Almost back to normal...

My dad had an operation yesterday (Wednesday) to fit a defibrillator to his chest. Everything went as well as can be expected and he will hopefully be back home in Hong Kong on the 1st April. Because of the operation I delayed my going back to Sydney for a few days until he was given the all clear after it.

Last Thursday after his heart attack he had to be resuscitated eight times over three hours with the defibrillator, so he's lucky to be alive today. The doctors said that if he wasn't in hospital at the time he wouldn't have made it. They can only suspect that it was the antibiotic drip that he was on at the time that caused the heart attack, but they still aren't sure about it which is why they recommended having a mini internal defibrillator fitted.

Since everything is as good as can be expected with my dad now I've rearranged my flight to fly back to Sydney this Friday so I will be back in Sydney on Saturday.

Here's a photo of me in my surgical uniform just before they needed me to operate earlier this week. Well I had to lie about being a doctor so I could have a go at operating, I never could say no to anything. I'm sure it would be as easy as playing the kids Operation game, mind you I was never great that that.

Just behind me you can see an intercom unit which you had to use to be able to speak to my dad while he was in isolation. You had to clean your hands before and after wearing all the hospital gowns and then dispose of everything in the bin after every use. My hands had never been so clean in my entire life!

Hopefully everything will be back to normal this weekend and I'm looking forward to getting back to Sydney. I called Barclays bank yesterday to try to transfer money to my Australian bank account seeing as I had been paid recently. Guess what, they wouldn't let me transfer the money because the Australian account was in a slightly different name, it's in my official passport name! The woman who let me do it last time will be told off for letting me transfer the money then, so I have to either check with the Australian bank that if funds are put into my account with a slightly different account name will they refuse them, or write a letter with a validated photocopy of my passport to change my Barclays bank account name. Alternatively I can just give up banking with Barclays as they have been nothing but trouble since moving out to Australia and switch all my main banking to my Nationwide account. I think I'll do the latter since it's much easier than the first two options. Grr, bloody pants Barclays!

I've also had a problem in trying to cancel my Fitness First membership as they claim to have not received my letter to cancel my account or have refunded the last two months membership fees. Another grr to Fitness First!

Brief update...

Quick update, generally everything has settled down from the initial panic. My dad is stable now but still in intensive care. He's awake and talking and eating. The doctors still don't know what caused the heart attack though so there is still the worry that it will happen again.

I'll still be here till Monday at least and will make a decision then as to what to do.

Always look on the bright si...you know the rest.

Unfortunately I've had some bad news from Hong Kong. Earlier this evening my sister called to tell me that my dad has had a heart attack this evening and has not regained consciousness. The doctors believe that he's in a stable condition right now, but don't know what caused the heart attack in the first place.

I'm heading out to Hong Kong tomorrow afternoon and I'm not sure when I'll have time to update the blog again.

Anyhow I'll be in touch when I have some more news.

Laters.
xx

Kylie Kylie Kylie....

She appears much bigger on TV than she must be in real life!

I went to the Powerhouse Museum on Sunday afternoon to see the exhibits and they also had a Kylie clothes and pictures exhibition on.

The Kylie exhibition was quite entertaining, there were most of her clothes that she wore on various famous tours and album covers. The photos of Kylie were also quite good and it was amazing to see how small her clothes were. I remember Steve telling me that she's very small when he saw her at the BBC.

There were her infamous golden 50p hot pants and also the white outfit that she wore on "Can't get you out of my head" which needed to be held together with double sided tape.

Unfortunately you weren't allowed to take photos at the Kylie exhibition. There were a couple of security guards watching over everything so it was very difficult to be able to take any photos.

I really wanted to take some pictures (even more so when I was told I couldn't) I had to take a couple from my hip when both guards weren't looking. The photos didn't come out very well but you can get an idea as to what the clothes looked like on display.

Sorry Davey, but there weren't any pairs of her knickers on show, well not that I could see anyhow. The golden hot pants were also in a glass box so I didn't have a chance at getting hold of them.

The other displays at the Powerhouse Museum were mainly design and engineering displays with an emphasis on playing around with the engineering exhibits to see how they work.

