Paul's Lovely Week

I have just read Elaine's lovely week so I thought I had better do my lovely week!

I flew up to Byron Bay, which has always been our favourite Aussie holiday destination.

The reason for the trip was to look at buying a property up there, at the moment the prices in the region are about half of that of Sydney. We don't intend heading back to Oz any time soon but feel its probably the right thing to buy property again rather than being at the mercy of the fluctuating interest rates, as in always going downward!.

We have friends that live near Byron, and they kindly put me up for a few days on their lovely property. 

We popped  in to see my friend's brother, who has had a very nice house and pool built recently.

The beach was as lovely as always ... 

Mount Warning which sits behind Byron in the hinterland, it was named by Capt Cook on 17th May 1770.

Elaine and I climbed it a few years back!

Did I mention the nice beach, and it was 37 degrees!

Byron is the most easterly point in Australia, on top of the headland sits the famous lighthouse.

Oh, and did I mention the nice beaches at Byron, plus some are even dog friendly!! 

Now I am back in Sydney, counting the days to returning to the UK and carrying on with the great narrowboat adventure, plus trying to solve the mystery of the exploding hair straighteners!!

A lovely week!

My big Sis came to stay last week - we had a lovely 'girlie' time - that we havn't had since I was about 16 !!  So we had a fair bit of catching up to do !!

We started off the week with a lot of 'gasbagging' and thereafter got a little more active !

On Tuesday morning my Sister's GHD hair straighteners felt the wrath of the boat electrics - she had plugged them in and noticed that they did heat up quite quickly but when she started to do her hair there was a sssshhhhhttttttt and a sizzle and then a lot of smoke !  My sister had managed to extract them from her hair by this point - thank god !!  It really is a mystery to me as to why boat electrics don't like hair straighteners!  (We didn't have anything else going at the time either).  We did try my cheapo straighteners (whilst monitoring the mighty 'worry board' at the same time) and they seemed to work !  (However, I gave them to my sister to take away and she has since reported that they are not working - oh dear !!!).

Here is a pic of the damage done - with some of my sister's locks still attached ...

William looking on in the background !

I have found myself a beautiful meditation class here in Stone, so I dragged my sister along to that on Tuesday morning; all the people there were so welcoming and lovely we really enjoyed it!  We then went for lunch at a place called the 'Oak Tree Farm Project' which 'provides training and supported occupation for adults with learning disabilities, in a rural environment'.  It is such a lovely place - which also has a tea shop - serving yummy, yummy food - and the best coffee I have ever tasted in my life !!

When we got back we took the doggies for a walk and then we decided it was Bombo's turn for a bit of a 'do' !!  He has been getting really hot in the boat at night with the fire on, so I thought it was time for a trim !  We got out the doggie clippers and 'had a go' ... Bombo was very patient with us!  We thought we had done quite a good job until he got off the table - then we noticed all the long bits and liney bits we had left --- ah well, at least he is cooler now !!

Big Sis doing her doggie clipping ... 

That was way too much excitement for one day so we settled in for the night after that !

On Wednesday we went on a mission to hit all the second hand shops in Stone (of which there are a fair few!).  It was lovely ... we spent hours finding our second hand treasures (stopping for lunch along the way of course).  We got some really good stuff - skirts, tops, cardis, bags - I even found a pair of brand new boots, which fit like a glove!  On Wednesday night we went to the Bistro at the Marina for dinner - the food and the service was brilliant - there weren't many people in there though, it being a very foggy, cold night !

On Thursday we took a stroll along the towpath into Stone - it is about a 45 - 60 minute walk - especially with two sniffing dogs !   Along the way we saw this guy with a novel approach to cleaning his windows ... I am sure he must have done it a million times but it looked ooooohhhh so precarious ! 

My lovely Sis ...

It was a really nice day - so the reflections in the water were specacular ... 

When we got to Stone we popped into the Star 'Canal Bar' - it is jam-packed full of character.  We had a orange juice and a chat and got on our way back to the Marina ...

We stopped by at the Farm Shop and got some goodies for lunch and headed back to the boat ... by this time it was gettin' chilly !

On Thursday night my Brother and my Dad came down from Macc to have dinner with us - so we  had an excellent night in the Three Crowns pub just down the road from the Marina.  I like everything about that pub apart from the waitress who insists on calling me 'sweetheart' ... what the ???!!!!

By Friday lunch time my Sister was on the train back to Euston.  I headed back to the boat to clean  up the cratch ... in the morning (whilst chatting!) I had forgotten I had left the hosepipe in the water filler while I was filling her up - and consequently a fair bit of water had sprayed itself into the cratch !!  It was good to clean out the cratch - it was looking a bit grotty - it gets a lot of condensation out there (even without my tomato plants!).

