Mosquito, mosquito, wherefore art thou Mosquito?

Mosquitoes have actually become the bane of my life. Not because I get bitten by them you see because they don't really seem to like me that much, I get a bite here and there but nothing to bother me too much, but because they love Dave (they obviously have bad taste). He becomes a crazy man when one is in the room, particularly at night.

Last night, for example, I was happily sleeping when he jumps out of bed and says: "Lucia, there's a mosquito in the room, I'm going to have to turn the light on so cover your eyes." Uggggh I'm trying to sleep...the light goes on, Dave bounces around the room for about 15 minutes trying to find it, the light goes off, back to sleep. If you haven't been disturbed enough to now be fully awake, that is.

Perhaps the most annoying thing about this little ritual Dave has is that he will then moan in the morning about having had a bad nights sleep - as if he is the only one!! Men, hey?? Why he can't turn the light on OUTSIDE the bedroom so the mosquito then flies out in to the lounge is beyond me....that way everyone is happy - I don't get disturbed sleep, Dave gets to murder the mosquito, we wake up in the morning biteless and well-rested. Makes too much sense to ever happen doesn't it?!

Not Quite Kasparov

Since I’ve left Stanford Road there has been a gaping void in my life left by the absence of Tom, and specifically, our twice-weekly ritual of playing chess over a pint of beer at the Chimney House. Or, in fact, any pub which both had a chess set and that Tom had not been barred from. Both of these factors severely limited our choice of pubs. Anyway, to keep me occupied on the 24 hour flight over I brought with me my computerised ‘Kasparov Chess’ set which has kept me occupied many a lonely night since. I was delighted to find this provides a more challenging game than Tom did, and certainly provides a more balanced insight into any moral conundrums I happened to be facing at work or in life. It also doesn’t shaft me on the ‘loser buys the drinks’ principle. I have also started playing with Wayne, a guy at work, during lunch. Wayne provides better conversation than the computer, but is annoyingly good and tends to win a little too often. He has lent me his ‘Chess Player’s Bible’ which, whilst not an exhilarating read, is bearable and the thought of thrashing Tom when I return makes it worth pursuing. Unfortunately, despite all this effort I don’t seem to be getting any better. I can tell you when you can use En Passant, comment on the positional considerations of the Dragon Variation of the Sicilian Defence and tell you why you should use a Fianchettoed Bishop. Theoretically, I could give a Grand Master a good game. I can talk a great game, but can’t seem to play one. It seems I’m the chess equivalent of a back-seat-driver.

Another random but lovely Tuesday

Tuesday seems to be becoming our day of doing something random but lovely in the evening to break up the week a bit. This Tuesday Dave came up with the rather romantic idea of going for dinner followed by a long coastal walk from Bondi to Bronte. So after he had finished work, this is exactly what we did!

We made our way to a little tapas restaurant called the Rum Diaries in Bondi, which Dave had been to before and knew I would love. Indeed I did. Everything we had was absolutely delicious: a selection of homemade breads with dips, botanical bliss balls (carrot, beetroot and courgette mixed with brown rice - sounds weird but delicious), smoked fishcakes, pumpkin wedges, and Spanish beef stew.

It doesn't seem like much written down but we were both so full by the time we had finished! Dave even treated me to a cocktail - I chose something called Black and Blue, which was a massive mistake as it was just puuuure alcohol - I took one sip and Dave had to drink the rest.

After dinner we trotted across the road to the House of Chocolates where we chose a selection of yummy choccies (we spent $15 - oopsie) and munched them for dessert on our way to Bondi Beach. The walk was lovely: lots of joggers, dogs, and beautiful scenery. Beats spending a night-in in front of the television that's for sure.

Crown Green Bowling

As some of you may know, Uncle Ken (American Express CEO and general godlike figure) has cut all funding for team building activates or any team parties. In short, he's stopped us having fun on the company. So for the past couple of years we've had to fund our own fun, and as a result have generally been doing quite cheap things like, erm, going on coastal walks and having BBQs by the beach. Oh, and the one that I organised; spending the day planting saplings of native species of trees alongside a 'creek' whilst 'eradicating intrusive species' of plants, i.e. the ones introduced by the British when we populated this country of reprobates with the population of our society which was deemed not worthy of prison in the UK.


More recently we did a team build in McMahons Point, which is just a ferry ride away on the North Shore. This was lunch with drinks, followed by crown green bowling with drinks, followed by drinks with more drinks. The bowling itself was only $10 for about 90 minutes of pure, unadulterated and quite frankly melanomaring fun. Naturally my team- new BIS- comprising of me, JK, Darren and Greg won the competition. This is in no small part due to Darren being, I'm assured, the most competitive man in American Express, and Greg, who employed an interesting left-handed strategy to steer our team towards success. Greg, featured below, swears he is right-handed, not even ambidextrous, but was working on the basis that the left hand often feels left (if you'll excuse the pun) out. So, supposedly, if you give it a chance and try to teach it a new skill it gets "very happy" and "tries really hard" (to quote Greg). Funnily enough Greg scored more points with his left hand than anyone else in the team with their right hand. I'm going to try this strategy when I next play squash with Skins, when, let's face it, I could win with no hands.

