Christmas and Hogmany kinda in the sun...!

OK, so Christmas in Australia wasn't exactly everything I thought it would be! Well, firstly it really didn't seem like Christmas at all. For one, I'm living in the middle of a drought and pretty serious bush fires. How does Santa survive out here with his big suit and beard? Also, I had been too loads of xmas lunches and dinners without a sniff of turkey. Its all about chicken parmas and prawns here! The turkey on the barbie did look quite weird though, but it tasted delicious!


It was the rainiest Christmas eve/day EVER and the coldest one on record in 70 years! Can you believe the timimg! I spent Christmas with my cousins down in Mornington peninsula, in doors! Had a lovely day despite the rain and kept up the Christmas tradition of going out on Christmas eve with Julie and Adam. We ended up in Frankston when Adam tried to poison me with the most horrific shots imagineable!
We did meet Santa though on his way round the houses - he stopped into the pub for a quick beer...


Anyway, the week inbetween Christmas and New Year was filled with chat about the Ashes as it was in Melbourne, where I happily admit to supporting Australia and watching the biggest defeat of England ever! So many barmy army nights out in all the pubs and good crack!

Hogmany on the harbour... Love the clouds!


Picnic on McQuarries Point


So decided to leave the rain and head for sunnier climates in Sydney for Hogmany... or so we thought! Melbourne ended up pretty dam sunny, and we had it much colder in Sydney. That song "everywhere you go, always take the weather with you" really does apply to Jules! However Sydney was awesome anyway! Met up with all Julies mates she worked with in Brisbane for 3 months, and we did some serious partying! The firewords on the harbour were spectacular and we had the best time dancing around to Auld Lang Syne at the bells! (Getting strange looks from the Ozzies!!) Went back to a party in Balmain and were still dancing around till about 7am in the morning! Didn't quite make staying awake till Scottish New Year though, although we did try.

On January 1st, we all got up with bouncing heads and had to go straight to Cooggee Bay Hotel to see Judge Jules. Well it was hilarious walking into the middle of a club night when we were stone cold sober and hungover! So we ended up just watching the free band for a bit and waiting till later to brave the Judge Jules crowd. another late night which resulted in about 4 hours sleep and a walk in the pouring rain in the morning to get the bus back to Mel... nice wet jeans, air conditioning and a 13 our bus journey do not mix well! Never again!