Break the Night With Colour

Christmas break: Pool Party Thursday

Aaron and I took advantage of the days off between Christmas and New Year as best we could. Thursday morning, we took a shopping trip to buy some supplies for what was to be a real highlight of the break - a long overdue pool party.

During the preparations, I managed to walk into a table – head first. No, I wasn’t already crawling, but a mis-hap as we raised a picnic table up high meant I would get to spend the afternoon with a ridiculous red graze smack in the middle of my forehead. That’ll be the Christmas/New Year bad luck kicking in then…

I’m pretty sure Az has done this before, preparing blank canvasses with poster paints for all attendees to sign in on, play-dough and a pool full with inflatable toys. The guests drank, shot hoops and fuusball, swam, bounced the trampoline and munched on BBQ – in-between basking in the sun.

Unfortunately, a number of our male guests didn’t make it along and so sadly we had to endure a 2:1 female to male ratio. Bummer. Really.
As night fall fell, the party looked to be gearing down, before everyone was once again back in the water – along with a bunch of glow sticks to provide one of the best party props I’ve seen in a while. A great way to spend one of those Christmas in-between days.

Moruya Friday & Saturday

The fallout from the pool party felt very much to me like it might last an awful long time. With some persuasion however, Az got me in the car for a road trip down to visit one of his old uni mates in a town around 5 hours South of Sydney - Moruya. He promised, peace, quiet, the possibility of surfing, golf, fishing and more importantly - an alcohol free environment. Golf & fishing were the two here that didn't happen...

We took what must have been the most segmented drive down, with many a stop off at McDonalds, greasy spoon kebab parlours and Servo's. Somehow we made it before nightfall.

Up early-ish the next day, Evo took us down to the beach for a surf. I was honestly quite dubious about trying what has in the past yielded the most injuries per hour of any sport I ever tried. The rocks visible around the beach and break compounded this further, but with a bit of a "whatever" attitude I made it down to the water.

I managed to surprise myself. After barely getting my feet on the surface of a buoyant surf board during my whole time in Australia, I nailed around 4 out of 5 waves that came my way. Factors contributing to this: shallow water- I could literally walk to the waves, no rip, reasonable size waves rather than killer Luke-flipping big mama's. This was enjoyable surfing as I remember it back in the UK and Thailand. (Although I have some shots of me cutting back into some huge 6ft barrels, I figured you'd sooner see me fall over than show off...)

An afternoon in the pub gave more surprises and another first for me - except this time not the variety I really like. I took a break at the pool table, and didn't get another shot all game. Evo cleared up on me and it was time to drop trou and do a lap of the table as forfeit for being on the wrong end of pools most impressive feat.

After all this excitement, the 3 of us wandered back for a BBQ and general chill out session culminating, not necessarily at the same time, in the 3 of us passing out in front of the telly.

The final day of the year dawned, and we took an early exit to get back to Sydney in good time for an evening of more celebrations.

There's a few more pictures on my photo site from the Moruya trip. (www.fonfara.blogspot.com)

New Years Eve

The last day of the year, again. I've become a grumpy old man when it comes to New Years. Bad stuff seems to happen to me around this time of the year traditionally (I get the Flu, I fall off a motorbike or the night just ends up being such a big let down due to the nature of an over-hyped event). Today I tried my hardest to forget it was new years and to just pretend I was just going along to any old barbeque/pool party at a luxury house on the North Shore of Sydneys harbour.

From 2 or 3 o clock in the afternoon the final big drink of the year got underway, everyone in attendance in high spirits. After that initial period of meeting a bunch of new people, we were soon messing about and playing drinking games. Though as more and more people (also read - girls) left the playing area, we knocked it on the head for some grub.

9 o clock ticked up and with this came the family fireworks display - or practice run for the main event. Far too soon we’d been back to the house and were back out looking over the harbour toward the Opera House and bridge awaiting the countdown. 7 years ago I’d climbed a tree and watched the millennium fireworks over Big Ben, this year I scaled a wall and sat on the front of someone’s balcony, lucky the party didn’t mind so Az & Moretti followed me up plus some randoms - everyone loves a random afterall.

A little hazily I recollect nothing of a countdown before the fireworks were unleashed. A pretty great show, which I did absolutely nothing for in the shaky photographs that I took. I've thrown a couple on here for token representation... just don't look too closesly!

3hours later, we finally made it back to Manly where we crashed out during those first hours of 2007. Finally a succesful New Years Eve, I even managed to wake up with a smile on my face.

Happy New Year!! Have a great 2007.