After our monster weekend of painting, what better idea when you are exhausted and slightly covered in white paint than to drive out to Homebush to watch Kylie in concert. It turned out to be just the thing we needed, Nicci and Joe arrived (on time) at 5pm and we proudly showed them our handy work before heading out for an early dinner. Thai in Newtown is always a good bet and this was no exception. The food was great at Doytao but the service was as frosty as Tony the Tiger. Still, we were in and out in good time and $70 for 4 people isn't bad. We headed out to Acer Arena expecting traffic delays all the way but were super surprised when we arrived in about 20 minutes! Finding a car space was also far easier than expected, all the good omens were there.
We took our seats (unfortunately not sitting with Nicci and Joe) to the left of the stage and pretty close to the front too.
Now this was Kylie's "Showgirl" tour postponed from last year after she was diagnosed with Breast Cancer and was the last of 6 Sydney shows and she sure did put on a show.
Kylie obviously recognised her status as a gay man icon and the show certainly catered for that market pretty well! From the "I'm a Show Boy" merchandise to the buff semi-naked dancers in budgie-smugglers you'd enjoy the show much more if you are a twenty-something queen than an adolescent school girl.
Now I have to give credit to whoever arranged the Chicago inspired version of "Locomotion" which I really enjoyed!! The versions of "Especially for You" and "I should be so lucky" were wonderously shit as ever though.
Taken on Jo's mobile phone
My favourite parts where the space themed part of the show where the backing dancers resembled Cybermen and Fembots that Doctor Who and Austin Powers would have been proud of and "Can't get you out of my head" really does live up to it's title. Cathy Dennis has come a long way since I was a kid :)
We turned into Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen on the weekend and started to decorate our new flat. Well, not quite as bad as old curly cuffs himself but we did get the paint out for the first time.
The weekend started early as we spent a fun filled Friday night at the Aussie B&Q equivalent "Bunnings" buying paint, rollers, brushes, trays and other such exciting things. What an odd place the world is when Bunnings is busy enough to stay open to 9pm on Friday nights! Once home we started to sugar soap the walls and taping up places we didn't want to paint so we could have a head-start.
We were up bright and breezy on Saturday morning and started work at 8:30am. I'm afraid our colour choice wasn't quite "Changing Rooms". No hot pink and canary yellow for us. We went for a custom made white to freshen the place up and to re-paint the stairs and doors which are an odd cream colour and to paint the back of the front door which is an even odder bluey-grey.
By 3pm on Sunday we had finished about 95% of the downstairs, everywhere had two coats as stipulated on the tin and everything was cleaned and back to normal. The place still smells of fresh paint but we can't worry too much as we are in for more of the same this weekend when we tackle the upstairs.
Can't wait to do the feature walls and finally get to use paint with colour that I can actually see on the wall while I'm working!
Another busy weekend for us. Up early to get things organised before heading up to the delights of Woy Woy on the central coast for Dale's dance performance. We arrived at the motel by the water on a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon around 2:30 and with Guy in tow we met up with Mrs B and Andrew who had headed down from Port Stephens.
The Watersedge motel was basic but clean and comfortable and had everything you could want for the price. Later that afternoon we took a walk around wandered around by the water to catch the last part of the sunny arvo.
Woy Woy in the Sun
We all had to have a bite to eat (great fish and chips from the Fisherman's Wharf) before heading off to the Laycock Theatre to see Dale in his end of year show. Dale has been studying at NAISDA for the past year and the show was the culmination of countless hours of hard work and practice.
The show, "No Answer" took us through an exploration of aboriginal identity with dance and spoken word. Dale earnt himself a reputation as the comedian of the show with some great acting and witty one liners. The show was great and we all really enjoyed ourselves, especially from our hand picked seats in the second row! After the show we caught up with Dale to congratulate him on a great performance but we could hardly get to him for the hoards of kids wanting his autograph! Awww!
We all hoped to be up early and out walking on Sunday morning but after getting to bed about 1am we didn't quite make it. We were up and out by a respectable 9am though. Andrew, Guy and I drove out to Mt Penang to drop off some things that Dale needed for his performance with NAISDA at the Sydney Opera House that night before packing up and having some brunch.
We said goodbye to Mrs B and Andrew and headed back to Sydney via Berowra Waters, a beautiful by impossible to park spot where Mrs B used to live before Jo was born.
The all too real fire danger at Berowra Waters
Yesterday was the famous Melbourne Cup (like the Grand National for any pommies). There is a tradition at work that everyone heads up to Level 12 where there is a big screen, food and drinks and prizes for the Best Hat and Worst Tie!
For those that have seen my blog before, you will notice my "Top 5" section that for the past few days had been tipping horses for the Melbourne Cup. It wasn't until yesterday at just after 3pm that I realised I am a horse-tipping genius - I picked First AND Second with Delta Blues and Pop Rock respectively. Only one more and I could've had the horse racing holy grail of the trifecta!
This would have been much more impressive had I actually put some money on these horses but alas I only went in the work sweepstake (where I invariablely get the lame three-legged nag each year) and this track record was not broken this year. Ahh well, maybe next year I will get them right AND put some money on them!
I've only just found the time to post a review of the past week! We were super busy on the weekend as we had Jo's cousin Karen and her boys down from Coffs Harbour to stay the weekend.
They arrived late on Friday night and amused themselves at the Motor Show while Jo and I went to Lisa's Baby Shower that we organised. Lisa and Christian (our ex-neighbours but who still live in our apartment building) are expecting twin girls in about 4 weeks time!
Saturday night Karen went to a School Reunion and Karen's partner Paul took us and two of Karen's boys to see the Basketball at Homebush. Karen's other son, Luke, is part of the Australian Children's Choir and he was staying in the city preparing for their peformance at Town Hall on Sunday night.
On Sunday we all drove down to Cronulla to check out the beach and have some lunch. Karen met up with one of her friends who lives down there and we enjoyed a nice sunny day by the beach. The surfers were out in force and were catching some good waves.
Surfer enjoying the surf at Cronulla on Sunday
We had Sunday night to ourselves while Karen, Paul and the boys went to see Luke perform at his concert in the city. They spent their last night with us on Monday and very kindly took us out to dinner for some great Thai in Newtown. We treated the boys to Gelato for dessert, while we were in Newtown we walked past the brand-spanking-new Bank Hotel which (we found out from the General Manager who came out to talk to us as we were all peeking in) was opening the following night.
Work has been full on this week too as my team takes on a completely new direction by being responsible for TIBCO BusinessWorks, of which I will be the transition into being Team Leader over the coming months and hand over my current role to someone else who is yet to be appointed!
And we have still been getting up at 5:20 for our runs! Zzzzz.
After our monster weekend of painting, what better idea when you are exhausted and slightly covered in white paint than to drive out to Homebush to watch Kylie in concert. It turned out to be just the thing we needed, Nicci and Joe arrived (on time) at 5pm and we proudly showed them our handy work before heading out for an early dinner. Thai in Newtown is always a good bet and this was no exception. The food was great at Doytao but the service was as frosty as Tony the Tiger. Still, we were in and out in good time and $70 for 4 people isn't bad. We headed out to Acer Arena expecting traffic delays all the way but were super surprised when we arrived in about 20 minutes! Finding a car space was also far easier than expected, all the good omens were there.
Taken on Jo's mobile phone
