Fireman Needed - Where's Andrew?

Why did we have a fire truck outside our apartment today?
Because a naught ginger (Oliver) cat had frightened a lovely black (nearly Stiggles) cat up a tree and it didn't look like the cat could safely come down!
The tricky part is due to our steep driveway, the cat was probably 15ft in the air so I phoned the local station and within 10 minutes we had 2 firemen to the rescue - only they weren't really bothered, they got out their ladder and managed to frighten the cat further up the tree! They gave it up as a bad job and suggested that instead we put a bowl of milk out - that would attract him down!
We could still hear him crying at 7pm but we've just got home and there is no sign of the cat and lots of bark around the bowl of milk so a happy ending after all! Although I am sure that a fireman of Andrews calibre would have rescued Stiggles!

Football Branding - Body Art

Chalky is back in fine form this football season - Man of the Match 2 weeks ago with 2 goals (a very near hat-trick when one hit the cross bar) and another goal last week - Joan will know all about these goals since she gets the first match report before he heads up to The Oaks for post match analysis with the boys!

Anyway, in Saturday's game he was in the wall to stop a free kick and that's exactly what Chalky did - put his body in the line of fire and now he's got a tattoo of hexagons on his chest where the ball hit him. It's Monday night now and it's finally fading!

Now Shane you might be remembering what happens when Chalky takes a hit to the chest - all the other boys certainly like re-living the seal story. Needless to say there was no seal episode after he stopped the ball - apparently that must be saved for when I'm there watching - sympathy votes I guess.

Hope you've all had a good Bank Holiday weekend, it's been absolutely gorgeous here. We had a few drinks with some new friends in Balmain and quite a few of them were English, Yorkshire in fact so it's lovely to be able to know what and where everyone is talking about when they re-live Otley Road run and other stories. There is a common consensus among people I meet who have lived in Leeds - Casa Mia is their favourite place in Chapel Allerton!

We're also on a bit of a winning streak at the moment - I've won us tickets to a cinema night for World Environment Day next Monday, Chalky has put in a great entry to a Sony Socceroos competition so tonight over dinner we were dreaming what we'd spend $100,000 on (if we won it!)

PS - If anyone is reading this blog - feel free to leave us a comment!
PPS - Still having trouble uploading photos

Australian Institute of Sport

We were really looking forward to looking around the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS), I think Chalky was considering doing some spying! But unfortunately we were a little disappointed. I guess we had set our expectations a little high when researching for our trip we actually thought we could stay at the institute as there is a section on their website titled "Stay at the AIS" however I learnt after phoning and asking that this is only offered to school groups, team trips or if you're having a conference there, so then I asked about the dining hall - where they do meals with colour coding to let you know how healthy / nutritional value of the meal but again this is only offered to school groups, team trips or if you're having a conference there etc.

So we got over that and were looking forward to the tour we were going to do...then we met our guide, you could see Chalky's face drop - we were being showed around by a WALKER! Some respect was restored when we discovered that our walker's 10k walking time is faster than Chalky's best 10k running time!

Anyway, we saw quite a few of the facilities but since it was early afternoon no athlete's were working out, they were mostly resting before starting again just after our tour finished...ho hum!

So going back in time, we did get up early and complete almost the full circuit of the lake. Today we didn't see any kangaroos but still saw lots of lovely parrots and cockatoos. All up we ended up riding just over 50km over the 2 days - not a bad effort and an absolute pleasure on racing bikes.

We had time for just one more Canberra sight and so chose Parliament House.

We enjoyed the tour and the view from the top of the building.

All in all a very relaxing and enjoyable few days and certainly somewhere we will visit again.

Canberra Trip

We had a mini break recently in Canberra - Australia's National Capital. Chalky had never been to Canberra and it's a great cycling city so what better way to test out the new bikes. We left Sydney on Anzac Day planning to be in Canberra in time for the fly over however we were running just a little bit behind schedule and so we ended up just hearing them!

Our first tourist stop was the War Memorial, really you could spend a few full days here seeing everything that's on display so we saw all we could that afternoon. We ventured into the city to an Irish Bar for dinner, Anzac Day is a public holiday in Australia and every city has a march for returned servicemen/women and it's a day of reflection for all those who have died fighting in wars. So many people choose to reflect in the pub after all the ceremonies are over so us heading into an Irish Bar after 7pm when most of the patrons had been there since lunchtime was perhaps not our smartest move. The bar served pints so Chalky did his best to try to catch up, he also told me that we were going to make some friends that night and get out of our comfort zone to talk to some strangers!

Well we certainly talked to strangers, or were they just strange people????

After a later start than we planned we rode around Lake Burley Griffin, this is around a 30km ride and we didn't quite make it the whole way round as we were distracted by the Australian Museum.

Canberra had all its autumnal colours on display and the weather was a little crisper than it is in Sydney, while we were riding we were reminded of so many of our rides in England. Parts of the ride were like Roundhay Park then when you get to a dam it reminds you of Eccup and of when we went riding in Windsor and then you see kangaroos in the grounds of Government House and remember that you're in Australia after all!

That night we enjoyed dinner at Canberra's revolving restaurant in Black Mountain Tower. The food was delicious and it was really relaxing, we also managed to not meet any strange(r) people!

We wanted to get an early night so that we could get up and do the full ride the next day before heading to the Australian Institute of Sport.

Chalky's New Bike

One of my promises to Chalky was that I would buy him a brand new racing bike...on the day after the wedding since we were on annual leave we headed out to the bike store...this is what we ended up with...
It's a carbon fibre frame, weighs only 8kg, has altegra shimano gear set and goes REALLY fast.

We've been out for a few rides around Sydney, we crossed 5 of the 7 bridges we did on the walk with Joan, Chalky had a (mis)adventure down the cycle side of the Harbour Bridge and the bike has been out to most football training sessions.

Pieta & Rod's Wedding

One of my oldest friends recently got married and it was like an infant school reunion. Pieta & Rod have been together longer than Chalky & I, but Rod finally popped the question on their holiday to Santa Monica in 2005 and now they are married.

They got married on a boat on the harbour and then we were all treated to a fabulous reception at Doltone House in Sydney. The wedding went without any hitches although Pieta had to fight her way through the Greek National Day celebrations on the Opera House forecourt before she could board the boat.

The wedding had it all, a 3 course meal, chocolate fondue fountain, cake, dancing, alcohol, slideshow of Pieta & Rod's life together and some lovely speeches.

It was great to have an excuse to get dressed up on a Sunday afternoon and head out on the harbour, the rain held off and we really enjoyed ourselves.