I hate gas ovens!

Dave had a late-night call this evening so I set about making some peanut butter and chocolate chip muffins in my new oven. I turned it on to preheat and set about making my muffin batter, only to find that by the time I’d put the batter in the muffin tray, the oven had actually turned itself off. It took me another 10 minutes to get it working again – it lights and then when you turn it to the right temperature, it switches itself off. I don’t understand it – it’s like it has a mind of it’s own. Anyway, my muffins were meant to take 10-15 minutes to bake, they took 40 minutes….40 minutes to bake muffins??? Ridiculous. I’ve no idea how to use a gas oven, clearly. They look a little anaemic too as they didn’t seem to want to brown on top BUT they taste delicious, so it’s okay. The oven then took an absolute age to cool down, even the handle on it was boiling hot for a while afterwards – I’m sure this can’t be right, I’m worried we’re either going to end up gassed in the night, or blowing the house up…hmmm.

My first attempt at sushi

Since I’ve been in Sydney, I’ve developed a mild obsession with sushi. It’s brilliant here, not like the crap you get in Marks and Sparks, it’s so fresh and delicious – I don’t know what I’m going to do when I get back to the UK and there are no good Japanese-owned sushi trains about! Anyway, I decided I would try my hand at making it in order to save some money. I bought all the ingredients – the nori (seaweed), sushi rice, rice wine vinegar, a bamboo rolling mat and some simple fillings to begin with (avocado, cucumber, and red pepper cut into fine strips and tuna with a teriyaki sauce).

The preparation of the rice is by far the hardest and most time consuming bit. You have to rinse it until the water runs clear, then boil it, let it rest, add the sushi vinegar mixture, fold it in, leave it to cool blah blah blah. Then the fun bit: rolling the sushi. I was pleasantly surprised with how my rolls turned out actually – I was expecting them to look quite messy but they were beautiful little things; I was like a proud mother. Granted they didn’t taste as great as the real stuff and my rice was a bit stodgy, but they made a very pleasant lunch today. I’m not sure I saved myself much money though, and I definitely wouldn’t if I bought sushi-grade fish, so, unless I’m desperate, I think I’ll probably stick to buying it from the professionals!

And yes, the photo on the left at the top is my homemade sushi :)

Moving in day

Our moving in day was, luckily, fairly stress free. So stress free in fact that before we’d even started unpacking we decided to have a wander around our new area to find somewhere to eat. We ended up at a little café called Piccolo Bar, which is definitely worthy of a post. It’s a family-owned place, and very, very kooky! We ordered our food – Dave had meatballs and I had roast beef and roasted vegetables (delicious) – and whilst waiting for it to arrive, watched the world go by. Various interesting characters passed through the café, all clearly locals. The couple sitting behind us were particularly suspicious – the guy got up half way through his meal to do what I can only imagine was selling drugs to the local pisshead – he clearly put a bag of weed in his pocket after their conversation!

It was only after we had been to Piccolo bar that I realised what a Kings Cross institution it is – I googled it. Apparently lots of famous people have passed through its doors and it features in many books about old Sydney. The man who first opened it – an immigrant Italian – still sits and vets every person who walks through the door; luckily, he wasn’t there the night we were!

Such an amazing little place and quite a lucky find. I think we’ll definitely be returning and hopefully we’ll become locals there too eventually.

63 Elizabeth Bay Road, Elizabeth Bay (and a very long post)

It was time for a change of scenery! We’ve moved from the city centre out to the eastern ‘burbs (suburbs here not being what they are at home – we’re still only a half hour walk from the CBD – although Dave thinks that’s too long, I think he’s just become lazy). Our new flat is beautiful, it’s a little bigger than the last place and far more homely and cosy, it doesn’t feel like a hotel. I’ll give you a little guided tour…

Firstly, the building itself is very different to the last place: it’s an old art deco building with lots of original features. We’re on the second floor and, unfortunately, there is no lift, so we’re getting a little more exercise having to climb the stairs. We’re at the end of the corridor and as you walk in, off the right of the (tiny) hallway is our spacious lounge. It has lovely wooden flooring throughout, matching cream leather sofa and arm-chair, and a big flat screen TV with surround sound.

