The Boy with the Thorn in his Side

And so it is... Australian employer No.5 in less than one year is now an ex-employer. Damn, I'm sure I used to be better at holding down jobs than this!? Of course I've been restricted to a 3month maximum contract, and several of those jobs have been very temporary. Who could forget my week spent in a Perth chicken factory chiller unit!?

It is however, the end of an era, in that my working holiday visa; valid from February 2nd 2006 to February 2nd 2007 is soon to expire. With that came a big choice, a tough decision and another new challenge. (One of) My original plans were to head off to New Zealand to try my hand at working there for a while, however, life in New South Wales has quickly become lifestyle for me and home is now Randwick. Career is in the Central Business District of Sydney and England now seems to be a holiday destination. So for the last week I've been back in the job-searchers market with the difference this time being that I need the prospective employer to offer me sponsorship to stay in the country past the expiration of my official document.

Meanwhile, life has calmed down and I'm simply enjoying all that the Summer here in Sydney has to offer. These last couple of weeks have seen me regaining some colour, wining, dining, barbequeuing, exercising more than any other time in the last 14months and swimming in as much water as I can, be it in the ocean, a swimming pool or water park. Last weekend myself and a few friends headed to Jamberoo waterpark... it was going to be something I'd write about in my blog, however the park was overcrowded, due to the school holidays which made for more time out of the water queueing than time having fun... ah well, I guess you can't win em all.

A Spaceman Came Travelling

The Christmas bumper issue,

Twas the Thursday before Christmas and all most of us were thinking about was knocking off from work for the weekend... even though Friday was still to be worked. You see, work shouted a full lunch in honour of a guy leaving our department for one of the English offices, so with a few beers already inside us, you could understand the mentality there.

I finished up and went to meet some friends from back home visiting Sydney for the first time - Hev and Sarah. After dinner at Five-O's, we headed into the palace where we kinda got Christmas off and running early, Az, Jazz and their folks showed up later in the evening and somehow I found myself out a bit too late on a school night.

Despite only being a 5hour day, Friday dragged beyond belief... I did however manage to make it an AFD (Alcohol Free Day); oh, aside from 2 beers after work. Must try harder.

Saturday had been planned for a few weeks, and a bunch of us met at Dirty Nelly's Irish pub in Paddington for the first leg of our "12 days of Christmas" pub crawl. After meeting our fellow crawlers, we headed onward down Oxford Street to pubs 2, 3, 4 and so on... Christmas hats were purchased, pool & pokies were played, many a joke told. By pubs 7, 8 & 9 in the city we could see the end in sight, but still realised just how far we had to go. Eyes got tired, the conversation degraded and some people started downing pints - a great idea only at pub 8 and beyond!? Nightfall and we hit the double figures for drinks and pubs in close quarters to my old job Macquarie Place... my memory of what happened from here is probably a little too hazy to try to recall... but I remember making into those final doors and slowly making my way through my final Tooheys New of the day. Taxi for Fonfara...

Christmas Eve, some Christmas shopping, some chilling out, a nice BBQ dinner in the evening and again a very low alcoholic content - no wonder after the previous days epic.

Shrimp on the Barby!


I started my Christmas in a very untraditonal way. I went for a run about town and the local park - almost an attempt at 'pre-burning' some of the culinary delights I was about to assault my body with later in the day.

Without any breakfast I met up with Aaron & Jarrads family and we headed off in a taxi to the Carlton Crest Hotel for our all-you-can-eat Christmas dinner buffet.

The forecast had been bleak, but with a weather forecast that makes the Blighty one look 100% accurate, anything was possible, and as the afternoon started, the sun was out and made for a nice temperature. Meanwhile, the seafood was being devoured. Prawns, Crab, Oysters, Yabbies, Salmon to name a few... I was nearly full when I finished my seafood - but then moved on to some more traditional Coq Au Vin - well, traditonal in France maybe! The afternoon drew on with wine & beer and finally a huge swoop to the dessert section. When we made it home, with bellys full of food making us feel like whales as we plunged the pool and basked in the afternoon Christmas sunshine.

A Racing Song n Dance


Eversince I knew that the Southern Hemisphere had hot Christmases, I'd always wanted to experience one on the beach in Australia. On Boxing Day I finally got to fulfil this desire. The sun was shining, though the wind was up so after a kick around on the Randwick oval, 30minutes sunbaking and a quick swim we were done.


I then headed back home to get changed, walked a out of my front door and around the corner at met some friends at the Randwick racecourse - free to internationals today!.

The earlier winds had died off and the weather had turned into an absolutely gorgeous day. The whole gang ended up drinking Champagne to celebrate.

After the races we headed into the city for a good ol' knees up at the Lowenbrau beer cafe where as well as food & beer (yes, beer after champagne - never a great idea!), the hosts belted out some sing/shout/clap along numbers and everyone had a ball.

Then some bright spark suggested we go karaoke (can you guess?), 2minutes later and one of the guys; Brian, had phoned ahead and booked us in!

Sometime around the turn of midnight, Christmas was over for another year and I was sleeping off a heck of a good party.

Come Back Brighter

Another New Job, Sydney

Late last week, after a couple of days settling into my new job, I got a few calls from various recruitment people that I'd either dealt with the previous week or some of the stragglers a little too late to help. Except one. Jordan called me to ask if I was interested in a roll at a well known contruction firms flagship office in Sydney. Having heard about the company before, I was interested in knowing some more about the role and so went on with the conversation.

3days fast forward, and I'm running from my office near Town Hall to the underground train at 11.35am. Out at Wynyard station I carried on into the Rocks and onto the road the company is based on. My brief map research however had only showed me one side of the crescent shaped road which loops from one side of the harbour bridge to the other. I was walking for 25minutes, around 12more than I actually had to play with before the start of my big interview. I made an advanced call to apologise and things seemed okay once I met with the gents conducting the interview.

Over tea & coffee overlooking the harbour, they fired questions, and I answered them. It all seemed to go very well. Then it was time to make the dash back downtown from my "lunch with friends". I guess I should have tried harder to uphold the lie, but I couldn't resist walking back into the office with a fruit smoothie and slice of cake - which incidentally, no-one clocked considering they all knew where I'd "been". Several hours later, I received a call to tell me that the feedback from the interview had been "very good". My weekend was set to be a good one, with just my final offer to come through before I could throw in the towel early at my tedious role in State Government.

A typical Sydney Summer weekend followed; well, to be honest it started on Thursday night, carried on Friday through till Tuesday after the U2 gig.

Saturday was absolutely stunning though, and with the Sun, I helped Aaron with the pool maintenance in the morning before heading down to Coogee Beach at lunch time for a beachside BBQ and Frisbee-fest.

We tried to do the same on Sunday, but at Bronte beach. The weather was not as good and cloud cover kept things cooler than we’d wished. We did however make it to "Go-Low"! No, not a limbo institution, but a cheap shop selling all kinds of magical stuff. We picked up some inflatables for the pool, a hand saw, some chocolates and a santa hat. All for pennies! Random stuff you may think, and I'd have to agree, but the hand saw did help us massacre the neighbours tree overhanging the pool (it'd been dropping blossom and leaves in the pool clogging the filter, not just cos we were in a destructive mood!). When we were done, things were much better, and of course we got to feel like real men for all that sawing we'd done!