Steak N' Chips

The six month mark is on the horizon and I feel as if I’ve got this baby business cracked. Changes have been made. Things are less scary. We even have a routine of sorts. The toughest nut to crack was the issue of napping but after a few nights of hard negotiation, both parties made compromises. Finally Baby D and myself agreed that naps would be confined to 30 minutes in the morning (cot only), with the length of afternoon naps at Baby D’s discretion and only taking place in the buggy while travelling at a minimum of 2 miles per hour. Other developments have happened more naturally. Baby D has accepted that no matter how hard he tries, his pee won’t reach the ceiling when he’s lying on the changing table and it’s actually more fun to eat his toes instead of weeing everywhere. Nappy changes are now way quicker and much less messy. Also much quicker are his milk feeds, now only taking 15 minutes and now that he can sit up even getting dressed is less traumatic for all concerned. Yes I thought I had it cracked and even made it back to the gym a few times. I almost felt like I may regain a party of my previous life. Silly, silly me. After 5 consecutive nights of been woken every 2 hours, and being so tired during the day I couldn’t even concentrate on the Gilmore Girls, I eventually got Baby D’s message that he needed to start on solids. (It would have been so much easier to send an email.) So now I’m steaming, pureeing and freezing anything that looks healthy, not to mention trying to work out the mathematical conundrum of how many frozen fruits and veg cubes can fit into our tiny little ice box. Once I’ve got the solid foods crisis sorted I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before the first tooth starts to make its presence known…..

Baby D Takes Over

Baby D here folks. Well the past 5 months have been a busy time. There have been numerous challenges, advances and setbacks but at last I think my persistence is paying off and Parent Training is going places. I think it’s high time I share my experience, so for all the newborn babies out there here are my 5 essential rules for the first 5 months.

Rule 1: The Babies are in Charge a.k.a. Babies Rule!
From Day 1 the world revolves about you. Never forget this. If Parents get distracted by the TV or a newspaper and give you less than 100% attention, gently remind them that you rule the roost. I’ve found doing a silent poo followed by vigorous kicking will guarantee instant parental action. If something is going on that you really don’t approve of, go straight to Rule 2.

Rule 2: Your Voice is Your Weapon
You were born with a fine set of vocal cords for a reason; so don’t be afraid to use them! A nice loud, cry will ensure a rapid Parent response. Just be patient as they’re not that clever at figuring out exactly what you need at first, so persist. Simply escalate the volume if the response time is unacceptable.
Baby D Top Tip: If you want to go for a walk, cry repeatedly but this bit is important; make sure to stop crying as soon as you get comfortable in the buggy. Parents are very quick to remember this one and you’ll have a nice long walk built into the daily routine in no time.

Rule 3: Night and Day – it’s All the Same
If you don’t feel like sleeping the night away well don’t! The world’s an exciting place and sometimes there’s just not enough hours to take it all in. So don’t waste time sleeping if you don’t need to. It doesn’t matter what time it is, just decide what you need, a cuddle, some food, a toy or someone to talk to, and adapt Rule 2 as necessary. You’ll notice the later it gets the quicker Parents will act in order to go back to sleep. Remember that Parents have had 30 odd years to sleep so don’t worry if they complain about how tired they are the next day.
Baby D Top Tip: If you prefer to get out of the Moses Basket and stretch out, be particularly grumbly early in the morning and you’ll end up in the big bed beside Mammy. Don’t worry about being squashed or getting too hot under the duvet, Mammy will stay awake to make sure you are comfortable and get a good shuteye.

Rule 4: Persistence pays off
Currently my Parents have developed an annoying habit of putting me back into my cot in the middle of the morning. It’s a ridiculous notion they have, no doubt picked up from one of those silly books they read. I mean there I am with things to do and people to see and suddenly they insist on putting me back down for a nap. Simply ridiculous! Anyway it’s taking a while to train them out of this one, but by staying awake, fussing and crying I’m slowly getting there. It’s only a matter of time before they give up and leave me in my gym or on a nice warm shoulder. Be patient with them. They think they know what they’re doing but they are not that bright really. With a little persistence though you’ll get the routine you want. And when you do, refer to Rule no 5….