The place would be quite good for kids and people who like to find out how stuff works. I enjoyed a lot of the exhibits and some like the glass blowing and design awards that Australia has won were really good.

There was also an Enigma machine on display which was really interesting. The displays covered everything from some early Australian settler clothes and furniture to a space age display with scale models of the space shuttle and various satellites.

There was even the original Robbie the Robot from the TV series Lost In Space!

The receptionist said that it would take at least three visits to see everything and read everything at the museum and from what I saw over the four hours that I was there I can well believe it. I only saw three quarters of the museum.

On Saturday I arranged an appointment with a gym instructor at the local Fitness First gym. His name is Quentin and he showed me some new weight exercises to work out my upper body. I figured that I could do with some variation in my routine to stop me getting into a rut.

I obviously didn't realise how much of a rut that I had got into in my exercise routine. The exercises that I did with Quentin on Saturday were quite good and I felt good after the work out. However on Sunday morning I went to the gym again to do my usual routine and do some of the new exercises as well. My usual work out was quite tough going and by Sunday evening I was aching quite a lot on my arms. So much so that I could barely stretch them out!

I wasn't planning on doing any more with Quentin apart from his first free session, but I've decided to pay him for one Saturday morning session a week for at least one month to see how I get on. With any luck I'll get more used to the different exercise and my arms will stop aching after consecutive workout days!

Sailing on a Friday.

We had a team building exercise all day on Friday at a regatta event with a chance to raise some money for Water Aid as well. Each team entered contributes some money to Water Aid to be able to race.

Yachting is definitely something that I've never done before and I was eager to have a go and see what it was like.

We couldn't have been luckier with the weather on Friday. It rained quite often on Thursday and was rather overcast all day. Friday was a totally different story though as there were totally clear skies and it was sunny but not too hot either.

The picture above shows our team in the Regatta. From left to right is Allen, Shane, Roger, Paul and Ian. We were all given matching T-Shirts and a lunch box with a baseball cap.

This is the boat that we were allocated with a crew of four. It appeared as if the boat was owned by one guy and the three other members were either his friends or other people who allocated their free time for a chance to have a sail and race.

It wasn't a very large boat and I would be surprised if we could fit another couple of people on there. I think the owner of the boat Michael, was quite well off and enjoyed his sailing quite often as he was very very brown!

The boat costs around $360,000 to buy from new and was very very nice both upstairs and downstairs. I could quite easily spend quite a while relaxing on it, but we weren't there to relax.

The man on the right at the wheel is Michael the man whose boat it was. He was generally very easy going and just wanted us to have a good time. You could tell throughout the race that he was also quite competitive and wanted to really win.

We didn't end up doing that much onboard the boat other than be dead weights, and drink as much beer as we wanted. Whenever the boat tacked (changed direction to the wind) we were told how to move from one side of the boat to the other to distribute the weight.
Sometimes only some of us were told to move to one side and so on. It was all quite good fun for me, being much smaller I found it quite easy to move around and avoid the ropes and main mast

We were basically sat about half way down the boat on the side and could dangle our legs overboard to help with the weight distribution. At times the boat was really leaning over while the wind blew on the mast and we held on to the edge of the boat.

Roger also managed to have a go at pulling and adjusting the ropes to move the sails around the mast. It looked like a lot of fun and I would have liked to have a go too, but didn't get a chance.

We eventually finished second in the race and was beaten at the post by another boat which physically came last. Because all the boats were slightly different there was a handicap system in play. So it wasn't really the actual place you finished but rather the time after an adjustment.

There were some fast parts of the race when the wind was blowing strong but there were also plenty of very slow moments when there wasn't any wind and we hardly moved at all! These moments reminded me of "canal police", we were mostly sat there waiting for the wind to pick up and trying to do anything to make the boat move faster like moving all the weight to the front of the boat. A bit strange really, but fun none the less.

Overall I enjoyed myself and it's something else that I can tick the box off on but I doubt I'd really pay to go yachting again, it was fun but didn't really grab me with excitement in the same way that snowboarding might. I guess if you have loads of money and can afford to take time off to play around in the sea then it can be fun and also a great way to get away from everyone and relax.

My First Aussi BBQ!

