Unwelcome Guests

Its 5.30 in the morning. I have been up since 4am. This is partially due to my jet-lag, the fact that I slept all day yesterday, and fear of getting up too late and missing my meeting in the morning. But it is also partially due to my most unwelcome visitors.

When I first arrived in Sydney, an English girl at my work explained about her home situation "I deal with the roaches and my boyfriend deals with the Huntsmans spiders". 

"I don't have any problem with these" I said - to which she replied - "You will!".

At this point in my ignorance I thought they must live in some kind of hole of a house, bathing in their own filth. Or else they are out in the country somewhere that the insects can easily get into the house. I have since been round there and that is hardly the case.

I recently went to another friends flat who had a 3rd floor luxury apartment in Sydney's desirable Darling Harbour. It was night and as he switched o the lights. I saw tens of little roaches scuttling for cover. He said that you just have to live with them as you cant get rid of them.

My tactic thus far has quite different and has been one of total annihilation. We 

recently had a bit of a problem in the kitchen. I saw one of them and it ran away, I thought nothing of it A couple of days later I went in at night and about 10 of the little b@stards ran down the back of the fridge! A healthy dosing of insect repellent later and we seemed to have solved the problem in the kitchen ... the problem in fact seems to have relocated to my bedroom!

Just before I left for the UK (literally minutes) I caught a couple of the critters on the back of my Mac (which was at the time generating a fair bit of heat as I was attempting to rip Hudson Hawk to my Ipod). I had no time to deal with it in my usual fascist manner which worried me over the two weeks I was away.

So to cut a log story short, the other reason that I am up blogging at 5am is that several times over the night I have felt the little buggers crawl over my back! This is not helping my disrupted sleep patterns...

Turning on My Head

So as you may know I have spent the as couple of weeks in the UK, to see Lucy and have a brief break from my job here in Sydney. The trip back has thrown up a few surprises, things I wasn't expecting:

Firstly I wasn't expecting to miss the Yorkshire countryside as much as I did. Over a 30 hour trip I went from this:

To this:

(note: photograph is actually Lake District)

I grew up amongst rolling hills and woods, dry stone walls and most importantly buildings over 20 years old. And I wasn't expecting to miss it as much as I did. As a friend of mine (Introducing "The Gambler") said to me: you miss it because its your home. It was blooming cold and it was snowing, but I really enjoyed being back there.

Secondly, its only been a few months but I forgot how much of a good laugh my friends and I have together. You meet people and spend a lot of time together, but its only amongst the friends that you grow up with that you can let your true sense of humour shine and stop constantly editing yourself. I miss that.

The third thing that I realised, is that nothing really changes. as much as I love it at home, I love it out here for different reasons and things at home will always be the same. My friends will always be there (although a little older and more  under the thumb). So I'll be sticking it out here for a few months more (until I have enough of my job) it seems.

Anyone Need a Lawyer?

My friend The Lawyer last Saturday in the Nook.

Operation Messiah

I haven't been doing a lot of blogging in the last couple of weeks, and there is a good reason - I am currently on holiday from my Sydney residence in the rainy, snowing and cold UK! 

I didn't tell either of my parents and surprised them 10 or so days ago, but couldn't blow my cover until just now as we had a surprise birthday for The City Worker over the weekend. Boy was it hard to plan the operation! I was thwarted at every turn by moder multimedia communication devices. I had to delete facebook wall posts, blogger comments, engage the help of several people in my deception and even get The City Workers girlfriend to hack into his email and delete tell tale messages accidentally sent through to him. Lord knows how the guy is supposed to have an affair when his girlfriend hacks his emails!

It all went well in the end and my mother was suitably surprised:

My Dad wasn't too bothered:

The City worker was hardest of all to decieve as my sources tell me he had a small paddy at the thought that no-one would come to his birthday (we told him all the other guys weren't coming too). But we had a fantastic time in The Infamous Nook. 

A Stand Up Guy

I went to a coal conference on Monday. It was all about the future of coal and how it can contribute to a sustainable future. What was interesting about this conference was that I was actually the only person there under 50. It was certainly old school!

What was more interesting was that the conference was attended by a guy that everyone referred to as 'George' and knew by name. I thought they must all be a part of the same old boys club and probably play bridge together or something. As it turns out, old George is a bit of a celebrity - he attends all of the local seminars on renewable energy and such in his suave pin striped suits with his eighty year old head covered by a lengthy white combover - and he shouts down the speakers!

"I have a question" he will enquire politely raising his hand, actually more of a statement.

"There is absolutely and categorically no point in doing all of this, when the whole climate change and CO2 thing is absolute tosh and nonsense" he will shout, raising his voice to unexpectedly high volumes. "and I have the proof" he will claim raising his bits of paper up in the air.

"Hi George" the speaker will reply. "I am afraid that your question is not really relevant to the topic and we don't have the time to debate that kind of thing. Though I am pleased that these debates are still active, and scientists are still being challenged" the speaker will lie.

He went to a solar thermal talk last week and is apparently a regular all over Sydney according to my colleagues. It made me chuckle a little. 

I want to be just like that when I am old. 

Biarro Alto

Another periodic look at one of my most memorable photos over the last few years (although I must confess - I didn't take this one)...

This photo was taken by the Sergeant Major on the steep slope up to the Biarro Alto (I took this to mean 'beer district' but apparently it actually means 'high district') in the Portugese capital of Lisbon. 

The cast were (I think) right to left: The Artist, myself, The Nurse, The City Worker, and the Lawyer.

There were some good times had at the top of this hill, including playing street football with a couple of Brazilian teenagers (who put us seriously to shame!), watching Portugal play in the World Cup in the bars during the day, drinking Sangria all night, and people milling around in the streets until sunrise.

One of my friends 'The Artist' probably has some more vivid memories than most of this street. This street was the precise street that he got mugged. 

The Artist doesn't have much luck when it comes tour our little holidays - in fact you might have heard me mention The Artists close encounter with a moped in Slovenia(a year earlier). The year we went to Lisbon was no different. 

He had decided to walk home early on the Sunday (our last night) and was heading down the hill when he was confronted by a couple of locals with knives. He did what any sensible person would do ... he ran for it. Unfortunately as it turned out, his assailants ran quicker. This surprised us  - as to us, the Artist was the fastest man alive. We used him as a kind of 'Forrest Gump' during our interform rugby years. I guess time had taken its toll.

He found himself bereft of his mobile phone and wallet (anyone who knows The Artist would realise that the value of those items was probably a princeley 53p). And for some reason became exceptionally annoyed when (after spending the entire evening in the police station), we rolled back into the hostel room after an outrageous nights partying (including persuading a number of dancers in a club to do the world cup Peter Crouch robot dance) and didn't believe that he had actually been mugged.

The next year, the Artist was pickpocketed in Valencia - but that is a different story...