Rule 5: No one can resist a Baby’s Smile
This is an important one as the carrot and stick approach works very well when training Parents. While the cry works wonders, don’t forget to use your cute, adorable smiles to reward them when things go your way. Guaranteed to disarm the most disgruntled parent, even in the middle of the night.
Baby D Top Tip: Throw in a little leg kicking, and tilt the head to one side when displaying your wide mouthed, gummy little smile for added adorableness. The dripping sound you may hear is probably your parent’s heart melting!

Ok, that’s all for now. I’ll return with more pearls of wisdom in another few months. Ciao amigos!

Hotel California

There was a blog break last week as we took advantage of cheap mid week offers and took Baby D for his first trip to a hotel at the ripe old age of 4 ½ months. Funnily enough neither Hubbie nor myself stayed in a hotel until we were in our twenties and only then for a family wedding. After that we couldn’t even remember the occasion but was probably another wedding. Things change over the years. There was Baby D last week, travelling in style to his first breakfast buffet in his top of the range, EU compliant car seat, dangly toys attached for in-flight entertainment, with the seat firmly clicked into the pricey isofix base for extra safety. Gone are the days when babies were left to their own devices rolling about in the back of the car, with nothing more than a Chivers red jelly carton for entertainment. Like Sparta only the toughest survived.
Anyway those days are long gone and I’ve accepted that packing light is a thing of the past. Surrounded by lists of what to bring last week, I remembered fondly how I packed for a years travel in 40 minutes with room to spare in my rucksack. Now a 2 day trip takes as many days to organise and once you’ve figured out what to bring, well lets just say it would be quicker to solve a Rubik's cube than work out the logistics of fitting everything into the car.
However we’re getting quicker and Hubbie is getting car packing down to a fine art. Last week as we drove out the driveway, we congratulated ourselves on fitting in the buggy, bouncer chair, car seat and baby, baby clothes, changes of baby clothes (and a few extra changes just in case), blankets, toys to keep baby entertained, some more toys which apparently aid development and intelligence (we don’t think they’re that much fun but feel guilty if we don’t get Baby D to use them in case he never learns his times tables because of poor encouragement at 4 mts), baby sleeping bag, spare baby sleeping bag (just in case), sling (just in case of meltdown in the buggy) and monitors (just in case we find ourselves in a suite and have 2 rooms). Thankfully we hadn’t travelled too far down the road when we realised we’d forgotten to bring anything for ourselves. Luckily being Spartan survivors of red jelly carton days we don’t need much and once we managed to squeeze a spare t shirt and toothbrush beside a bunch of nappies we continued on our merry way.

Spatial Awareness

It’s been a while since I’ve studied physics but I’m sure there’s a law of Newton or Einstein or someone that states that the smaller the person the greater the expansion of their stuff throughout available space. If there’s not, well there should be and I’d call it the First Law of Baby D or the “I’m only little but will make my presence known by having my things everywhere” Law.
Baby D is only 63 cm long, just over 5 kg and can’t even move independently, yet has managed to infiltrate every corner of our place. In fact in order to write this entry I’ve cleared the squeaky giraffe from under my keyboard, squeezed my chair around the nappy changing unit while sitting on one of his blankets. His little outfits proudly hang in wardrobes in both bedrooms, neatly arranged according to age, while our clothes lie in a crumpled heap on the floor or under our bed. Our bed, squashed against the wall; the lockers gathering dust and collecting long-term unemployment benefit, all to accommodate the lovely spacious cot in our room. Playmats, bouncy chairs and jungle gyms infiltrate three quarters of the floor space in our living room (the other quarter is owned by the cat’s things but that’s a story for another day). Even the car has one of the back seats taken over by a contraption for the car seat, the car which I now have to spend ten minutes delicately reversing into a tricky space because if I just drive into it we can’t get the car seat in.
You have to wonder if this is what it’s like at 4 months old what will happen when he hits 4 years? It’s enough to bring tears to the eyes. Tears that I would wipe away except that I removed a pair of baby socks neatly rolled up in the sleeve of my jumper where my tissue should be!

