Back to school
It was Rebecca's first day at 'big school' today as she went back a day before the others with all the Year 7's, although Laura also went in for the morning as she was one of the 'peer support' leaders for a small group of new starters. Rebecca had a good first day, finding her way around, meeting old and new friends and having a few lessons, although nothing too taxing!

Tomorrow Laura and Caroline also start back in earnest and so we return to the early morning routine and Sue will give them all a lift to school, although it's easier now that they are all at the same place. The girls will then walk home in the afternoon, as it's all downhill - unless of course it's raining (or too hot!).

Eating out
Laura and Rebecca were staying overnight with friends last night and Caroline had returned from a busy day up the coast with a friend and her family on the water doing various activities, so Sue and I decided to try the local Thai restaurant in Forestville (attractively named Thai Garlic!).

This was a 20 minute walk away and the evening was cooler after a hot start to the day. We had tried a Thai restaurant near Rebecca's school before Christmas but hadn't been that impressed, but this one was lovely - wonderful flavours and large helpings, plus a very reasonable price as this was also a BYO, so we had taken a bottle of wine along.

The restaurant was quite small, with some tables outside as well, but it always seems popular and was practically full when we arrived at 8pm. It seems that most people eat out early here, so that by 9.30 we were one of the last tables to leave. The streets are quite dark around here at night but it was good to walk off the meal! This could become a regular....

Australia Day
This is the biggest national holiday of the year and this year marks the 219th anniversary of the First Fleet arriving in Sydney Harbour.

Laura and Caroline had arranged to do other things with friends today, so the rest of us drove to Cremorne and caught a ferry across to the city where the crowds were building around the harbour to watch the day's events. The day started out cloudy and cool but soon cleared to a lovely warm and sunny day.

We headed to the Rocks and under the Bridge where we watched the number of 'races' and parades on the harbour, starting with a ferry race which was followed by a parade of boats, many of which were decorated for the day. There were also some flypasts and, in mid-afternoon, a 'tall ships' race which was an impressive sight. There were also different stages around the Rocks with live music and various stalls.

The day had a good atmosphere with lots of Aussies wearing their national colours and enjoying the activities, and with a whole range of events going on in the city (and some of the suburbs as well), there was the impression that lots of effort had gone into the day, which also marks the end of the summer holidays here.

There are some more photos from the day here.

Armchair sport
Sue and I had a late night watching the thrilling 5-set match between Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal at the Australian Tennis Open. Taking place in Melbourne, there are afternoon and evening sessions, so this match didn't start until 10pm and at nearly 4 hours long, meant a 2am bedtime as we couldn't leave it in the balance! Both played some fantastic shots and the game was swinging either way until Murray seemed to fade away and lose it in the 5th set.

Earlier in the day I had been for a meeting with another potential client in Sydney - which is likely to result in some regular work - and then set aside a few hours in the afternoon to watch the rerun of the Arsenal v ManU match (particularly as I had seen the favourable result of 2-1, which made it all the more enjoyable!).

There are 3 or 4 live Premiership games shown here (on cable) each weekend, although this usually means they are on in the early hours of the morning, but they are often shown again during the day (and there's always the video), plus there's a highlights show of all the games shown here on Monday evenings. The small Australian 'soccer' league is of a pretty poor standard (with ex-England 'hard man' Terry Butcher as the under-pressure manager of Sydney FC), so it's good to get a fix of English football every week!

Venturing outside Sydney
The weather has been getting hotter all week and started off hot first thing today, but we'd planned to have a 'family excursion' up the coast to explore the area north of Sydney. We drove for just over an hour to the other side of the Hawkesbury river on the main motorway to the north, which started off busy but the traffic eased the further away from the city and it was a good road with many sections carved into the sandstone rock.

We came off at Woy Woy and headed for Pearl Beach, as we'd heard some good reports of this place, and arrived around lunchtime to a very hot beach - the temperature was in the mid-30s by now and the sand was baking hot. We all had a dip in the sea, which was cooling, although the waves weren't very good here and the sand much coarser than on the beaches closer to home.

We had lunch on the beach and then decided to leave as it was uncomfortably hot, so we started driving further north up the coast to find some other beaches, but then decided to get back onto the motorway at Gosford and head back home. The run back was good and it was probably lucky that we left early as a large bush fire started in the area several hours later which blocked the road and caused a long tailback - not nice in this weather!

We could see the smoke rising into the sky from our house and were glad to be back and using the pool instead! We'll have to try going further again on another cooler day!

Laura's birthday
As we're still in Summer holiday mode we were up around 8am today for Laura's birthday. She took a few calls from the UK and opened some presents before she had to dash off to catch the bus to the beach with some friends. She was then back in the afternoon and we finished the day with the rest of the 'present-opening', a meal, game and film (with some 'champers').

Last night we all went to the Opera House for a performance of The Lost and Found Orchestra, performed by the people behind Stomp. It was a great show, very rhythmic, with lots of instruments made from unusual items, ranging from plastic pipes and water containers, to cello cases, saws, dustbins and traffic cones. Very creative and athletic performances by many of the 50+ performers. We were right near the back and although had a good view of the whole stage, missed some of the expressions and the different items being used (note to take binoculars next time!).