I found a really cool cinema (if a cinema can be cool) on Tuesday night. It's called Dendy and is virtually right next to the Opera House. It's only a small art house cinema that has three screens. The really cool thing about it is that it serves alcohol so you can have a beer while watching a good film. It reminds me of a mix between the Prince Charles cinema in London which also serves beer and the Watershed cinema in Bristol.

I went there on Tuesday to see Good Night, and Good Luck. It's a very good, if a little short film about TV journalist Edward R. Murrow in the 1950's. It's all very well shot in black and white and I found it very interesting. I'll have to go to this cinema again next week to see Capote. They don't tend to show the blockbuster films but do show more films that wouldn't get much time at a bigger cinema. The other big advantage is that because it's an art house cinema you're less likely to get idiots there with mobile phones and eating Hungry Jacks (Burger King) as I had last week while watching Syriana.

We (Wallingford Software employees) went round to Paul's (WS one and only Australian Sales team) house after work on Wednesday for a BBQ. He has quite a big four bed house in the suburbs. You know it's large because it has a separate drive in and drive out entrance for the driveway.

Unfortunately it rained all day on Wednesday, yes it does rain here occasionally, so the weather wasn't that great. Paul put on a great BBQ though and the food was all very filling.


This next shot is of the back of his house. As you can see he has a swimming pool as well. We all bought our swimming gear but unfortunately because of the rain no one fancied a dip in the pool.

Just to the right of the pool in the shot is a golf course. Apparently most Australians really like a house that backs onto a golf course, but I don't think I would seeing as I'm not a fan of the game. They said that they do get a few people wondering by and even a couple of golf balls landing in their back garden. It was the golf ball in their front drive which was the worrying one though.

One thing that was quite amusing was when Paul let his wife start the cooking on the BBQ. Shane and Ian (both native Australians) were quite shocked that Paul didn't do the BBQ cooking. Apparently in Australia the BBQ is the man's domain and a woman shouldn't be let near it. It's not quite as bad in the UK, but it is similar.

After such an earful Ian (on the right), Roger and Allen both did the right thing and stood around the BBQ chatting and cooking the meat.

After the BBQ we made our way home. On the way out of Paul's house there was a "small" Huntsman spider on Paul's porch. It looked like the largest spider I've ever seen native to the UK, but I was assured that this was a baby one.

Fortunately it didn't move while I stared it down and it also didn't make a move when I walked gingerly past it. I'm guessing it was scared of everyone else around me (Paul's wife helped protect me. :-0) because if I had been on my own I'm sure it would have made a move to eat me. I've been told that they aren't anything to worry about because their bite won't kill you only hurt for a bit. As far as I'm concerned it's bite would kill me because I'd die of a heart attack if anything that big was on me!

The Sydney fish tank, are you paying attention?

I went to the Sydney Aquarium today to see all the fishes. I've been told that it was quite good and worth visiting. I'd been to Ocean Park in Hong Kong quite a few times and that has a very large aquarium, so it would be good to compare it to that.

I must say that it was quite good in bits and not so good in others. The coral marine sections were very good, but the sealions and penguins were disappointing. Maybe I'd been spoilt by the penguins and sealions at other marine parks, but the two sealions and half a dozen penguins were just weak exhibits.

On to the better bits, on the left here is one of the many large tanks that they had on the coral marine fishes. It really was quite impressive to see so many colourful fish. Much better than going to the free zoo's at Taunton, read marine fish shops there.

There was also a crocodile in the aquarium, though not with any of the other fish. There was only one but it was one big mother!

Here's a picture of it's head as it was just wallowing on the tank that had been setup for it. On the surface it looks sinister and not so big, but down below it was absolutely massive.

The running in zig zags to get away from them isn't a good idea apparently. They don't move that fast really and most people can outrun one if they just run away from it. The biggest problem with them though is that they have a low stamina so won't really run after their prey if they have to.

I also learnt the difference between an alligator and crocodile. You can see the bottom teeth in a crocodile but not an alligator. So if you find yourself next to one then you can tell the difference between them, assuming it's jaws aren't around your leg, in which case you'll have to find some other way to tell the difference.