Educating Lourda

Baby D is finally old enough to refer to his age in months, not weeks and has reached the grand old age of four months old today! It got me thinking how much we’ve both learnt since October. Baby D for example has learnt how to hold things (and how to complain when he drops the thing he’s holding). This week he discovered where his knees are, but hasn’t yet figured out that they are connected to his feet. He has mastered the art of looking cute and holding a conversation at three in the morning, in fact do anything at that time except feed which is what he woke up to do in the first place. He is an expert at kicking his socks off in 0.5 seconds but not so good at keeping his bare toes warm. And of course within a few seconds of being born swiftly learnt how to wrap Mam and Dad around his teensy tiny fingers!
My learning curve has been infinitely steeper. I realise now that practising nappy changes on an inanimate teddy bear was of limited value and perhaps I should have tried it on the cat for a more accurate picture of the wailing and wriggling that goes on at the start. I’ve learnt that having a PhD is of no help when dealing with the complexities of buttoning a baby gro on a squirmy baby at 4am. I’ve discovered that hormones are powerful entity. Where once I had to be physically restrained from jumping off a moving tram away from a screaming toddler, now I would jump in front of a tram in order to protect my little Baby D.
One of my happiest discoveries was that babies are difficult to break and are in fact rather bendy. I was relieved to find that I can apparently survive on little or no sleep; but that over time broken sleep affects the memory. I have no doubt that I could fill several notebooks with what I’ve figured out this far if I wasn’t so damn tired and forgotten half of it. (In fact what am I writing about? Oh yes…).
But the biggest thing of all that I have learnt is that my boy is the greatest little miracle ever and I’m proud to say that I’m the biggest, most loving and protective Mother Hen in the world.
Cluck!

March of the Babies

I remember when undergoing the gauntlet of shopping in Mothercare for the first time, being bewildered by the phrase ‘Daytime Naps’ bandied about by the smug shop assistants. For first time, aka clueless, parents it’s easy to be tricked into forking out more money for Moses baskets, travel systems (not prams anymore)and other accoutrements especially for the Daytime Nap. “Why don’t they sleep in the same place as they do at night time,” I used to wonder. Not out loud obviously in case the scary we-know-it-all-and-you-know-nothing-and-don’t-you-forget-it shop assistants sneered me out of the shop. Anyway my scepticism must have rubbed off onto Baby D, as we seem to have a baby that firmly does not believe in daytime naps- no matter where he’s put. Understandable I suppose, when you’ve an all-purpose entertainment system at your beck and call ready to tickle, sing, dance, read and cuddle; and if Mammy gets tired Daddy is ready to take over. Baby D hasn’t read the union rules about having a 15 minute break every few hours and I’ve given up on getting him to nap successfully on demand.
I’ve tried. Oh yes, I’ve tried. I’ve quoted the Baby Whisperer and Gina Ford to him, but nothing. In fairness he will happily snooze if I hold him and for the first 8 weeks he was a permanent fixture in the crook of my left arm. He would happily lie there for hours, hands folded Zen-like on his belly, his face a picture of bliss; until I dared to put him anywhere else. I swiftly discovered that a steely determination lay underneath those placid, chubby cheeks and after a brief battle of wills, Baby D, having all the time in the world to protest, rapidly emerged the victor. However, in order to prevent repetitive strain injury to my arm a compromise was reached and after a belly full of milk I can now trick him into chilling out in the buggy, so long as we walk quickly!
So every afternoon,in order to recharge my batteries, I undertake a 2 hour speed walk around the city , which should be doing wonders for my post baby figure except once Baby D has succumbed to the anaesthetic effect of the buggy I tend to collapse gratefully into a coffee shop to refuel any calories I may have lost. I’m certainly not the only Mother and baby marching around and I suspect that similar agreements may have been brokered throughout the city.
In fact as I write this, another Mum has deftly manoeuvred her buggy into a postage stamp sized space in the coffee shop and flopped down wearily. I can guarantee that just as she inhales the steaming aroma from her mug of coffee and picks up the paper, a pair of beady eyes will pop open, size up the situation and wait… just until Mum brings the forkful of delicious cake to her mouth, before saying loudly…
“WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

The Wheels on the Bus..

