit and the humidity has arrived.

My resolve to shun (ie. not install) air-conditioning is tested on days like this. Luckily we are 10 mins walk from a free local pool.

This is what our local harbour pool looks like on a normal January day. It's a magnet for the locals and has great views.

This is what it looked like today.

Once a week this pool, which is fed by filtered harbour water, is cleaned and re-filled. It's the cleanest day of the week to swim here.

The kids love playing in the water as the pool slowly re-fills. Today we took down the surf mats and the kids skidded from the shallow to the deep end.

Bliss.

Cycling in Parramatta

Parramatta Regional Park is National Heritage Listed and contains Australia's oldest surviving Government house. The park, formerly known as Governor's Domain, was laid out in the late 1700s not long after European settlement.

The park has a 3.5km bike track and was the location of this weekend's family bike ride.

We rode past Old Government House (built 1799) but declined the $18 family fee to look through. The kids weren't interested.

We rode past the site of Parramatta's first ever European building.

And we walked our bikes over the Parramatta River.

I took heed of Fairlie's excellent information about the colour accent feature of my camera and gave it a go. The idea is you choose one colour and the rest of the picture will be in B&W. I chose to highlight red. I see that it not only picked up the bright red shades but also the ochre ones as well.

Cycling again, a Manly thing to do

Manly Beach, 12 noon

The kids aren't playing a summer sport this year so we've decided that we'll organise a family cycling day each Saturday instead. Today's cycle was along the off-road bike path which wends its way from Baringa Ave, Seaforth to the Manly beachfront.

Queenscliff Surf Lifesaving Club Carnival

Cycling along these paths takes you places not reachable by car. We cycled past Manly Lagoon, saw a circus tent, found playgrounds we didn't know existed and saw backyards full of traditional hills hoists. Once we reached the Manly beachfront we saw that Queenscliff SLSC was holding a life-saving carnival. Sausage sizzles abounded.

PS. we are off on an unexpected trip interstate tomorrow for a family funeral . I'll be back in a week.

Holidays can be hard graft

Hanging at the beach is entertaining until someone gets sand where they don't want it.

Hanging with girlfriends is okay. But they eventually have to go home.

Forget cultural experiences. Only one half of this duo enjoyed the Monet Exhibition. The other half feigned sore legs and tiredness and could only recline on the viewing benches and moan for his $12 entry fee.

But a mission inflatable? Hours of fun and I get to read a book.

28 Hours to Go

With 28 hours to go many have already put down their tarpaulins to save a space.

The tents are up for those keen to ensure their spot isn't nabbed in the night.

And a few groups look like they're settling in for the long haul.

All for this view of the fireworks over Sydney harbour tomorrow night.

We have a casual BBQ at our place and will either walk down to watch the fireworks or catch them from our upstairs windows.

Wherever you are, have a great night and an even greater start to the New Year!

The EasternMax Olympic Cycling Tour

Just before Christmas there was some speculation about what Santa was bringing when these were found installed on the Volvo.

Sure enough, good old Santa came through with a bike for each of us.

Over the last couple of days we've had fun exploring the 35km of bike trails at Sydney Olympic Park. This is a great way to see the Olympic site as well as the old athlete's village (now the suburb of Newington) and the surrounding parks.

There's nothing like a two-hour bike ride to make you feel like you deserve another piece of Christmas pudding.

I hope everyone's had a great Christmas and Boxing Day. Now, the countdown to NYE - a big event here in our part of Sydney.

Oh the trouble I went to to bring you this post

Alternative title: How much you can cram into a day when really motivated

Yesterday morning when I looked at my diary I noted that I was to meet up for coffee with a friend I hadn't seen in ages but then I was free to do little bits and pieces for the end.of.term and next.week's.big.hoo.ha

Then I picked up my phone messages to hear that a meeting I was waiting to come through sometime in late January had come through at 11am the.next.day.please. Fine. I can do that.

Later that evening I went upstairs to bed and found when I tried to turn the computer off that the monitor was blank. Completely dead monitor. Great.

It was then I realised that I could go without a washing machine, I could go without a fridge (I'm talking for a day, not forever) and I could go without my car, but there was no way I could survive half a day without my computer. And a computer is useless without its monitor.

How could I talk to you all?

Decisive action was required.

This morning I rang Samsung and found, happily, that the monitor was still under warranty. They were only too pleased to help. A new monitor would be on its way in three days, four days tops.

No.

Three or Four days? I was hoping minutes.

Excuse me Mr Samsung but this is an emergency (I bet they've never heard that before). You must understand my monitor is very important to me. What can I do to get it sooner? I am prepared to drive to wherever to pick it up.

So that is how I found myself driving an hour and back, in Christmas traffic, on the almost.at.a.standstill M5 to a suburb I have never heard of to pick up a new monitor.

Just so I could write this post. For you.

I hope you all feel loved.

Andre from the Wet Seats

A friend of mine is a devoted fan of Andre Rieu. Last year, when she was looking for a friend to go to the concert with, I said okay to buying the $385 ticket because I knew how much this meant to her and couldn't let her go by herself.

Better be good seats, I said.

Well my friend employed her usual tenacity of purpose with the powers.that.be at Ovation to ensure that we did indeed have good seats. Row M to be exact. How fitting.

It has been raining on and off in Sydney for the last week and on Saturday morning it was looking dodgy for an open-air stadium concert. Then my friend texted me:

Radio said no rain pm, thank God.

Despite these assurances I donned my boots, wore long sleeves and packed two rain ponchos.

[the first big downpour]

Good thing I did. The rain held off until after we had checked out our seats and then it came down with a vengeance. There was talk of the concert being postponed. But we took our seats, dressed in our rain ponchos, for a prompt 8pm start. The rain continued for 15 or so minutes and then stopped.

[filing in for the start, my friend assuring me that her lovely suede shoes had been waterproofed...]

The set for this concert was amazing. It was a replica of Schonbrun Palace in Vienna and was set up at the Olympic stadium lengthwise with seating for 30,000 people in front. There was room for the orchestra, two ice rinks and a replica Viennese ballroom. Next to the set were two operational fountains. Cameras were encouraged and security staff were taking photos of groups.

[the set and views from our seats]

This event is a celebration of popular classics in a concert environment. High Brow music snobs would be horrified. And, despite my own reservations, I really enjoyed the whole thing. We heard beautifully played music, watched ice-skaters, saw the Viennese Debutantes perform waltzes, saw a small ballet, listened to fabulous soprano and tenor voices and were entertained by a mass bagpipe extravaganza. Couples waltzed in the aisles. Certainly a bit different from the restraint of the Opera House.

[view from the 'mosh pit']

My friend told me that for the last 20 minutes it is de rigeur to rush down to the front and generally ogle Andre and his orchestra. So we did. It was a mosh pit for oldies in rain ponchos, and us. At that point it started to pour with rain again but the crowd didn't care at all.

As we were leaving we overheard one man say he will never go to an outdoor concert again. Bah Humbug we said, if a concert is worth going to it's worth going to in the rain.

Idol Fans Looky Here

So we were on our way to watch the Aussie Ballet at yesterday's matinee.

When we noticed that the stages were all set up for the Australian Idol final outside the Opera House.

Look who was doing her sound check. Last year's runner up, Jess Mauboy.

She sounded fabulous. The girls were thrilled. Then we hotfooted it into the House for our 1.30pm start time to see the Aussie Ballet perform Interplay.

The Idol final is on tonight. There's no way we'd even attempt to cross the harbour for the craziness. We'll hear all the commotion from our house and we'll be looking out for the fireworks.