The 15km walk on Christmas Day should have served as a warning, as the evening we returned from Torquay, 'Trottenmeistr' Eifion announced that we were going out walking with some colleagues of his the following morning and had to be out of the house by 7.15am! So fortified with a mincepie and cup of coffee in the car on the way, we joined Bernie and Laura on the ascent of One Tree Hill, part of the Dandenong Mountain Range. It took us an hour and a half to walk to the top and I was very impressed to see how many people there were up there already, some going to the trouble of carting up huge picnics, until I saw the carpark - hmmm. On the way back to the city, we just happened to pass Pin Oak Street (or that's what Eifion would have us believe), better known to the world as Ramsey Street. I'm afraid that I can't give you an update on what's happening now as I didn't recognise anything and haven't got the foggiest idea of who is supposed to live in which house. The last time I watched Neighbours, Bouncer and Mrs Mangel were part of the cast and I guess that Bouncer has been in Doggie Heaven for at least 15 years.
New Years Eve was a scorcher - the temperature reaching 42c (a sweltering 108f) in the afternoon so we were out for our morning stomp in the Yarra Bend Park by 7.30am while it was still relatively cool. We had been invited to Bernie and Steve's home for a New Year Party and we had a fantastic evening in the company of more colleagues and friends. Gerard (I thought that Dewi Jones had arrived when he walked through the door) was fantastic, singing and on the guitar and we accompanied him on our tambourines, bongos, pipes, whistles and maracas. Eifion was on the 'spoons in a bottle' and Marc was on Bernie's best saucepan. At midnight, we all took our glasses to the top of the road for a view of the spectacular fireworks on the city skyline below us. By the time we left the party at 3am, it had 'cooled' to 32c!
New Years Eve was also the day of the 'Haircut Incident'. I won't bore you with the details right now, but it involved me heading out of Melbourne, by myself, on a train in completely the wrong direction (I can just hear my mother now). But all was well as I drew on my Risk Assessment and Stress Management training and I eventually got to the hairdressers, where they were very curious to see this person who had telephoned from a railway platform far, far away.
New Years Day was a very laid back affair - very hot again and when we did eventually venture out, Eifion took us for a nice air-conditioned drive around the city and the beach fronts, lined with multi-million dollar homes. We turned into the city's beautiful Albert Park which is the home of the Melbourne F1 race and we drove around with Marc doing the commentary and me 'da da daaa...ing' the F1 theme tune. We even had photos of us taken, lined up on the starting grid but I still don't think it's fair that Marc had pole position.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment