The weather once we got back was amazing and we settled in for a long, long summer, had a couple of weekends on the beach, played plenty of golf and restarted midweek supper club! There are a serious number of restaurants just around our suburb so we have taken to task at getting around them and true to form we are progressing nicely!

Couple of weeks ago we headed to Melbourne for a long weekend. We left Sydney in beautiful 30 degree sunshine and turned up to a brisk 11 degrees Melbourne! The weekend was awesome, as usual plenty of top quality food, flowing wine and great times! It was AFL Grand Final weekend in Melbourne, given tickets were selling in excess of $1000 each we opted for a bar in St Kilda, the home suburb of one of the finalists! Unfortunately St Kilda didn’t win, but the atmosphere and fun were top notch!

Back to Sydney we have had a few weeks of rain which, given the recent dust storm, have been welcome by most so Karen will have to wait a couple of weeks for a return to the beach!  My birthday fell midweek so we opted for supper club on my actual birthday (probably one of the top three restaurant experiences to-date in Oz) and celebrations with all on the Sunday of a long weekend. The Sunday was then the turn of the rugby league grand final which resulted in a day long drinking accumulating in everyone back to ours! I don’t think the neighbours were too impressed given we were complaining the music wasn’t loud enough at 2am!!!

Anyway, wedding plans are coming along nicely – stag & hen plans are in the air and the finer detail for the wedding being discussed.

We had a weekend in Melbourne with Bear & Emily which was awesome. Eat lots of rich food, drank lots of cocktails and good wine with great company – so all in all, fab weekend! We even went to the MCG to catch a AFL game and really enjoyed the game too!

Last week we eventually got ourselves to Watsons Bay for fish & chips! Oh, and the weather that day was awesome! Middle of winter and low 20′s! Some people were on the beach in swimmers and applying sun cream, others where in hats and scarf’s! The fish and chips were simply beautiful too!

Check out the pics (especially the one of Mr Benbow + 20 years!), catch those in the UK next month for a mad week of catch up!!

The Melbourne weather on the Friday was ominous – it almost started to rain upwards! But fortunately we had a dry & warm day and we made the most of it! Myself, Kazza, Bear, emily, Ross & Jill all made our way to the fairground to catch, amongst others, The Killers, Duffy, Snow Patrol, Razorlight and of course, the Chiefs!

Check out the rest of the pictures in the gallery…

Our preparation was of course how to smuggle grog into the event! Now, in Australia the eski is king – so armed with three types of eski we split our risk and managed to smuggle a wine goon bag in as a chicken, another goon back in as a plate of sandwiches, another goon bag (this time full of rum!) in as more sandwiches and of course some vodka in as water! We even had ice!

Once we were past the relaxed security checks we made our way to one of the two viewing hills as we only had general admission tickets. Once we had bagged a significant space we had a beer to celebrate – its was 11am The girls turned up in due course, distracting security with Krispy Creme donuts (how prepared we were!) and we settled in for a fabulous spread!

After the warm up of Ford Fista’s, Aussie racing cars (driven from the back seats) and the driver parade lap (each driver driven around in a fire truck to give praise to the victorian fire service) we were set for the F1 race – and Jenson was on pole As expected we got glimpses of the cars as they hurtled past but this time we had the benefit of the screen to watch the race elsewhere on track.

I became obsessed with my Union Jack (honestly, the photo’s have been pruned) and we celebrated extensively Jenson’s fabulous victory. After the race and presentation (more flag waving) we walked around the track (falling off into the gravel trap!) to the paddock to have a look’sy – we even spotted Jenson! But I could not get to the fence in time to give him my flag.

From here we had our second spread of the day – roast chicken to be precise – then rocked out, with flag of course, to The Who!

The next day we went to the Stoke House for birthday dinner with Emily and were pleased to see Jenson turn up! Although the girls wanted a picture, they were too shy to ask – so I took the opportunity to shake his hand, congratulate him, then snap him with the girls. If only I had given him the flag the night before I could have asked for it back!!!