Now that Baby D has reached the grand old age of 13 ½ weeks he is slightly less time consuming than he used to be, although like the Irish weather that could change at any moment and the outlook remains unreliable.
Anyway, taking advantage of longer intervals between feeds, I actually made it out to dinner with some friends last week. I can’t remember the last time I looked forward to an evening out so much and as I got the bus into town I felt like I was going on a very big adventure, which started me thinking of previous exciting bus journeys I’d taken over the years. There was the creaky, over-crowded, over-heated one I’d take to Laois when I was in College, taking 3 hours to get past the hitchers on Newlands Cross but for only 6 pounds return I didn’t care; the mad buses in Thailand, packed with people, chickens and machetes that I thought were the ultimate of crazy transport until I rode the local buses in Peru. Now, as Baby D allowed me out for the first time on my own in, let me see, approximately 13 ½ weeks, the 37 bus from Aughrim St to Dame St seemed adventure enough for me last week.
It may have been the thrill of being back on public transport again but I got to thinking how things have changed in the last 12-18 months or as we’ve started to call it BD (Before baby D) and AD (After baby D).


BD A tough challenge: Hiking the Inca Trail battling stomach issues
AD A tough challenge: Driving to Celbridge for lunch with Baby D in tow – took 8 weeks before I was brave enough for this one

BD Had cuddled lots of baby kittens, puppies, guinea pigs, pigs, calves, foals…(you get the drift) but never held a baby human
AD Can not only hold a crying baby in one hand but can simultaneously butter toast, get dressed and update Facebook status with the other

BD Going to the gym was a regular occurrence, although a bit of a chore
AD Going to the gym is a rare treat away from the flat and looked forward to eagerly

BD Singing ‘Jingle Bells’ while floating in the Indian Ocean, squinting in the sun waiting for Dolphins to swim over
AD Has Christmas been and gone? What do you mean it’s 2010 already????

BD Getting ready to go out, a leisurely affair usually involving some new clothes and a glass of wine
AD Going out????

BD Lots of weekend trips away. If Ryanair knew what the word meant we’d have a loyalty card
AD A weekend away a challenge of epic proportions that I haven’t been brave enough to tackle yet (and that’s not even thinking about taking a flight)

BD If don’t get a full 8 hours sleep a night very, very grumpy in the morning
AD If don’t get a full 8 hours sleep a night very, very grumpy in the morning

BD Thought the term ‘baby brain’ was one of those annoying sound-bite phrases like ‘Breakfast Roll Man’
AD Brain officially atrophied from too many hormones and not enough sleep– in fact have a ghost writer updating this blog

BD Babies loud, smelly and annoying
AD Babies in general loud, smelly and annoying; fortunately we found one that’s cute, lovable and utterly adorable..awwwwww

The future's so bright I've gotta wear shades

Remember the quote from Rolling Stone writer Jon Landau, “I’ve seen the future of rock n’ roll and it’s name is Bruce Springsteen”? It came to mind the other day when Baby D and myself went to the Visitors Centre in the Phoenix Park for Sunday lunch; just us and every other family within a 5 mile radius. I found myself surrounded by kids of every shape and size climbing, crying, shouting, running, laughing, snotting, galloping, falling, pulling, pushing, tantruming… all very, very LOUDLY.
When the ringing in my ears stopped I realised that I’ve also seen the future. It’s not rock n’ roll, more like rattle and howl, and is just a very teensy little bit scary……..

