When is winter gonna come a marching along?

When I was a girl we had electric blankets and flannelette sheets. Even then I hated those bloody sheets - all wrinkly and bally and yukky, but they were snuggly warm in the winter. I remember tucking my school uniform into the bottom of my bed so that I would have warm clothes to jump into in the morning and I would stop in bed until the very last minute cos I just didn't want to face the chilly elements.

Winter now is just a brief respite from the heat of the summer. Oh I might pop on a light jumper at night and Steve has bought me a couple of rugs to use as we sit like the old people we are watching the tellie, and Dog certainly enjoys tucking under these too, but there is no desperate need for heaters and slippers and coats and gloves.

As a newly-weds, we had no money and a little house and an inherited kero heater. It should surprise no-one to learn that I was no more patient at 20 than  I am at 55 and on one particularly chilly evening I decided it would be wise to give the thing a bit of a tickle along to hurry up the heat. Well hurry it up it did. Flames took off and reached the ceiling and I am pretty sure that serious damage was averted only by Ray's quick action of picking up the whole thing and throwing it out onto the front lawn. I am not sure and I could be making it up, but I seem to remember a big explosion that caused the old lady next door to be even further pissed off with her youngster neighbours. We were not her favourite people.

I reckon the elf and safety police might have banned these heaters and perhaps for good reason.

So now as an old girl I must be running permanently hot and definitely not in a good way. I look forward to my crisp clean cotton sheets and just a little coverlet. I would love to cuddled up under a great big doona but the very idea makes me break out into a sweat.

It is no wonder that the only cool place in the summer is in the pool.

Verve Restaurant at Broadie still my favourite!

This wonderful restaurant is our 'go to' place when we want guaranteed great interesting food for an occasion or we just want to spoil ourselves rotten.

As it was birthday evening, it was predictable that this is where we would go.

When we arrived we noticed immediately that Shelley wasn't there, we are old but not completely stupid after all. Lisa greeted us warmly and seated us and told us that she was the new Shelley and we were pleased to be able to be a part of her very new venture.

Lisa had wisely kept all that, in our humble opinions, had made Verve so successful. The chef, the varied menu, the relaxed atmosphere and the knowledgeable Michael.

We decided to push the boat out and  went the whole hog with the Degustation menu - ooooh so many courses of absolute deliciousness and empty plates some of which I had managed to scrape finger clean before Michael took 'em away.... Soo Yum!!

Here's some pics. The photos are not even close to as fab as the food! The full menu is on Verve's web site.

 

Beetroot many tasty ways with an unusual egg ( Lisa Called it something else)

 

Empty Plate - nothing tucked into a serviette, all down the cake hole!

 

 

No 2  Scallops and stuff - not sure if it was prettier than it was tasty cos it was bloody fantastic.

 

Pork and apple and stuff Yummo!! 

 

Lamb 3 ways - abso-bloody-lutely delicious! I did worry that the orange stuff was pumpkin, but just to make my evening perfect, it was carrot puree!

 

 

Dessert, too many drinks by now for a well focused shot, but I had to be restrained from picking the plate up and licking it clean. I was in polite company after all!

 

 

Cheese. I have never ordered a cheese board at the end of a meal. I can't imagine a time when I would want cheese over sugar at this time in the evening, but the menu caters for all tastes..

 

 

 

Steve decided to try all the wines that went with the meals and I just drank bubbles. The wines that were served did indeed smell very fine and the parade of different glasses was most impressive.. He reckoned that they went well with the food.

 

The pace of our evening was leisurely and calm and there was never any hint that we needed to hurry along. When we booked there were none of those fashionable threats that you can only stay for an hour and a half and then be kicked  unceremoniously to the kerb, whether or not you have finished chewing up your last mouthful.

 

Verve is a place designed to allow you to enjoy truly delicious food prepared with care and attention to detail and served with skill and pride.

 

We wish Lisa and her Staff great success and look forward to our next night out at Verve.

 

NO CASH OR FOOD HAS EXCHANGED HANDS FOR THIS REVIEW

 

Sydney's Public Transport - Oh Yeah!

I am not a fan of waiting and other people's stink and slobber and sweat and leaning, so in the abstract I am never interested in using public transport, but in Sydney, they seem to have got it just RIGHT.

For 5 days I travelled on trains and ferries all courtesy of my mate's Opal Card - the Sydney 'Tap and Go' equivalent of the London Oyster or the Brisbane Go cards. The card is not yet use able on all the buses, but I believe this is the next thing on the list and some routes are being trialled already.

Anyway, over 5 days I reckon I waited in TOTAL about 15 minutes for a ferry or a train to come along and, No I did not have a timetable in my pocket that I ran to religiously. This was just serendipitous timing. How bloody fantastic is that?

Admittedly we didn't want to go anywhere during rush hour so that made life a lot less crowded I suppose. But the ease of getting around was excellent. If at anytime we were not sure, there was a staff member more than happy to help out and we were never given a bum steer.

We hopped on and off the inner city trains using different lines and one day I went as far afield as Parramatta. All very easy, clean, fast, safe, pleasant and cheap, and the ferries have always been a favourite. Really, the locals are just so bloody lucky!