Lizzy Bay Builders

Due to us now living quite some distance away from my office I have to take some of my work calls from home. This morning was one of those mornings. Lucia left for the gym, or as she now likes to call it 'home' at about 6 this morning, and I was left to take my calls from 7. At about 8 there was a knock at the door- a builder saying that they were doing some structural repair works to the outside wall of the house just outside our window, which may take upwards of a months. Anyway, he told me if I wanted to shower or use the toilet I had a hour to do so, after which I couldn't use any running water until this afternoon because they were disconnecting the waste pipes. For the next two hours I, and everyone else on the end of my unmuteable phone, had to endure a constant drilling at the wall just outside my window.

My calls finished at 10 and I had to shower, shave and get into work for my next meeting at 11. In a rush, I jumped into the shower doused myself with Lucia’s shampoo then heard someone banging on the window and shouting ‘SWITCH THE WATER OFF!’. I quickly turned the water off and ignored the remainder of the shouting through the window. Two minutes later someone knocked at my door, slightly more forcefully than the first time. I ignored the first two sets of knocking then when they wouldn’t go away I answered the door with my bluetooth headset on pretending to be on a call. My logic for this is that, firstly, it meant I couldn’t talk to them and, secondly, despite the slightly wet looking hair they might think that it wasn’t me using the shower.

When the wet and angry looking builder asked to come in I pointed to the headset and told him I was busy. When he asked if I’d been using the water, I said “no, mate. Sorry, wasn’t me. I’ve been on a call for two hours”. Get out of jail free card, I thought. Then he asked to see the bathroom. Gulp! I panicked and said no “my girlfriend is in there”. “Did she use the shower” he said, “I don’t know” I replied. “Could go and ask her for me?”. Gulp again, I was never any good at drama or lying, and here I was trying to combine the two. Queue short one way conversation in the bathroom with myself. I came out and told them that she’d used the shower, but was doing her makeup now and wouldn’t turn the tap on again. I then apologised profusely on Lucia’s behalf before getting them to go away and leave me to my imaginary call and let my imaginary girlfriend finish her makeup. There is definitely a moral of the story: don’t try to maintain too many lies simultaneously.

They should have just been grateful I was using the shower and not the toilet.

Standard Friday Night Out

Ok, so I’m happy to concede that my sweet, lovely girlfriend is much better at this blogging thing than I am. She was going to write about what we did for the weekend before last, but I asked her to let me do it. Now that I’m getting around to it, I don’t really remember too much about what we did, but I’ll give you the highlights. As a working couple Lucia and I have, by and large, got into the ‘living for the weekend’ mentality. Not to say we don’t do cool things during the week, if you count our ‘boxercise followed by pizza at Mad and desert at Wow Cow followed by our mid week shop at Harris and DVD’ on hump day as ‘cool'.


The weekend started as they so often do with me going to pick up Lucia from the Ivy where she was ‘just having one drink after work’. This is her usual Friday night routine- her and Pri frequent the most pretentious bar in Sydney in the hope of catching a glimpse of Dan Carter or Jarrod Hayne for whom it is a local haunt. By the time I found her she’d polished off a bottle of wine and suddenly a night out was on the cards. A couple of drinks, a short cab ride and a few home made cocktails later we were ready to hit the town. We got a cab to Surry Hills to meet Alex, Ian and Fry and did a short pub crawl around the area.

Throughout the night I was ridiculed for my personal hygiene procedures, which I admit are metrosexual at best. Fortunately I managed to reassert my masculinity by winning the calf competition.

And the night ended with all the guys competing for the affections of a random gay man who appeared to be by himself in the Kings Cross hotel. This started off as funny, soon got weird and within the hour was simply disturbing. Anyway, Ian won the competition and I hope they enjoyed their night together.


Saturday was a relaxed affair- a lovely lunch at Blancharu followed by a short stroll to the entertainment quarter to watch the waratahs beat the sharks. The game was not great, the view was even worse and the only redeeming factor was noticing Phil Waugh’s physical resemblance to, ironically, a wombat.

David's First Blog

So, at risk of everyone reading this blog thinking Lucia is here by herself here in Australia, I thought it was time to write a blog myself. After all, we're well over half way through our stay so if I maintain this rate of blogging this will be my first and last post.