This sign was above the crocodile enclosure as you could see the crocodile from above as well. I thought it was quite funny and worth taking a picture of for my blog.

There was also the infamous duck billed platypus there. It really is a bizarre creature. I've never seen anything like it and it really is unique in the world.

It's a very strange mix of a reptile and mammal. It lays eggs, has a lower body temperature than mammals, produces venom and walks like a reptile. However, it also has fur, suckles its young, and is classed as a mammal. It's also about the size of a cat and very quick. So quick that I couldn't get a decent photo of it. It has a heart beat of around 140-230 beats per minute, not unlike me sometimes!

The final bit of the aquarium had a big glass tank wall which showed lots of fish which were somehow attracted to swimming along the glass wall. They played some very calming music and had seats to sit on and watch the fish.

I really liked sitting here and just watching the fish swim about while listening to the music. A very relaxing end to a good aquarium.

It may not have the size of the Ocean Park aquarium, bit it is very well laid out and much better in showing the marine fish. Maybe Ocean Park is slightly better because of its size, but I'd recommend anyone visit the Sydney Aquarium if they have time while over here. It's well worth the £12 odd entrance fee.

OK, Barclays isn't quite so crap...

After calling Barclays bank on Wednesday night they admitted that there had been an error on their part and would eventually refund me my lost £48. The initial customer advisor that I spoke to said that I couldn't even do an international transfer over the phone and would have to pop into a branch to do it. I told him that he was wrong and could I speak to someone else who knew what they were talking about.

The next advisor was much more helpful and said that they would look into my situation and call back within the hour. Half an hour later they called back and said that they would launch an investigation into the incident to try to find out exactly what had happened as there had obviously been a mistake on their part. They also said that they would make an immediate international transfer which would take priority and this would be free to me.

A couple of days later I did get the money into my Australian bank account, just in time to pay some bills and my rent for the next month. Phew!

I went to see Syriana on Wednesday night at the cinema. It was quite a good movie, not quite as convoluted as people had made out and all loose ends were tied up at the end of the movie. It's the sort of movie that makes you want to give up driving and reduce the amount of oil that you use. Well that thought lasted most of the evening for me, till I realised that I really do miss driving in my car, especially with all the great weather over here.

On my way home, despite it only being just before nine in the evening the trains were deserted. I thought there was something going on that I hadn't been told about. In my one stop trip home I didn't see anyone except for the train guards.

I've definitely not been eating the healthiest food for lunch every day while at work. There is so much choice around Sydney in what to eat. Almost every food court has a very wide range of food, from kebabs to sushi, via fresh fruit salads and Nandos too!

At least I haven't been eating out in the evenings very often, but I'll have to make more of an effort to eat healthier food at lunch times. With this and the Friday cake sessions at work and the tempting Krispy Kreme donut shop on my way back from the gym, I had better be careful.

Kebabs here are accepted lunch time foods, not just after half a dozen pints down the pub. They're no less greasy, but do have more exciting salads with them. Mmm, but I did feel sickly later on during work. Maybe that feeling occurs when I'm asleep normally.

Barclays Bank is crap, Grr!

Just had to get this rant and rave off my chest. Last Monday I tried to transfer some money from my Barclays bank account to my Wespac (Australian) bank account. I called up their international banking department to make the transfer and gave them all the necessary details, then double checked the details to be sure. The transfer of funds costs me £20 for each transfer.

I've been checking my Westpac account online to see whether the funds had arrived all this week but nothing had turned up. Upon checking my Barclays account today it appears as if the funds have been returned to my UK bank account, less another £28!

I called Barclays 24 hour banking this morning (Aus time) and they said they didn't know why the funds had been returned, but the £28 deduction was probably due to the poor exchange rate that I would be getting. They recommended that I call back at 9am (UK time) to get though to the international transfers department which might have a better idea as to what went wrong.

So my money has been on holiday to Australia and back and cost me £48 in the process!

I'll have to call them tonight to see what's up and try to get some of this lost £48 back in the process. Right now I'll be happy to change bank accounts as Barclays have hardly made it easy for me to handle my money over here, with this and the problems in withdrawing money over the weekend.

Arty farty sunday without cash.