Off the lounge is the kitchen, which has marble work surfaces and lots of storage space. The only problem is that the oven is gas – it’s very old school and a nightmare to light because sometimes the ignition doesn’t work. There is a dining room (or second bedroom) off the lounge, again with beautiful wooden flooring. It also has gorgeous white shutters, which give the house a very Mediterranean feel! Our bedroom is accessible either by the hallway or through the dining room. It has a massive leather bed with matching bedside tables and wardrobe.

The last room – the bathroom – comes off our bedroom, and also has marble surfaces and a big walk-in shower. I’m absolutely in love with the new flat, it’s just beautiful, and I’m very happy here.

It’s made even better by the fact that the area we love in is awesome. There is a definite residential and “local” feel to it. Even walking round over the weekend, you tend to see the same faces. There are lots of little cafes and everyone seems so much friendlier than in the city. Elizabeth Bay is sandwiched between Kings Cross, which is the clubbing (and prostitute) area of Sydney and Potts Point, which is like a little New York. It’s an amazing juxtaposition because within the distance of 100m you go from bars, drunken people, strip clubs, prostitutes and the homeless (I’m really selling this!) to classy and kooky cafes, restaurants, patisseries and delis. So many new places to go and explore, it’s very exciting!

Our new house

We are the proud new tenants of a beautiful 1.5 bedroom flat in an art deco building in Elizabeth Bay, which is about 2km from Sydney city. Isn't it beautiful?? We're moving in tomorrow so everything here is very busy at the moment, and a little bit stressful. As soon as we're moved in and our internet is sorted, I'll write a longer post about our lovely new place, and put some pictures of the inside up too!

House hunting Sydney style

Our tenancy at Shelley Street runs out on Thursday so today we spent the day looking at apartments. It's a funny system here - estate agents hold open inspections for houses where everyone bundles in to have a look and then whoever says yes first, gets the flat. It's as stressful as it sounds. We managed to get to 6 different apartments today, 2 of which we've decided we like. Both, however, are slightly over budget so we've spent the day trying to barter them down...only to discover that their offices shut at 4pm on Saturdays so we have to wait until Monday to find out the decisionr! I hate being in limbo like this; I've fallen in love with both of the apartments and would be equally happy living in either...I just want a nice new place to look forward to moving into on Thursday! I hope on Monday I'll have some good news to write about. Keep your fingers crossed for us please!

I'm employed!!

Today I received the BRILLIANT news that, after two weeks of unemployment, I have been offered a job! I'll be working for a company called Pollak Learning Alliance, which organises and hosts training centres for various companies. Again, I'm a receptionist, but it sounds like a much busier role than my last one in Surry Hills. There are 11 training rooms, each holding 10 people, all of whom may come in at the same time at 9am, so I could be dealing with 110 people all at once. Stressful but it's SO much better than sitting around doing nothing all day. Plus the money! I'm already planning to book a hair appointment...and possibly buy the Marc Jacobs purse in DJ's which I have been lusting after for the past few weeks...

To celebrate my great news, Dave and I are going out tonight to a kooky little restaurant in Darlinghurst called Govinda's. You start with a vegetarian Indian buffet followed by a film in their boutique cinema, which has beds rather than seats as per the picture below!

Tonight they're showing Twilight New Moon. I've only recently seen the first Twilight movie and I loved it - I think I'm Team Edward, but I might change my mind after this evening... Either way I know I'm probably going to spend the whole of the film feeling really sick - buffets + Dave and I = alot of greediness!

Sydney Festival First Night 2010

Every year, for three weeks in January, the city of Sydney holds a festival of around 80 events covering dance, music, visual art and theatre. For a little history of the festival: http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/2010/About-Us/Festival-History/. There are also a number of free outdoor events, one of which is the Festival First Night; the city's streets and parks were transformed into a theatre of music and spectacle!

We were lucky because Saturday was such a beautiful day - it was perfect for sitting outside and enjoying some music and entertainment. We headed down to the Domain at 6ish where there was lots of free music, including a performance by Al Green (famous soul singer for those of you who don't know *Dave* cough cough). So famous in fact that we didn't even bother staying to see him....mistake? Yes, probably. Instead we headed over to Hyde Park where there circus performers doing various acrobatics and also DJs (Rach loved this because there were some black people there - can I write that?!). Here we were lucky enough to see the amazing Heliosphere lady. Quite self-explanatory, a lady attached to a heliosphere balloon doing acrobatics across the city - she was very, very cool.

