Day of Rest

Thursday night's drive had bought us time to spend the day in Sydney before picking up the dogs tomorrow first thing. Everybody apart from me - I'm immune to that sort of thing - was terminally woken up to what appeared to be minor hangovers by Eloise locating the loft opening stick and throwing it to the ground to maximum acoustic effect.

We lounged for a good part of the morning, and Eloise spent the morning chasing the cat around, who didn't really seem to appreciate it, and scaling their drawer unit to the fishbowl which was quite out of the way, but not far enough for our little explorer. We (Nicole, Julie and I) then left Gary with the sleeping Eloise and went onto the local Newtown high street to a coffee shop to have breakfast. The ladies failed to hear their phones, and we returned to find Eloise awake again only having slept for half an hour or so and confronting Gary with every man's quandary - what to do with a bawling child.

We then did what you have to do and caught a train down to Circular Quay to look at the Bridge and the Opera House, which were still there. We wandered around for a bit and watched a Ricky Gervais sound-a-like complaining about the British, yeah, then doing some stunts on his bike with a chainsaw, right? He probably thought he was a chilled out entertainer. We then let the sprog loose to see what she'd make of the Aboriginal Didgeridoo Techno Trance music. She didn't dance, but did wander up to get a good look at the funny bloke with the dark skin and white paint blowing into the huge chocolate straw.

She did however make friends with a donkey which was inexplicably standing there by the harbour side, doing precisely nothing, with a small box into which we were presumably supposed to put money. The Monkey found this fascinating, I'm sure she'd rumbled that there was a bloke inside, especially when the ear came off, but she didn't let on for a minute.

The sun was getting quite strong so we caught the train back - Gary got a different train and struck some poses for the camera from across the rails, but frankly none of them are fit for publishing.

We walked down Newtown high street, and stopped at a shop where we bought some hammocks like the one G+J have on their verandah. I think Nicole had this planned all along. We also got some baby clothes, of which more later no doubt.

Then back to the pad where we had some visitors for a barby supper. Ed and Christina came round about five thirty. Ed went to college with Nicole, although I don't think they really remembered each other. He also by some amazing small-world coincidence went to school with a certain James Gavin, although they certainly don't remember each other (well James might I suppose). Yes it turns out Ed is an Ipswich boy and went to Holy Joe's, sailed at Waldringfield, etc etc.

So the barbie was very nice, there was lots of it, that Peacock seems to know his way around food... or a supermarket...

We retired around midnight. There was a certain amount of inebriation in the air.