Why do I feel the need to start blogging now? Lucia, in one of her more creative moments, in fact, her only creative moment to date, mentioned that she intended to get the blog printed out, bound and turned into a book when we return to the UK. A lovely idea, but the general reader could be excused for thinking that Lucia was out here by herself with nothing more than a number of very nice restraunts and ice cream shops. Anyone following our exploits on Facebook would think the same because I take all the photos, most of which are of Lucia.

So, in short this is me making my statement and saying 'Yes! I was here!, and I'm having a bloody good time too.' Lucia, are we allowed to swear on here?

Redoak Boutique Beer Cafe

On Tuesday evening we decided we needed a date night to get us through the week: dinner and a film. We headed to Redoak Boutique Beer Cafe, which we'd been meaning to go to for a while, and had luckily been given a two for one voucher at the Taste of Sydney.

Redoak is Australia's most awarded brewery and brews a range of beers on site including their speciality Framboise Froment beer which is $75 for a 250ml bottle! We decided to go for something a bit (a lot, in fact) cheaper; I had a blackberry wheat beer, which had an unexpected but nice flavour, and Dave had the honey pale ale, which was delicious with a definite undertone of honey.

Redoak claim to have a "fine cuisine" menu and they also match beers to each dish. We decided to go for a cheese tasting plate to start- 4 different cheeses matched with 4 different beers: it was exquisite - I didn't realise beers could differ so much in flavour and go so well with cheese! Our main courses were equally as delicious and although it turned out to be quite an expensive meal, it was definitely worth it.

Tummies full, (but with enough room to fit in some English Cadbury's mini eggs) we headed to the cinema to watch The Blind Side with Sandra Bullock, which was very good - one of the best films I've seen since Inglorious Basterds. A lovely meal and a good film: a very nice evening to break up the working week.

A weekend full of hangovers

There is a vicious rumour that Dave is currently writing some posts for the blog so before he hijacks it, I'm going to get my post in first!

On Friday night we went to the Taste of Sydney, which is a festival showcasing some of Sydney's best restaurants and producers. For a fraction of the price, we were lucky enough to sample some amazing food. Even luckier we were in close proximity to lots of celebrity chefs, including George Colombaris and Matt Preston, presenters of Masterchef Australia; I did queue up to get my photo taken with them but they left just as it was my turn boo - I don't think it was anything personal.

After the festival we went for a mini pub crawl in Paddington, one of the suburbs near where we live. Bicep competition between Dave and I ensued..who do you think wins?
Yup, I think me too. Anyway, what was meant to be "mini" turned into one too many vodka and cranberries over a short period, and we were home by 12:30!

Saturday morning was spent nursing a sore head and when we eventually surfaced, we decided that only lunch out and a film could sort us out. We headed to Spice I Am, a very nice Thai restaurant in Darlinghurst, which is always packed at night. It was spookily quiet at lunch time, despite the fact that the usual $40 main courses were all $25...obviously it's the place to be seen in the evening, rather than saving your money by going at lunch time. I had the most divine king prawn dish, and Dave had a rather fancy duck curry presented in a coconut shell.

A nice afternoon of yummy food was rounded off by seeing Precious at the cinema (accompanied by the essential choc top of course - this time hazelnut flavour ice cream).

Saturday evening, Dave and I went our separate ways - he went out with some friends for a couple of "quiet" drinks and I went out with some of the girls for some not so quiet drinks. Another hangover on Sunday. Lesson learnt this weekend: next weekend I'm not drinking a drop. Will it happen? Unlikely.

Wow Cow

Australia is a hot country; an essential part of the diet here therefore is ice-cream. We are very lucky to live near two amazing gelaterias - there is Teahna Banana, a 2 minute walk from our house, and there is the famous Gelato Messina, which reputedly sells Sydney's best ice-cream. It is admittedly pretty amazing - with flavours such as blood orange, dulce de leche, apple pie and gingerbread, it's often very hard to pick a flavour! My absolute favourite there though is the nougat flavour with it's delicious nutty taste and chewy bits of nougat dotted through.

There is however a new craze in Sydney: frozen yoghurt. There are a couple of places where we live dedicated to frozen yoghurt but they have all been disappointing - nothing seems to be able to beat that nougate ice-cream. This all changed last week: on one of our late night walks we discovered a shop called Wow Cow, and wow was it busy. It's a really cute little shop, with a cow hanging from the ceiling!

There are various flavours of yoghurt including original, coffee and wild berry, and then you choose toppings too - healthy options such as mango, mixed berries, and passionfruit; or naughty options such as oreos, m&ms, and tim-tams. Our choice: original flavour with mixed berries and cinammon sticks. It was amazing!

We went back three times this weekend...I've found my favourite combination: coffee flavoured yoghurt with a topping of almonds. I actually think I might prefer it to ice-cream, and I can pretend it's a bit healthier too!