We finished the evening with the "intoxicating sounds of India" on Hyde Park Lawns - Bobby Singh and Friends singing some Indian sounding music. They were surprisingly good! Dave then had to buy himself a Maxibon because he's addicted. After our heavy night out on Friday, it was good to have a chilled out and alcohol free evening. I'm planning to take Dave to the Schaubuhne Berlin's version of Hamlet, which is part of the festival - Shakespeare in German and subtitled; he's going to LOVE it!

In a cooking frenzy

Due to my still unemployed state, I've become a bit of a pro in the kitchen (I think I probably also have my parents to thank for this - it must have been passed down in the blood). I cook every evening for Dave and quite often I'll bake something or other in the afternoon or morning to fill my time and because I enjoy it so much!

I absolutely LOVE granola - there is the most amazing patisserie up the road which amongst all the croissants, pains au chocolat and chocolate almond croissants (my personal favourite), sells lovely crunchy granola with yoghurt and stewed fruit. A healthy breakfast you may think, but granola is chock full of oil and sugar so what seems to be a low-fat and low-calorie breakfast is very probably not. So I've been on the search for a healthy version granola and today I found it! It contains absolutely no oil and sugar and is instead bound with mashed banana, honey and water (sounds funny, tastes gorgeous). I used the normal oats, seeds, nuts, sultanas, and I also added some dates because they're yummy. It's so delicious in fact that I have probably already eaten half of the batch I made because I just can't wait for breakfast tomorrow morning! By the way, the photo at the top is very much stolen from somewhere else, unfortunately my granola tastes good, but it doesn't look that attractive!

Going with the cooking theme, another of my successes was last night's dinner: chicken breast stuffed with mozzarella, cherry tomatoes and basil, with sweet potato mash, and peas. Who needs to go to a restaurant??

And of course, the pear and blackberry bread which I made on Dave's request - another success despite the fact I don't own any weighing scales. All my family and friends are in for a treat when I get home - lots of dinner parties and cakes at my house!

Life of an unemployed

Seeing as I'm unemployed, I'm managing to fill my days quite nicely with activities! Yesterday was a good, productive day:

7am: pump class.

8:30am: breakfast and job hunting.

10am: I made tuna fishcakes for dinner - they were so simple to make and really delicious, Dave loved them, so much so in fact that he even took me to the cinema in the evening to say thank you! I then made a banana and pecan nut loaf as there were some ripe bananas lying around the house.

11am: more job hunting.

12:30pm: spin class.

2pm: meet Rach for sushi. For dessert we decided to go to the Guylian cafe for Belgian waffles with melted Guylian chocolate, praline ice cream and fruit. Absolutely delicious!

7pm: get home from my afternoon out with Rach to find that Dave has eaten half the banana loaf (see picture below) so it was obviously a success! He then tells me later on that he doesn't actually like banana loaf that much...and requests that I make him some pear and raspberry loaf. So I'll be doing that next week unless I get a job.

7:30pm: check my emails to find out I've been shortlisted for a job I applied for. Woohooooo. Haven't heard anything more though which is slightly worrying. Fingers crossed I'll get an interview.

8:30pm: cinema trip to see "It's Complicated" with Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin. It's quite funny although we were sat next to the most special person I've ever had the misfortune of encountering. The first time Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin sleep together he actually wooped out loud and clapped and did this again every time something relating to sex/drugs happened. What an idiot. Dave decided he must have been American. Haha.

11:30pm: bed time!

A rather busy day for someone who actually has nothing to do all day wouldn't you say??!!

My new slippers!

I've been looking for a pair of slippers for aaaages; although it's really hot here we always have our air con on and it makes my little feet chilly! I randomly found these in a sleepwear shop for the bargain price of $1 so I couldn't resist. They're super cute and keep my feet cosy!

The British Lolly Shop

A month or so ago Dave and I discovered possibly the best shop in Sydney - The British Lolly Shop. They sell lots of old school style sweets including lemon sherbet, mint humbugs, black jacks and fruit salads, flying saucers, my favourite strawberry millions and the list goes on...They also sell English Cadbury's chocolate: this is an absolute blessing as Australian Cadbury's tastes is disgusting and tastes like tobacco (apparently due to the extra preservatives they have to add to stop it melting in the heat or something like that). Of course all of these goodies are ridiculously expensive so a trip there only occurs on a special occasion.

