Happy New Year

Last year we had a houseful of visitors (hello Garth, David, Coral & Co), this year we just took it easy! Chalk spent the morning playing golf with Stuart while I worked (status quo here then!). We spent the afternoon at Balmoral Beach using our snorkels and masks that Santa delivered to us. We had no fixed agenda at all and stayed on the beach until around 6pm.

We had been invited to spend the night with friends down in Milsons Point but had big plans for New Year's Day so wanted to keep NYE simple. We enjoyed our own little party of treat food before heading out on our bikes for the 9pm fireworks. We cycled around Wollstonecraft looking for our best vantage spot and decided on the overpass at the train station. We could see the Bridge well but not too much of the other fireworks so that spot was ruled out for midnight!

We parked the bikes up for the night and cracked open a bottle of champagne to have my new favourite drink - Shambles (redbull and champagne) and kicked back on the sofa...we got a little too relaxed and the combination of having been swimming and on the beach for the afternoon had worn us out so we took the easy option and watched the midnight fireworks from the comfort of our sofa!

So New Year, New Year Resolutions??? The year is off to a great start with Chalk up and out of bed at 7.30am New Year's Day....I kid you not he's like a new man! The bikes were hooked up to the car and we were off to Dee Why...we wanted to see in the New Year with a big bike ride...around Cottage Point (which is relatively flat) near to the 20km mark I asked what the plan was and were we doing a loop or was there a turnaround point? Chalk had decided that he wanted to cycle around 40km (25mile) that day so we could turn around now...or we could continue and have the satisfaction of having done a hill climb that Lance Armstrong would struggle with!! (Just kidding it was tough though - 3km climb I didn't see Chalky the whole way up and it wasn't because I was in front! but when I did get to the top it turns out that he hadn't been there very long at all!) We had now reached the turnaround point and had the fun job of getting back to the car! All in all we did 50km (30 miles!)

You can't help but be pleased with yourself to think you have given up getting drunk on NYE to be out in the sunshine of New Year's Day, exercising and setting the standard for things to come in 2008! After the ride we made a few calls to wish Aussie's Happy New Year and found out Trav, Dan & Claudine were in Manly - right where we were heading to! We met up with them for a bite to eat before going onto the beach to see Sarah, James, Jayne, Kat & Charlotte (Karl was still throwing up from too much wine the night before, how virtuous did we feel!).

A fantastic day - thanks Chalky for pushing me to ride up the hill. All the best to everyone for 2008. PS the great firework shots are compliments of Trav!