On Saturday it was back to 'business as usual' - apart from a surprise visit from Ellie and Mick from NB Parisien Blue who had just checked into the Marina.  Saturday night brought a frost like I havn't seen for many years !!!!  I went to step out of the cratch late at night to take the dogs for their late night wee and found it was veeeeeerrrry slippy underfoot - so I put on the extendable leads for the dogs and left them take themselves while I stood in the cratch !!  They weren't impressed with the cold stuff underfoot either !

Anyway, we had the fire cranked up so we were cosy indoors ... Jaffa and the other two boys are like magnets to the fire !



Here are some pics I took this morning at about 7 am ... not that I was up then - just putting the heating on before sliding back in under the doona !

 

 

Today I tried to get back into my studies - I only have a week left to finish off a correspondence course that was supposed to be completed last year (yep, I have already had an extension!).  It is amazing when you have to do something you really don't want to how everything else around seems so much more interesting !!  Ah well - back to it ... !

Back in The Old Stomping Ground

Lovely weekend here in Sydney, even managed to borrow my old ute for the weekend!

First stop the beach - water was a tad cold though!

On Sunday it was down the old haunt, The Manly 16ft skiff club.

This is the view from the deck, with the Manly Ferry coming into dock in the background.

It was the perfect day for sitting out on the deck - - - and because it is a club cheap booze!

Sun setting over the harbour ...

And finally a pic of our friends dog, Jackson - he is such a lovely old boy ...  

My very own Truman show !

If you have seen the film the Truman show you may remember that Truman ventured out into his world each day to be greeted by lovely, happy, smiling neighbours - everyone friendly and helpful in his perfect world ...

Well, that was how I felt today !!  I went down to Stone this morning - mainly to go to Morrison's.  I noticed that everyone (well, most people) had a smile as I passed them by (I noticed that yesterday and in the past too!).  All around I could hear people having their little repartees with each other, which made me smile too !

When I was walking around the supermarket, I noticed a cleaner behind me - mopping up some spilt milk - he joked that it was me spilling the milk but I had a look and found that my milk was fully upright - so he carried on looking for the culprit who was messing up his store!!  He was very efficient !

A few aisles down one of the Managers was behind me looking at a trail of milk behind me and we concurred that it was indeed my milk that was leaking !!  So - he took my milk and promptly returned with another one for me !!

Then another few aisles down I was choosing some fish, when another Manager asked me if I needed any help - he added that the fish were now in boxes, where they used to be hanging up!  I replied I didn't know as I hadn't been to the shop before, to which he welcomed me to the store and hoped I would enjoy my shopping experience, adding that if he could help me with anything else he would be absolutely happy to do so!  Wow - customer service, par excellence !

A few aisles down I met the cleaner man again who was laughing with one of his colleagues about the milk saga ... I interrupted him and apologised to him saying it was my milk after all - to which we had a little titter and carried on our ways !

What a lovely, friendly town Stone is (and what a wonderful supermarket that was - a very pleasant experience!) ... although I did start to have those 'Truman' delusions - ie, could this really be a real place !!!

To add to my wonderful experience I dropped into Aldi on the way back.  In Sydney Paul and I only ever went into Aldi once - because it was very stressful (the tension in the shop there was palpable) and they tended to throw your shopping along the conveyer belt until it skidded back into your trolley at the other end ... wanting to move you along as quickly as possible - if not faster!  Today there was a similar arrangement in place, but the angst was absent - in fact there was a feeling of calm in the store and the checkout girl was passing things along at a reasonable pace too - and was very pleasant to boot!

In the Marina, the office and shop staff are lovely, the neighbours are lovely and everywhere is perfect - maybe someone has been putting drugs in my tea - I wanna know where the cameras are!!  (If you havn't seen the Truman show you will have no idea what I am on about !!).

Ah well ... time to get to my perfect bed with my perfect cats and dogs xxxx



PS:  The man in the kitchen shop told me a funny one today - we were talking about internet shopping - he said he didn't 'do computers' - adding that someone once told him to go 'on-line' - and when he did a train came along !!    Har har :)

It's a cat's life !

Well I have had to hone my fire-making skills while the boy is away - and as you can see the cats are really having a hard time with this cooler weather ...

 

 

There is no room for another human on this boat anyway - all seats are taken!!!  

You Can Tell You Are Back in OZ When........

This crap was in todays paper......

Get this, the fine is $330.00 or 210.00 pounds!

What can you say.......

BASTARDS!!!!!!!!!

Back Down Under

I am now back in Sydney, I have moved into the penthouse and picked up my loan bike.

The sun is out and the beaches are looking good, the surf is huge!

I have been away 7 months but it just doesn't feel like it.

It was such a strange feeling arriving here but I wasn't coming home, that is now in the Northern Hemisphere! 

The most noticeable difference is that the grass is very brown and burnt compared with what I have been used to.

The jet-lag isn't too bad, so off we go.........