This was a good show to get the girls inside the Opera House for a performance and it was also a lovely warm evening, so we caught the ferry as usual from Cremorne Point and sat on deck watching the harbour, which seemed surprisingly quiet tonight. It was lovely coming out of the show at the end, to walk down the steps of the OH with the lights of the city ahead and the walk around Circular Quay back to the ferry.

Garbage
We had a relatively quiet weekend, although Rebecca was at Luna Park all day on Saturday with friends and Laura and Caroline were off socialising as well. We also had Jane, Clive and Emily come over for tea on Sunday afternoon, along with Jane's dad who is over for a month.

So with not much to report, here's some rubbish information!

We were very surprised - and impressed - to have our weekly garbage collection (which is on a Monday) turn up on both Christmas Day and New Years Day. They also seem to have quite an efficient system here, with just one driver of the garbage lorry who stops at the kerbside and uses a mechanical arm to pick up the bins and empty them into the side of the truck. What's more, the truck is split into 2 sections, so one for the general rubbish and the other for either bottles & plastic, or paper & cardboard, which are collected on alternate weeks.

We have 3 small bins to split the rubbish and we thought at first they would be too small to cope, but we haven't had any problems yet, even over Christmas, although that was helped by the continued collections then. There are also 6-monthly collections of vegetation or other general rubbish, so you begin to see these piles forming along the roadside in the week or so before collections are made.

The general rubbish collection can range from sofas and chairs, to washing machines and other rubbish that won't fit into the standard bins and as we have a collection next week, the piles are appearing around the local streets. It gives you the opportunity to have a rummage and reclaim anything that you might want from a house that is throwing stuff out - and people do - before the collection lorry comes around and clears the streets.

First business meeting
I had my first business meeting today with a company based to the south of the city centre, so Sue dropped me off at Roseville station at 8am and I caught the train into the city. It wasn't too busy even for that time in the morning and the trains have 2 levels of seating so it was a pleasant experience, particularly crossing the Harbour Bridge in the morning sunshine!

There are apparently lots of complaints about the trains here, but they seem frequent enough and the cost was good - about £4 return. Overall the whole process was reasonably straightforward and I got to the meeting in plenty of time. It went well, so I signed up my first customer directly from the Australian business, which was satisfying - much sooner than I was expecting!

Sue and I returned to our social tennis evening last night which had a good turnout, although it took a while to get back into 'the swing'! We are all starting to use the pool more at the moment as well, as the weather has been warm. Sue has calculated that 100 lengths of our pool equate to the 40 she would do each week at the nearby public pool, so she's working on this and trying to keep count!

Beach trips
Today has been sunny and hot (high 20's) so it's been a day by the beach and pool. We drove Caroline and a friend to Freshwater Beach, then Sue, Rebecca and I found the small Castle Rock Cove that we'd spotted the previous week on our Manly walk. We had to park at the end of a residential cul-de-sac and then took the steps down the cliff to the beach, which wasn't too crowded, although most of the people there seemed to have come from boats that were just moored offshore. It was a lovely place for a bit of sun and a gentle swim without the heavy surf, so we spent several hours there before coming home for a swim in the pool and an evening barbie.

Laura remained at home today as she had overdone the sun yesterday when she went to Curl Curl beach with some friends. The rest of us had gone for lunch with Ro and Arthur (relatives of friends from Crowborough) who lived up near Whale Beach and had a pleasant few hours there.

Spider in the pool
Much excitement this morning as Sue was preparing to go for a swim and found our first 'significant' spider in the pool! Pretty sure it was a Funnel-web - one of the most dangerous spiders on earth - and we had been warned about them falling into swimming pools where they can stay alive for several days, so still have to be treated with caution.

This one was about 1.5cm long and was floating on the surface, supported by lots of small air bubbles around its legs and body. When prodded it was very stiff but, after we'd all had a good look, I scooped it out with the net and treated it with the bottom of my shoe!

New Year's Eve
This was a much anticipated event for us, to see the midnight fireworks over the harbour and they didn't disappoint. However, we had a long day waiting for them as we were advised to get to a vantage point early and so arrived at Cremorne Point at 1pm - most of the best vantage points were already taken (or 'reserved' by nearby residents).

We did find a spot with a good view and spent the afternoon watching the crowds, wandering around, reading and playing games. As the day wore on we found ourselves getting surrounded by the lengthening queues for the nearby toilets and, since people would be moving around and in front of us for the fireworks, we decided to move and find a better point to wait and watch.

There was an initial display at 9pm (the 'children's fireworks') which whetted the appetite for later and eventually midnight came around with an amazing display of fireworks which at various stages came off the Bridge or were being launched from about 4 or 5 boats along the harbour in a coordinated display. There was also a section where fireworks were coming from the tops of the tower blocks in the city across the harbour from us. A few more photos can be seen here.

It was a great atmosphere all day - very good natured and a big social event. The sight of hundreds of boats on the harbour was also very impressive as it was hard to tell where the lights from the land finished and the boats began. Most people started to leave as soon as the fireworks ended at 12.15 but traffic wasn't too bad and we made it back home in good time. Having done it once we now have a better idea of what to expect and how to do it next time!

The weather had also predicted rain but it stayed warm and dry, as was New Year's Day which was spent quietly at home, although overnight there were very heavy downpours in advance of the first day of the final test here in Sydney (so England may still have the chance of a draw!).