Going Gently

Old Friend

Well the Australian adventure is almost coming to an end. Last night friends Nia and George took us for cocktails at the Shangri La ( we haven't had a cocktail since our last New York trip six years ago) then for a fabulous meal at the UBER trendy " Cafe Sydney" which overlooks Circular Quay"
We were spoilt to death.
I have known Nia since she was 13.
Then I was a gauche kid of 19 who was friends with her brother.
I had bad dress sense and an even worse hair cut and I had an unfortunate girlfriend called Nerys.
She had a pudding basin fringe and giggled a lot.
But we have always kept in touch....that's more than I did with her brother.

I helped to teach her to drive and took her to Oxford from Wales to start her nursing course.
And she was supportive and celebratory when Nerys got the heave ho and was replaced years later by a bad tempered sofa salesman from Yorkshire.......
Old friends eh?
You can't beat them.......

Anything Went

Caroline O'Connor

I think the Sydney Opera House should stick to Opera rather than to Cole Porter for after a bloody lovely meal of barramundi at the Oyster Bar we sat through a rather slapstick and unfortunate first half of " Anything Goes" .

Now people may forget that in his prime The Professor was a first class tap dancer so it wasn't long before he picked up that the Opera house choreography was somewhat under par even though the musical's leading lady Caroline O'Connor looked as though she was carrying the company on her more than capable shoulders!

We left at half time with a dramatic swish, which was a shame, but the disappointment was made up by a wonderful show of acrobatics by the huge flying fox fruit bats that swooped around the towering trees of the nearby botanical gardens!

Even the Prof's Roger Moore Eyebrow was elevated at the spectacle!

We have a brunch organised with some family, who have lived out here for a year or so then some shopping and cocktails at the bloody Shangri-la hotel cocktail lounge no less with our friends Nia and George.........no wonder I think I have put on, what is commonly referred to, as the " Sydney Stone" since being here!

The view from Shagri la!

Oh tomorrow night, ( our last one in the city) we have tickets to a Schumann concerto at the Opera House which will be a fitting end to a wonderful, wonderful experience

Hey ho

Letter From Australia

Dear All,

I am loving staying in the old quarantine hospital up on Manly's North Head.
It's a bit like being in a posh episode of Tenko, what with the corrugated clad rooms set up in barracks overlooking the remarkable views of Sydney Bay.
I also like it because it still retains a feel of being an isolation hospital, and I cut my spinal injury nursing teeth in such a place, namely Lodge Moor Hospital which sat on one of the highest hills overlooking Sheffield.
Mind you......Lodge Moor Hospital is now a faceless housing estate
And Quarantine Q here has it's own private beach!

A week in Oz and I am beginning to read the locals. I like Australians.
They are direct to the point of perceived rudeness .
They are open and friendly.
And generally they laugh a great deal.
...and I like the way they will call you by your first name without being asked.

Ok much has been said about their general views on gay issues or sexism...that I am not interested in
It's nice to take what you find....eh?
I am already starting to add that questioning inflection to the end of my sentences
Hey ho ( question mark)

Johnno x

Platypuses , platypi? Whatever!

Today in Manly we sat drinking coffee watching the surfers curl some waves

Then we hopped on a ferry to Taronga Zoo where I fell in love with the platypuses

They are delightful little buggers.......so much so that the Prof bought me a platypus all of my own

( btw did you know that baby platypuses are called puggles?

How cool is that?

The Hunter Valley & Station Q

Tonight we have moved over the bay to the resort of Manly. Our hotel is wonderfully quirky.....Station Q is the historic quarantine hospital of the city of Sydney and we are staying in a corrugated iron clad single room of one of the wards. It's quite delightful
I am need of the rest as the Prof and I have just spent an exhausting enjoyable day, wine tasting...down the scenic Hunter Valley with a group of Aussie housewives.......
Great...great fun..........but not quiet or for the faint of heart!

A Flying Baked Bean Tin

Our helicoptor was the size of a large baked bean can
Our pilot was a chiseled Aussie Hugh Jackman lookalike hunk called " Forrest"
(Tall, all tan and white teeth...you get the gist)
He was, on reflection bigger than the aircraft
As it turned out Forrest was from Flint........and Flint is a scruffy little town 15 minutes away from Trelawnyd
It's a funny small world is it not....?
Anyhow flying around in a baked bean tin was great fun.....it was a lovely experience

Everything In Technicolour

London has pigeons. Trelawnyd has chickens and Sydney...well Sydney has rainbow lorikeets , the very serious and depressed looking Australian Ibis , and the chattering and spectacular noisy cockatoos.
Sitting in the Botanical Gardens today was a feast for the senses .
It's like home but every bird and plant seems to be in technicolour..and it's still only spring.
We've had a tour of the Opera House today and have booked a show and a concert there. It's a stunning building for sure. Tomorrow we do a helicopter ride over Sydney bay.......then down the Hunter Valley wine tasting with some dear old friends.
And....It's only day three