Adventure, baby!

Sydney Life

Easter Show

I love the Easter show. I dragged Alec along with me, and I hope he had a good a time as I did. OK, he probably didn’t, but I think he enjoyed some aspects 🙂

Favourite things – the animal nursery, with baby chicks, ducklings, tiny lambs, goats and bunnies… squee! I also love the dog competitions. This year we saw the Best In Show competition. I was happy to see the best Havanese puppy and best Havanese in breed – so cute, but nowhere near as cute as my two of course.

Cakes! Another favourite area of the show. I’m always impressed at the skills of these amateur cake bakers.

And of course … eating… so many tasty things to consume!

Alec in Mountain View

While I was sweating it out at the corporate games, Alec was working hard at Google Mecca. He took my beautiful camera with him to claim tax back and played around with it – including the photo below. It was just too delightful not to blog 🙂

NSW Corporate Games 2009

In a fit of what I can only call crazy, I signed up for the volleyball (!!) and netball teams for the NSW corporate games.

I haven’t played volleyball since .. well, I’ve never played volleyball, so I don’t know what possessed me there. Netball was a no-brainer – except we signed up and then Alec had to pull out due to a sudden work trip – nooooooooooooo!

It was an incredibly exhausting week – netball practice game Wednesday night, volleyball Thursday (we had our butts kicked in all three games), followed by a day of pain on Friday and then … six games of netball on Saturday, starting at 10:45 and ending at 6:30. I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired and drained.

Despite my lack of experience, I really enjoyed volleyball – until a rogue ball hit my arm and it swelled up to double the size, and I also really enjoyed the netball day, even though it was challenging, both physically and mentally.

With the netball comp, we won the three games in our pool but ended up placed fourth over all, so we had to play a quarter-finals game (which we smashed) followed immediately with a semi-finals game against the first seeded team. There was NO way we were going to win this game, and moral went way down. There wasn’t much of a come-back after that. We had to play one last game to decide third and fourth place, and we were just so over it after having our asses kicked in our fifth game for the day that having to straight away play a sixth game was just too much.

I’m super-impressed at how well we did – fourth out of 20 teams, with a team that was not bad, but definitely not our best. And to play six games in a row – I think it was an amazing effort and I was really proud of our achievement.

Erm, snazzy netball outfits.

Volleyball – going for a shot!

The volleyball team.

New Camera!

I caved and bought the Canon 5D Mark 2. I’ve been lusting after it for a while and thought now was as good a time as any, so I made the purchase and tried not to freak out while handing over my credit card.

First pics taken on the new camera! Games night at Chatswood.




Goodbye Darling Park

After almost four years at the Darling Park complex and three in my current office, it’s time time to say goodbye! We are moving to a brand-spanking new office across the harbour in Pyrmont – I can see it from my window in fact. It’s been pretty interesting watching its progression every day – and I can’t quite believe it’s time to move.

My desk all packed and ready to leave.

Close-up of the view I will be leaving behind.

Monet Exhibition, Lindt Cafe & Kirribilli

A rare day out in the city with Alec, his dad and his dad’s wife, Lisa.

We started out at the Monet exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

I love Monet, particularly his waterlilies that he painted at his house at Giverny. Alec and I are planning to go there when we are on our France trip in 2009, so it was great timing!
The exhibition only had a few waterlily paintings, but had a range of works from Monet’s early career as well as some paintings by his contemporaries and artistic influences.


After the Monet exhibition we also dropped in at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition that was on at the Sydney Museum. I love, love this exhibition and look forward to it every year. It’s my dream to take photographs of nature like the ones in the exhibition – up close yet in the wild, and so amazingly unusual.
Next stop was the Lindt Cafe in Martin Place. I haven’t been to this outlet before, and was happy to see it was more like a real cafe, where you sit down and have your order taken at your table. So civilised! I just love their chocolate shakes and crave them frequently – just the shakes, nothing more!
Chocolate dream come true.

Their gourmet chocolates. I had a few, including a caramel one, and they were divine.

Alec’s dad and Lisa.

Happy as can be – chocolate has that effect!

Driving back to dinner in Crows Nest, we took a detour through Kirribilli. We came across this amazing spot – what a view! Sydney is such a beautiful city to live in, particularly on days like today when the sun is shining, not a cloud in the sky, and we’re on holidays!
Tourist shot!





Lindt Cafe
53 Martin Place
Sydney
Ph: (o2) 8257 1600

Featuring Arthur, The Crazy Cockatoo

I would like to re-introduce Arthur, the sulfur crested cockatoo. He was raised mostly by Alec’s family after an unfortunate start in life, and is now, at around age 34, a vocal member of the family. He currently lives with Alec’s dad in Newcastle and has been left to us in his will – ruh-oh!

Arthur and Alec are old friends. He likes to scream “Aleeeeec” and have the underside of his wings scratched.
Nice birdy, but don’t be fooled. Evil lurks within.





Notice the dexterity with which he eats things out of his foot. This should have been a warning to me.

Oh hai!

Close-up!

Ummm …

Oh crap!

That blur you see is the birdy eating the front of my camera, which he then spat at me. Nice!

Lesson learned – only photograph cockatoos with a long lens. Don’t get close enough for them to EAT it.