Pregnancy Zen

When I told my best friend that I was pregnant she advised me to make the most of any attention I’d get (seats being surrendered, doors held open and the like), as when the baby was born, people would be so enraptured by the bundle of joy that they’d never look twice at me again.
In actual fact people’s baby obsession started as soon as my bump became visible. As my tummy grew week by week, I began to realise what it’s like to have big boobs with people no longer making eye contact but directing their gaze lower down. My bump also seemed to license a commentary on my body that for some reason is acceptable if you’re pregnant but totally rude if not. Delete as appropriate: “Isn’t your bump/butt/boobs/little finger ever so fat/neat/huge/pointy!” No matter what the comment was, it was often accompanied by knowing looks and dire warnings about the last trimester (“Wait until the last month -you’ll be so much more huger/heavier/fatter then!”) and in case that wasn’t scary enough, about subsequent pregnancies (“Well you’re grand now, but you’ll be so much fatter/huger/etc etc for the second.”)
And then there was the touching. I had heard rumours about this before falling pregnant and being protective of my personal space I anticipated that my instinct would be to resurrect my Taekwondo skills and swat the offender away if anyone attempted to touch my tummy. Strangely, as my belly became a magnet to be touched and rubbed (even before a bump was noticeable), I didn’t have the heart to rebuff their advances. Maybe it was due to hormones but people’s faces softened as they went in for the belly touch, as if they were patting a cute little kitten. By month nine I accepted my lot and felt like a lucky Buddha.
Now that Baby D is no longer a bump and is here in the flesh I discovered that my friend was right; the attention has totally shifted and now I’m barely noticed. So much so that I could probably shave my head and dress like a Hare Krishna and my Mother wouldn’t bat an eyelid if Baby D were in my arms.
Of course what my friend neglected to add was that most days I sport bags under my eyes that would warrant additional charges if I were to fly on Ryanair and the nearest I get to accessorising my wardrobe is a sticky mix of milk and dribble trailing down my shoulder. So being ignored, I don’t mind at all!

Some nice things

I made some iced cupcakes this week and thought that's what the country needs to cheer itself up - some nice things, preferably edible and highly calorific. As I can't put my cupcakes on the blog I decided to do the next best thing and find some nice headlines from the papers instead. Here's the best I could come up with......not great but you should see the ones I couldn't include because of general depressingness..

BT lifts spirits with colour and optimism

Decrease in number of murders and rapes

Downturn means CO2 targets now achievable

Boy escapes injury as car crashes into house in NI

Re-formed Britpoppers Blur to play Oxegen

30% fall in homicides and rise in burglaries, CSO data reveals

Wanted: a maverick gunslinger to save us from the cowboys

Several online services offering free access to music and videos

New Government insulation scheme to create four thousand jobs

Penguins enjoy snow in Dublin Zoo

Spring is in the Air

Hurrah! February has finally arrived! To celebrate the official beginning of spring I am making a conscious effort to enjoy the small things in life. The following exciting things happened today:
-Three brilliant songs played one after the other on the random play on my MP3
-All the traffic lights went green as I drove home from work
-It stopped snowing long enough that I could go for a cold, but bracing, walk at lunchtime
-I’ve officially created a nickname for the recession/economy: It shall be known from now on as the Duck.
I’ve also managed to get roped into signing on for tag rugby and salsa class. I’m not sure how as I’ve no idea of the rules of one, no rhythm for the other and at the moment feeling less than enthusiastic for either of them. Maybe if I practice hard enough I can dance my way around the tag team and avoid being tackled? Onto a more familiar topic, I went to my first gig in Dublin since Australia, “The Streets” in the Olympia. It was fantastic; the band were full of energy, spitting out the lyrics and stage diving, the audience grinned and bounced up and down inanely, vodka red-bull raining from the ceiling – magic! Great antidote to the general misery generated by the media here talking non-stop about Ducks.

January Blues

I’ve always wanted to start a blog entry Sex and The City style; “I couldn’t help but wonder” but until now I never had an appropriate first sentence worthy of wondering about. Until now. So here goes.
I couldn’t help but wonder this evening why January is such a damned mysterious month. A phenomenon in fact that’s at least worthy of a book by Stephen Hawking. Because the question that’s puzzling everyone at the moment isn’t did that guy make Obama fluff his oath on purpose, or will the Irish economy be saved by axing some Dublin Bus routes or even how do Ryanair flights for a euro still manage to cost 70 euro in total. No the question is, how can 31 January days last for such an incredibly looooooong drawn out time? I read somewhere about a theory that an expanding universe is linked to weakening gravity; I don’t understand what that’s all about but I suspect it’s linked to why a January that appears to expand indefinitely causes a severe weakening of the general population. I have observed this weakening effect has a more dramatic consequence in people who have recently been acclimatised to daily walks by the sea, sun bathing and regular consumption of vanilla lattes. I’m not sure how to counteract the effect, indeed no-one does except to wait in feverish expectation for February when we can all breath a sigh of relief and tell everyone, “Thank god January is over. It’s an awfully long month.”