The other night we went for a late night walk around the harbour and came across this little gem of a shop and decided a new year's treat was in order. We splashed out on some strawberry bon-bons, black jacks, those little sweetie bracelets, and butterscotch Angel Delight.
I was most excited about the Angel Delight: I absolutely love it as it brings back lots of childhood memories for me - it cost $5 so about GBP 3, which is absolutely extortionate but it was soooooo good. With lots of sprinkles on top, $5 for that much happiness was well worth it :)

Yawn...

My second day of official unemployment (the fact I actually finished my last job on 18 December doesn't count because it was the Christmas holidays...). I'm bored already. My day so far:

7:30am: Dave's alarm goes off. He puts it on snooze a million times so I get woken up every 10 minutes until he eventually decides it's time to get up an hour later (actually he didn't do that this morning but every other morning he does).

9:00am: Get up, have my morning bowl of porridge, check my emails and read the news online.

10:00am: Potter around the house cleaning things up and generally trying to waste time.

10:30am: Start looking for jobs online and apply for a couple.

11:30am: Read a couple of chapters of my book, The Girl on the Landing, which is very good, along with the obligatory cup of tea, of course.

12:45pm: Walk to the gym for my cycle class. Almost die of exhaustion. Walk home.

2:00pm: Have lunch. Today it's a baked potato with tuna and tomato followed by a nectarine. Look for more jobs, check emails, go on Facebook. Time wasting...again. Start making dinner (that really is how bored I am).

3:30pm: Meet Dave for a coffee. No appetising cakes at the cafe so, unfortunately, it is just a coffee.

4pm: Go down to the pool to sunbathe and read more of my book to discover the sun has gone in, the sky is overcast and it's actually quite cold. Go back to the flat to kill some more time before my 6:30pm Pilates class.

And that's how my day has gone so far. I think I might bake a cake tomorrow...

My Birthday at Summit

Along with my beautiful new Ralph Lauren jacket (thank you to my wonderful mummy and daddy too), Dave's birthday treat to me was dinner at Summit in Sydney. Summit revolves 360 degrees, 47 floors above the habour over the hour so you have uninterrupted views across the whole of Sydney, even as far as to the Blue Mountains on a good day, throughout your meal. It is owned by celebrity chef Michael Moore and is one of the best restaurants in Sydney - lucky me! We started the evening with cocktails in the Orbit Lounge, which is the bar adjoining Summit. The views were incredible - and my cocktail was pretty good too.

Dinner was also a delicious affair. I had the asparagus 'pissaladiere' salad to start with buffalo mozzarella, taleggio and walnuts, followed by Jewfish (funny name, I know) with pepperoncini, roma tomatoes, anchovies and a kind of ratatouille. Both were gorgeous - beautifully presented and tasted delicious too. Dessert was a birthday-style hot raspberry jam meringue souffle with poached raspberrries and raspberry custard - it looked amazing (and was huge too) but it was a little too sweet for my liking (I did manage to finish it all off though!).

Coffee and petit fours followed along with the sunset, which was beautiful.

A trip to the casino, Star City, finished our evening off nicely. I indulged in a few too many amaretto sours whilst Dave had a flutter, and won some money too. Woo. Thank you for a wonderful evening Dave, I'm a very spoilt girl, I couldn't have asked for a better birthday :)

NYE 2009 Sydney Style

Before I write anything, yes, the photo on the left is stolen from the internet. I could never take a photo this good, nor did we have such an amazing view of the bridge. Anyway! Sydney is obviously famous for it's NYE fireworks display so we couldn't come here and not watch it on the big night! There are many vantage points from which you can watch the fireworks, one of the best being Mrs Macquarie's Chair in the Royal Botanic Gardens. This was our view of the bridge from our picnic spot - a little obscured by trees but good nonetheless!

NYE in Sydney is an all day thing and because everyone wants the best view, people are willing to queue from the early hours. Dave headed off to Mrs Macquarie's Chair at around 9am loaded down with all of our picnic things. He said that by the time he got there people had already been queuing for at least 3 hours beforehand - some had even arrived as early as 4am to ensure they bagged a good spot - crazy! I didn't join him until later; I left the house at 11:30am and didn't get to our picnic until 2:30pm. I'm bad with queues at the best of times so you can imagine how grumpy I was by the time I eventually reached Dave and all our goodies!