I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art today as my bank decided to block my card from taking any cash out, so I had to ration my cash. For some reason despite me telling my bank last month that I would be living in Sydney for the next year and to NOT block any transactions made in Sydney for the next year, they still decided that my transactions in Sydney were suspicious so blocked my card today.

I had to wait till 6pm (7am UK time) as well before I could unblock my card as their 24 hour banking service was down over the weekend as well. When I did get though and ask why they blocked my card despite a note on my account saying not to block transactions in Australia, the bloke on the other end could only say that the process is all automated so they couldn't stop it. Grr!

The gallery wasn't as good as I hoped it would be. It's only just a couple of blocks away from my flat so is quite convenient to walk to. Only half the floor space was available as they were in the process of changing over exhibitions. Still it was a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon in a cool large quiet gallery space.

I also did a little skating around the ground floor of my apartment block. There is a really tall office building that is unoccupied next to it. The lower floor has a good concrete area to whiz around in. Unfortunately all the benches and concrete ledges have anti-skate
blocks on them to stop grinds and the like along them. Still it was nice to cool down and skate around the flat surface.

Maybe next weekend I'll be able to pop down to the National Marine museum, Sydney Aquarium, or even the Powerhouse museum which has a Kylie clothes exhibition on! I doubt I'd fit into her clothes though.

Mardi Gras Time!

It's been the Gay and Lesbian festival for the last few weeks in Sydney. It finishes with one big parade though the town and a big party. I was walking around the route that the festival was going to take on Saturday say when I came across a big group of men dressed as cave men. Just had to get a picture shot of it, I'm sure Mark my hair dresser would be proud of me.

They were waiting at the lights when another group of men in leather bondage gear lined up across the street. Then they started to shout friendly abuse at each other. Very funny!

I met up with Allen and Deirdre later on in the day to find a good spot to watch the Mardi Gras parade.

As you can see Allen really didn't want to get involved and just turned up as per normal for an afternoon out. With his brown shirt and shorts with boots he really did look like he was the construction worker out of the YMCA song without a yellow hard hat.

We started to wait along the parade route at about five even though the parade didn't start till seven thirty. To top it off once the parade did start there wasn't anyone behind us so we really could have just walked up to the spot where we waited for a couple of hours. Doh!

There were a group of four women in front of Allen all with pink cowboy hats on. As you can see they were all quite good looking, unfortunately they were also two pairs of lesbians.

There were also four lesbians in front of me. These were the more stereo typical butch lesbians and two of them were very into each other. So much so that they insisted on kissing each other every few minutes just to show the world how much they loved each other.

Allen and I agreed that we wouldn't have minded so much if the pink cowboy hat ladies had been doing the same! :-)

The parade started with the traditional Dykes on Bikes as it does every year. They were exactly as they said on the tin. Not quite the dykes on peddle bikes as Deirdre suspected, but dykes on really big Harleys and other types of bikes.

The rest of the parade went on the next few hours as expected really. To be honest I didn't think that it was as impressive as it had been made out to be. It's apparently the biggest gay parade in the world, bigger than one in San Francisco.

There were a few good floats but most of them were quite tacky and it didn't look like that much effort had been put into them. Still I can tick the "been to the Sydney Gay Mardi Gras" parade box on my 'to do list' now.

We went for a pint on the way back from the parade. I saw an Irish pub that advertised that it sold pints of Guinness so we just had to stop there for a pint.

They really did sell pints of Guinness, I really could go up to the bar and ask for a pint. Unfortunately I went to the bar and asked for a Scooner of Guinness and the barwoman asked if I wanted a pint instead! Also it was Guinness extra cold and wasn't as good as a normal pint. Still beggars can't be choosers, no matter how much I whinge about it.

Shopping mall hell.

I finally got round to visiting my local Fitness First gym last Saturday. I must say this one is much friendlier than the one near the hotel, and it's much bigger too. Had a good work out but then again it has been over a week since I've done any serious exercise.

I'm surprised how much the walking around everywhere in the city has tired my legs sometimes. I knew that I didn't walk around much in the UK, but having to walk just about everywhere here has made me realise how little walking I really do. I may be quite fit and do at least a good hour or two of exercise five times a week but walking everywhere has surprised me. On the plus side me left arm which has been suffering some RSI recently appears to have stopped hurting. I'm guessing the lack of driving and lack of Squash and Badminton games in the past month has really helped.