Weather Girl

I’ve become a vampire Monday to Friday since January hit. I am back to work and only see daylight at the weekends; if I’m lucky that is and it leaks through a deep pile of clouds. Having spent the best part of 6 months in bright sunny climes it’s weird driving to work at 8.15 am and admiring the full moon still present in the sky. I’m trying hard to reactivate my weather optimism gene that takes years to develop but about a second to lose when you go to a bright, sunny country. It’s the gene that enables you to say in January when driving home at half four, full headlights on that: “you’d notice the evenings are getting longer,” or causes the whole country to see signs that anticipate a long hot summer: “The birds are flying on the diagonal, and did a back-flip before landing; that means summer will be here in April,” or “The sheep are grazing backward up the east face of the hill. Surely be to God we’ll have 40 days of sun in June.” In Australia it took a while to adjust to the literal nature of the weather forecasts, eventually realising that a showery spell actually means it will be a lovely day with a short, light shower of rain and there’s no need to bring wellies and a rain mac to the beach. In Ireland it’s the opposite. Showery spells mean mainly rain with a cloudy period when it stops and everyone searches the sky optimistically for a glimpse of the sun. In fact “so long as it’s dry” is the main criterion for a good weather day here, winter or summer. Below zero and frost, no problem. “So long as it’s dry” it’s ok as the sky will be blue and the roads won’t freeze too badly. Cloudy and overcast during the summer, well “so long as it’s dry” it’s acceptable as a cloudy and overcast and wet day would be simply awful. By the way, good news as I’m writing this; my cat has stretched twice and yawned at me so it should be sunny in May.

Doom and Gloom

The flight home went extremely smoothly; 2 planes, 2 stopovers, 22 hours later landing in Dublin on time - then we get delayed for 40 mins waiting for our baggage to be unloaded in an empty Dublin airport. At least the hopping up and down and swearing kept me warm, as we missed our train due to the delay.
So what's it like being home? Well like we've never been away. The Lisbon treaty is being debated again, the weather is still grey and miserable, just colder and the economy is still bad. I'm thinking of starting a new drinking game - every time the word Recession is mentioned on the news or in the papers we should down a shot.Might cheer people up a bit. It's inescapable, restaurant reviews, discussions on gigs, gardening articles all manage to bring the topic miserably back to the economy and use it as an excuse for everything. Small portions in a restaurant? Ah sure it's the recession. Lots of traffic in Dublin. Ah it's the recession. A badly pulled pint - ah it's ... I'm expecting the return of the mullet any day now. "Sure I couldn't afford to get the back cut with the recession and all.."
This will be a truncated blog entry. Cutbacks due to the......................

I'm leaving, on a jet plane......

The last few days have been spent chilling in Perth, trying to soak up as much sun as possible before heading home. The days have developed into a nice pattern of thinking about Christmas shopping, drinking coffee and plenty of swimming and long walks. Today was notable due to the rescue of a pigeon from head-banging itself to death in the window of a coffee shop but apart from that nothing too startling to report. We have a nice room in our hostel; ensuite (luxury) although the shower doesn’t work and it’s overlooking the railway so every 10 minutes (every 5 between 6-8am and 5-7pm) the room shakes like we’re in a 1930s tenement. Still it’s a nice room and we even have a TV although we can’t hear it when the trains go by.
On Wednesday we begin the final part of the journey and are heading back home. It’s hard to believe 4 months have gone by and it seems like the other day since I was getting nervous about breaking out of my well established routine and heading off to Peru. It’s even harder to believe that the next time I write this blog I’ll be in Dublin, it will be dark outside and probably cold and wet. I’ve enjoyed every last minute with too many highlights to mention and a lot of things I’ll miss when I’m at home so to be positive here’s a list of the things I won’t miss about travelling:

1. Trying to figure out why everything fitted into my backpack perfectly until I bought an extra t shirt and now only half the stuff will squeeze in
2. The impossibility of finding a knife sharp enough to cut anything in hostel kitchens
3. Hostel kitchens
4. Having to carry your own packs of plates, bowls and cutlery around in certain hostels and having to pay $10 deposit for the privilege
5. Flying cockroaches (only seen one but it flew in the window beside me as I was writing this)
6. Applying sunscreen all the time on the beach
Finding somewhere really nice to stay and then having to leave
7. Going for a run at 7 in the evening, the sun just beginning to set over the sea and spotting a dolphin jumping in the distance - only kidding!

Finally some more piccys of nice things……..


Sleepy Koala , Philip Island
North Stradbroke Isl

Bateman's Bay

Magnetic Island

South West

Another corner of Australia and another road trip, this time south of Perth to the wine country. Stopped off in Bunbury on the way, a charming town although the bars shut at 10pm. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem as the sort of drink on my mind at ten o’clock is usually a cup of green tea, but here we were trying to get out of the hostel for a while so it was the only town where we went searching for a pub. Oh, apart from Fremantle a few days previous where we actively searched for a drink at 10 pm but everywhere seemed to shut early on Sundays, so we ended up in a basement club complete with glitter ball bopping away to eighties music, surrounded by very drunk people and by 12pm had to go home as it felt like three in the morning. Very surreal. Reminded me of Eastenders where they all go ‘clubbin’ in the daylight, have a full night of dancing and boozing and still make it back to the Vic for last orders.
It’s been a time for surreal experiences, as in Bunbury I found myself floating in the ocean, singing Jingle bells and Kylie Minogue medleys in order to attract a pod of dolphins swimming near by. As if singing Christmas carols in November wasn’t bad enough, me simply trying to sing is a trial at the best of times, but luckily I didn’t scare them off and they eventually came over for a quick swim by and a quizzical look at the funny looking humans. The dolphin expert with us explained that the group of males were busy chasing female dolphins at the moment so while we were interesting to them they didn’t have a lot of time to spare investigating. A bit like busking outside Coppers on a Saturday night I guess. Still, a very fun experience and I can never tire of watching Dolphins.
After Bunbury we headed to Augusta and Margaret River where days and tummies were happily filled from fudge, chocolate, cheese and wine, mingled in with visiting art and craft galleries. Oh and walking by some of the most beautiful beaches I’ve seen. It’s a tough life.

Beautiful beach in Gnarabup, where we stayed in Margaret River

Beautiful Smith's Beach, Yallingup

Beautiful Bunkers Beach, Cape Naturaliste

Beautiful beach, Busselton

Hostel Life

It’s been the best of hostels and the worst of hostels the past few days in the South West. At the moment we are staying in a beautiful house in Augusta, with a garden, huge well stocked kitchen, very comfy living area and a lovely bedroom with actual furniture. It’s like staying in a self catering hotel rather than a hostel and if it weren’t for the fact that everything in Augusta closes at 6pm (and I mean everything including the video store and take away). I’d happily live here until we have to leave. We’ve voted it the Number One place we’ve stayed in so far. Which is good as we’ve just stayed in the charmingly named the Dolphin Retreat Hostel in Bunbury but officially ranked as the worse place we’ve been in (Mike disagrees and says Lakes Entrance was but it’s my blog so hey…). Features included dubious hygiene standards, a tiny kitchen and a few soul destroying permanent residents either occupied watching TV (to get to the kitchen or bathroom from our bedroom we had to walk through the living room so always had an audience when transporting toothbrushes and dishes to and fro) or making heart-attack dinners laden with grease, barbeque sauce and salt. The evening we arrived both had (separate) bizarre encounters in the showers –I startled a girl busily blow-drying her feet with a hairdryer, flip-flops still on, while Mike waited patiently for a guy to finish the longest shower in history, but although the water stopped, followed by a long pause it all started up again and the man never emerged. He never saw who it was, just had to give up. Now that I think of it the guys in the TV room probably thought that Mike was the odd fella going to the shower with all the gear then emerging 30 mins later still not cleaned! And don’t even get me started on the eighty year old man who took 25 mins in front of us to check in as he argued about the cost of a dorm bed. He was a member of YHA for 50 years so knew his stuff as you can imagine. Thankfully the place was brightened up by a medley of Asian backpackers who cheerfully invaded the kitchen emerging hours later with a selection of amazing dishes you’d be happy to eat in a restaurant. No mean feat considering I’d trouble baking a potato in a microwave that promptly shut itself off when it got too hot. Some things I won’t miss when I get home!