Round 1 of the picnic started when I arrived: various deli meats, roasted peppers, sweet potato salad, crusty bread, various cheeses, cherries and rockmelon plus a glass of vino. Delicious! Then the wait started for the fireworks. We entertained ourselves quite easily with card games, reading and walks every now and then. Dave and I even managed to find somewhere selling chocolate dipped marshmallows and strawberries (it's become a bit of an obsession of ours - we even made some last night).

Round 2 of the picnic happened at around 8pm. The kiddies fireworks went off at 9pm and they were very impressive; we were in for a treat at midnight! Every hour until then a big blast of fireworks would go off getting everyone revved up for the main event. After this we cracked open the vodka and the drinking games started...

Finally midnight came around and wow the fireworks and atmosphere were AMAZING. Apparently each year the display takes 15 months of planning and costs $15 million dollars. Expensive, yes, but very, very worth it. A once in a lifetime experience and very surreal to be there for real; it gave me goosebumps! Happy New Year (and Happy Birthday to me too)!

Road trip to the Hunter Valley and Central Coast

The day after Boxing Day we went on a road trip up to the Hunter Valley and Central Coast with Dave's parents and their campervan. It took us around 2 hours to get from Sydney to Cessnock, which is in the centre of the Hunter Valley, Australia's oldest wine growing district. We settled into our little cabin on a lovely campsite complete with it's own vines and then headed out to a nearby cafe for some lunch.

The first vineyard we went to was Tempus Two - we sampled a few wines and also went to the Very Smelly Cheese Shop adjacent to it to sample some cheeses. The whole vineyard was quite disappointing because it was very commercial and obviously geared towards tourists and making as much money as possible. The views, however, were beautiful (even though it was raining).

We decided that we'd try and find something less commercial so the next day we visited the McWilliams winery. Here, we had a proper tour of the vineyard; it was quite interesting to see how wine is produced on such a massive scale, especially when I compare it to my Dad's

yearly home brewing!

After two days in the Hunter Valley drinking lots of wine and eating some wonderful food, we got back on the road for the last few days of our trip. We headed towards the coast ending up in a little seaside town called Umina. Again we stayed in a small cabin on a campsite, which was right by the beach. Thankfully the sun decided to come out after days of rain so Dave spent the day body-boarding (and got the worst sunburn since we've been in Aus) whilst I sunbathed and read!

By far the best part of the holiday though was Dave's near miss with a possum that we saw on the campsite after a post-dinner walk on the beach; as he was taking a photo of it (it was really tame and he managed to get really close) it swiped it's little paw out and almost knocked my camera out of his hand. Vicious little bugger!

Christmas Day

Mine and Dave's first proper Christmas Day together! We started the day with cream cheese and smoked salmon bagels whilst opening all our presents. Santa was good to me this year (Dave) and bought me a beautiful pearl necklace plus tickets to see Cats, my favourite ever musical, in Perth! Lucky me :)

We then decided to go for a pre-dinner walk, as it was still quite early, to the Royal Botanic Gardens; surprisingly there were lots of people about having picnics and eating out at the various restaurants around Circular Quay.

Christmas dinner consisted of the obligatory turkey (first one I've ever cooked!), roast potatoes, sweet potatoes and pumpkin, peas, carrots, stuffing, cranberry sauce and various other things! The turkey was deliciously moist - I was very pleased with it. Dessert was a Christmas trifle made by my own fair hands, which was also delicious. The rest of the day was spent watching Christmas TV and eating the mince pies and fruit cake that I had made a few days before.

To match our traditional English Christmas dinner, it even rained, English style - very fitting and it made a big, warm meal not so silly in the southern hemisphere!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was a hot day so whilst Dave was at work until the afternoon I busied myself making a lasagne (a little tradition we have at home) and sunbathing. I then met up with Dave who was down by Darling Harbour having Christmas drinks with his work colleagues.

After our delicious lasagne we took a walk down to the Harbour as there were Christmas carols being sung by the tree. Unfortunately, they turned out to be very disappointing so instead we found a lovely

spot in Jordon's bar with a beautiful view and ordered a bottle of champagne to celebrate Santa's impending arrival. To our surprise at 9pm there was an amazing fireworks show over the Harbour - if these were anything to go by, then the New Year fireworks over the brid

ge were going to be amazing!

A few more glasses of champagne later (and feeling a little worse for wear) we headed home for a Christmas film and the last sleep before Santa made his visit.