I went out to walk around The Rocks on Saturday as it's virtually on my apartment's doorstep. Visited the market stalls around the area and also went to a couple of the free galleries there. I didn't think that much of the place though, it was a very different side of Sydney but was much to tourist orientated for my liking. Too many tourists and also stalls selling 'authentic' Australian boomerangs and the like.

Allen had hired a car on Sunday to go and fill out a two bedroom house as he and Deirdre had rented an unfurnished house. They planned to buy just about everything as it apparently worked out slightly cheaper than renting it for a year. I decided to tag along to help them move stuff and I also needed some minor items for my flat too. We ended up going to two different Ikeas and also two shopping malls!

Even for me who likes to go and shop it was quite enough. I guess I only bought a few items and they were household items rather than more exciting items like clothes and toys. I was very glad to have rented a furnished apartment though. There is just so much stuff that you take for granted around a house that if you had to buy from scratch would take quite a lot of money.

The Ikeas here appear to be attached to one end of the shopping malls so you can walk straight from one to another. I'm sure you could almost buy and walk out with a sofa from Ikea into a shopping mall wheeling it about on the trolley while you shopped.

It's good to know that some things don't change throughout the world as the Ikeas here are identical to the ones in the UK. The shopping malls are much the same too except for the labels on the shops.

While driving around the outer suburbs of Sydney I noticed how very American like the place is. Most of the streets looked so much like American streets with very wide roads and large blocks of even larger shops. On the whole I didn't really like it, I guess it's true in what some people say that Australia is like America with an English twist.

Firemen and being Lost.

We had a fire evacuation last week at work. It wasn't a drill either, I'm guessing someone must have set off a fire alarm. At first the fire alarm sounded and everyone looked around to see what to do. Unfortunately the fire warden on our floor hadn't got into work yet as it was only 8.30am.

Eventually someone decided to make the decision to head downstairs. Fortunately we're only on the fifth floor so didn't have that far to go, but the building does have 24 odd floors so I'm glad that we don't work up there.

Here's a picture of Tom, who's heading back to the UK today. As usual for WS staff he's still working away on his Blackberry while we wait outside the Town Hall for permission to re-enter work.

There were fire engines and one helicopter outside the building. Not sure whether the helicopter was just the press or something more official. It was all a false alarm in the end anyhow.

Another good thing about being out here is that the second series of Lost is just starting on TV, though it does mean that I have to be in on Thursday nights to watch it. I'm undecided whether this series is actually any good. It is very interesting to watch, but I'm not sure whether it'll live up to the expectations that it's set for itself. I just know that it'll end with me going "Is that it!". Never mind I'm quite hooked now so I'll just have to go along for the ride.

I'm alive!

Hello everyone, I'm back online at my apartment. I was back online yesterday but haven't had time to update the blog. I'll only have time for a quick update today and will hopefully have some more time at home tomorrow to do a more comprehensive update.

It's mostly been a couple of weeks of work and discovering more about Sydney.

Last Tuesday (21st) we went out to a popular steak house in Manley. It's a half hour ferry ride away from Circular Quay which is only five minutes walk from my apartment.

The place was like a time warp back in time. It was very weird for me, the decor couldn't decide between African art to aboriginal to some cross between an Aberdeen Steakhouse. The menu also had a separate section for the ladies with a selection of smaller meals. Well I must admit the steak was actually very good, but I'm not so sure that I'd really want to go there again.

One thing that was entertaining was one of the lead waitresses that worked there. She quite obviously had large fake breasts and had spent much too long in the sun. I just managed to get a phone photo of her here. We figured that she much have part ownership of the place as she acted as if she was in charge anyhow.

The journey back from Manley on the ferry was very pleasant though. There was a cooling breeze in the night air and you could see the entire Sydney Central Business district lit up in the night sky. I even managed to get a half decent picture of the Opera House which was amazingly lit up at night.

I guess it makes me realise how lucky I am to be able to be out here for a year to work.