Some rules and regulations............

Go West!

After touching down briefly in Adelaide (slightly dull place, time mainly spent sleeping off another overnight Greyhound journey and getting badly beaten in pool) we arrived in Perth to start the last leg of the journey. I don’t have much to write as everything just creeps along at a nice pace here, neither terminally boring nor crazy exciting. Which makes the place sound like magnolia paint but that’s the wrong impression as it’s a very nice city and has lots to offer. Although now that I think of it we haven’t done a lot other than swim at the gorgeous Cottesloe beach, drink coffee, think about buying some souvenirs, parking that idea and drinking some more coffee. So pretty much what we do most places then except there’s a very nice feel to doing it in Perth. Oh one major thing happened, we got caught in a street fight out of the blue. Well maybe caught on the fringes rather than actually trading punches, but there were bottles flying, broken glass and police running down the street, just like an episode of The Bill. But apart from that, very quiet. Just in case we didn’t think Perth was easy going enough, we’re down in Fremantle for the weekend where the sun is out and everyone’s so laid back they’re not just horizontal but being pushed around asleep in bed. Exciting things planned for next week though involving dolphins, whales, wine and chocolate. What a lovely combination of lovely things!

Beach Aerobics

Myself and Mike started giving some aerobics classes to supplement our income while away. Please, feel free to join in while looking at some pictures of us inaction....

Melbourne

Find myself staying in an ex convent this week and am greeted by a clock on Bethlehem and Vatican time in the hallway with pictures of saints peering down solemnly from the walls. All I need is a Sacred Heart in the kitchen and I’d be right at home!
So a week after the Melbourne Cup and the Aussies haven’t stopped lording it over the beaten Europeans and the papers still pour scorn over the Irish for getting it so badly wrong. Let it go! If there’s one thing I’ve discovered about the Aussies this trip is that they like to be the best at everything. Not just at sport but EVERYTHING. Each town we’ve visited has boasted of having the biggest/tallest/greatest/widest (delete as necessary) something in the state/country/Southern Hemisphere/world. Nothing’s exempt: from pineapples to Shell Museums, everything can aspire to be the best or biggest something or another. And when it comes to Melbourne and Sydney, so long as they are better than the other it doesn’t matter about the rest of the world. The rivalry between these cities stems from long ago, to the point that as neither city could bear the honour of being Capital to go to the other, a random place halfway between them was chosen instead and so Canberra was built. The competition between the cities has persisted to this day. We overheard defeated Melbourne Victory fans discussing how they reckoned the Soccer League is rigged purely to enable Sydney to win. The funniest was a notice at the end of St Kilda Pier in Melbourne, describing the reconstruction of a coffee shop that had been burnt down in 2003. The council had a chance to rebuild “ a building as beautiful as the Opera House” but decided they already had something just as good as the Sydneysiders and just rebuilt the kiosk instead. Coffee shop versus Sydney Opera House…hmmmmm there’s a comparison not often made.
So Melbourne or Sydney, which is better? Melbourne is a cool place; more laid back than Sydney, easier to get about and Fitzroy where we’re staying has the funkiest selection of shops and bars. Sydney though, edges it for me, with that harbour and beaches and an indefinable touch of romance that captures my imagination in a way that Melbourne doesn’t. Needless to say Mike disagrees and prefers Melbourne so I guess if we were to move here we’d have to live in Canberra.

St Kilda's Pier Kiosk and the Opera House....go figure