6/20/10

Winter is at its very best at the moment. We get some of our most pleasant days in winter, although, of course, we can get miserable rain and cold as well. We don't get frosts here, although they do further inland. Today the temperature was in the high sixties, with clear blue skies and only a rather chilly breeze to remind us that it was winter. What a pity we can't bottle days like this and uncork them to enjoy in our stifling mid-summer.

There has been a lot of interest in the Soccer World Cup here. 12,000 people braved the elements at night in Sydney to watch a large screen and cheer on our team. But I don't think it will do us much good. We managed a tie against Ghana, but we're definitely underdogs. It's unusual for me to be interested in sport, but I find this world-wide game fascinating. My only quibble is that I feel the teams should be made up of men born in the country they represent.

A local boy named Harry after Harry Kewel, one of 'our' players..

My friend, Peter Lewis, drew this rather telling cartoon of our local political scene. As usual with all parties everywhere the state government is throwing money at New South Wales. As though we wouldn't see through them! Sometimes democracy is plain silly. But the alternative isn't great.

Our Premier, on the left, has an American accent.

Surf House has finally bitten the dust. This icon of years gone by has been demolished. There's been a lot of heartache among local Aussies of my generation, as they spent their lives on the beach when they were young (and they have the skin cancers to prove it!) A rather snazzy retaurant s going up in its place.

The pigeons and gulls have had to leave.

My son and his family have settled into their new house but I haven't taken any photos of it yet as they wanted to get it straight first. Harry was due to come to me for a reading lesson today, but he had an extra soccer game instead, so I shall have to wait until Tuesday for my fix. At least I saw Blake, my eldest grandson, yesterday evening! He and Rebecca, his mother, came for a meal and an evening of video , as Brian was on fireman duty down in Sydney. I made chicken a la King, but Blake didn't much care for the mushrooms in it and I, myself, thought it lacked flavour. Still, w enjoyed the old film, 'Chocolat', which we hadn't seen before. I found it really charming, and I found Johnny Depp very attractive, never having cared for him in 'pirate' guise.

'Chocolat'

Yesterday was a busy day. We met at The Cricketers Arms for a run-through of 'Jeopardy', which we perform on Tuesday evening. After that we slipped in a brief rehearsal of an abbreviated form of 'Golden Heart', our Monday show. We're very under-rehearsed for that but it doesn't matter too much as our mini-melos are just a romp with lots of audience participation anyway. Then we all went downstairs to a Cooking Class! This was the first I'd ever attended (as my cooking proves!) but I'll certainly attend more. We were plied with wine while we were shown haw to rustle-up delicious dips and then Osso Buco. Afterwards we all sat at a long table and ate the proceeds!

The Chef at work

The Feast

I left before the dessert as I had Rebecca coming for the evening. I'm not fond of sweet food, anyway.

Today, Sunday, I've been busy visiting the local Officeworks and photocopying copious audience-involvement sheets, as well as preparing tapes and costumes. It's all quite hard work but I love it.