February was a bit of an action packed month that saw Lucy & I very busy. Highlights were Lucy's birthday - I cooked a breakfast and we had a lovely day together. The day after we attended a bird-watching breakfast at Centennial Park that Lucy enjoyed - it's amazing how much wildlife there is in and around where we live. Afterwards, we headed into CBD for the annual Chinese New Year Parade - slightly bizarre - and some great Yum Cha in Chinatown.
The following weekend, Lucy headed to 'Surf School' with Keith (I was supposed to go but had a badly sprained ankle - 5-a-side!) and seemed to have a great time. Even managing to stand up on the board a few times before the arrival of 'bluebottles' (the jellyfish & not the fly version!) brought a premature end to the day. Word of advice to anyone surfing for the 1st time - wear a wet-suit with long legs! We followed that with a night-out on The Rocks with a few friends.... steak at Philip's Foote, followed by a few too many beers at Lowenbrau - needless to say Captain Spank paid me a visit overnight!Other highlights were the visit to Sydney of the two Queen's - Victoria & Elizabeth - and it wasn't even Mardi Gras! Of course, I'm referring to the cruise liners. Victoria was particularly impressive - it seemed as though an apartment block had floated into town!
Enjoyed a great comedy night at The Fringe in Paddington - all 3 of the acts were good (a big change from the last event we had attended in Manly's boat-shed) and the food wasn't too bad either. Certainly a good place to go for a Monday night, and it was packed. Poor guy sat at the front was an airline pilot & he got picked on mercilessly. Also went to University of Sydney to listen to a talk by Tim Harford - an economist - on 'The Logic of Life'. An interesting chat on how economics can be used to explain everyday things such as crime, smoking & even marriage. Unfortunately, the rain we had put paid to our attempts to visit the open air cinema - but then there's always next year! We did enjoy a cracking performance of 12th Night down at Coogee - together with Jackie & Dickie George and a picnic!
Highlight of the month though had to be the all too short visit from Keith - an old friend of Lucy's. He came out to Oz to work, but due to ethical reasons he decided it wasn't for him and so he headed back to the UK (about 10 kilos lighter!) after a brief vacation. Best bit of it for me was his first day - we did the Coogee to Bondi walk (a 3 hr roundtrip walk is a great idea when you've just got off a 24 hour flight!) and ended up in the Palace - a bar (that was supposed to be a shopping centre) overlooking Coogee Beach. After spending ages convincing Keith that we didn't get sharks that often & so it was safe to swim / surf we turned around to find helicopters, speedboats, etc zooming around looking for sharks & the loudspeaker warning everyone to get out of the water! Very amusing! And I'm still not sure how I managed to convince him to take my place on the surf trip! Come back soon mate!
