Christmas in July

A few months ago I said to K, ‘why don’t we have a few people round for some mulled wine and nibbles to do the whole “Christmas in July” thing?’ Christmas in July being an Australian tradition which must have been conjured up by European settlers who felt that, frankly, winter in Australia should be marked by some festivities involving lots of food and drink. Quite right too I reckon as Christmas here is completely wasted on summer – who on earth wants to have all that going on when it’s 35 degrees outside!

Anyway, as these things do, our ‘few drinks and nibbles’ turned into a feast fit for kings for 12 people (was meant to be 16 but we lost a few on the day to the ongoing lurgy striking people everywhere which may or may not be swine flu).

So last week I spent most of my evenings (when I wasn’t in Melbourne!) preparing mince pies, cooking a turkey, chopping veg and generally making lists of things we needed to buy (like plates and cutlery!)

Saturday itself was about 5 hours of prepping and cooking and making the flat look presentable, which was all good fun and very much worth it to have our first proper hosting in our flat since we moved in 9 months ago! The mulled wine went down a treat, as did all the grub, including some fab additions brought along by guests. I’m no domestic goddess but I was quite proud of my mince pies I must say!

Good chat, good fun and K did all the washing up – that’s what I call a successful evening! Oh yes and we’ve got more wine left over than we know what to do with thanks to the moderation of Aussies when it comes to drinking (seriously).

Yikes, it's winter!!!

I can't believe it - winter has finally arrived in my life! After what seems like the longest summer in the world, stretching from pretty much a year ago (barring a brief wintry interlude when we first arrived in Oz in July), today was quite a shock. The clocks changed here on Sunday and it was DARK when I left the office today!!! I can tell I'm going to find this all very confusing - just like when it was summer here and winter back home. I can cope fine with autumn & spring being the wrong way round (doesn't feel that different) but summer & winter are a different story...

Apart from that slight shock to the system, we had another lovely weekend of exploring parts of Sydney that we've not quite managed to until now. Yesterday we walked up and around Kurraba Point, to the east of Kirribilli, taking in some fine views as we went. As is customary after any walking adventures we do, we treated ourselves to a few beers afterwards: the venue was the Oaks, a very pleasant beer barn in Neutral Bay (the suburb along from us and where we ended up after walking), so-called because it's a complex of about 7 linked bars, with a quadrangle-shaped beer garden, centred around a massive oak tree which must be from colonial times if not before (er, were oaks imported here, I don't know?!)

The afternoon was sunny, warm and lovely - but it did have that feeling of 'this might be the last time for a while that we spend a couple of hours in a beer garden in the sun' - oh well, will just have to find some nice bars for indoor beers!!

Pictures to follow once K comes back from Melbourne with our laptop...