I know there must be a point from the city centre beyond which a car would be necessary, but I certainly did not ever mourn the lack of one.

Sydney is such a fantastic city, so much to do, so much to see. I hope that Sydneysiders take time to smell the roses.

Before I head back next time I will have my own little bit of OPAL and I just can hardly wait to use it!.

Old Friends

Old Friends
Old Friends
Sat on their park bench like bookends
Newspaper blowin' through the grass
Falls on the round toes
Of the high shoes
Of the old friends

Old Friends
Winter companions the old men
Lost in their overcoats
Waiting for the sunset
The sounds of the city sifting through trees
Settle like dust
On the shoulders of the old friends

Can you imagine us years from today
Sharing a park bench quietly?
How terribly strange to be seventy...

Old Friends
Memory brushes the same years
Silently sharing the same fear

(Musical Interlude)

A time it was
It was a time
A time of innocence
A time of confidences

Long ago it must be
I have a photograph
Preserve your memories
They're all that's left you

I rolled back the clock some 34 years yesterday and caught up with a woman from almost my childhood.

Maree and I were essentially girls / women together in 1980. We laughed til we dropped and drank and argued and swapped stories and laughed some more.

We recently reconnected on Facebook.

She lives in the Blue Mountains now and as I am in Sydney for Vivid I thought it a perfect time for a get-together, and perfect it was.

The train gods conspired against us so instead of me venturing into the chilly hills, we met up at Parramatta.

Drinks and food and a jolly sit down and we were by far the noisiest guests in the pub. We made short work of the last 30 years.

Sure we are both older and there are etches on our faces and we sadly both limp along a little more than we did as spritely youngsters, but we are essentially the same. She might be a little more leftie and I might a little more rightie, but we both still enjoy a lively debate and we are both still quite militant about the 'establishment' and neither of us are able to suffer fools.

It was just bloody wonderful!

Today's youngies with the advantages of social media should never have to wonder where and why and when and with whom, all their friends are getting on. They should not ever have to meet up one overcast Saturday afternoon in Parramatta High Street to catch up on 30 years.

But oh how they will miss out if they don't. What a lovely way to roll back the time and feel like a girl again.

Paul Simon's song is more than a little haunting and melancholy, but yesterday was neither.

The more we age the more we stay the same.

Sydney Vivid Festival

I do love a cracker and a light show and a water fall and being in Sydney and a girlie natter and a birthday and eating food I haven't cooked myself and a beer and sitting on the ferry making a last minute decision to head off to the Opera House Vivid Display. What a wonderful time Carol and I are having!

We headed into town last night and walked to Martin Place so we could start there with our Vivid 'look see'. Carol is a whizz with a camera and I am shit so my pics are rubbish and so I will bore with only a few of the least bad ones..

The city was heaving with jolly people all enjoying the moment. It was lively and colourful and crowded and good natured and bloody wonderful and the lights were magical and completely entrancing. Carol went looking for an interesting vantage point and I immersed myself in the colour and the movement.



We meandered down to Darling Harbour and sat at a prime table and ate steaks and watched a light show over the water through water spouts and then caught the ferry towards home. We sat under my silly blanket coat because it got a bit chilly in the breeze and then ran off as fast as my shitful broken knees would take me to the Rocks where we watched loop after loop of lights on the Opera House and the rather odd loop of strangeness on the façade of the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Whoever thought up this idea was just bloody brilliant!! We figured that there might have been a drop off in the numbers close to midnight but we were WRONG.

Plane travel

There's something more than a little odd about sitting in a very confined space with a bunch of strangers with some young bloke's leg pressed ever so gently against yours.

The trip down today was shared with celebrated out Blues fans who were very bleary eyed and more than a little pongy, and the usual holiday makers and business men and women and a bloke who was completely engrossed in his, 'How to Rear Chooks' manual... no he didn't look that boring so appearances can definitely be deceiving.

This is not the sort of group of folk who you'd casually invite to a pot luck dinner. There'd be no conversation and mostly people would just do that weird lean thing so that there is no contact at all between them and their neighbour, except of course for the young bloke and the too fat old gal's legs.

So in a little more than an hour I moved from the dozey old Goldie to fast wonderful urban Sydney.

I do love Sydney. I love the pace of the place and the smells and rudeness of the people and the different accents and colour and old meets new and the icons and the strangeness. There is nothing that I don't like about Sydney. I reckon I could live here except that it's too far from Belly and Zig and I would have to teach myself all the new roads and where to go to get food I like to eat.

So Carol and I are off one our Vivid adventure. Yippee!!

Economic Rationalism Vs Virgin Australia Bullshit

I am heading to Sydney tomorrow. I booked weeks ago with Virgin Australia, paid a bit extra to get the exit row seat cos I am a shit claustrophobic passenger, and checked in on line this morning.

It's been a pretty busy day what with getting my roots done and seeing the girls for lunch so I was more than a little miffed to find a text message from Virgin saying that my flight was off and they had kindly re-arranged for me to go a whole lot later.

I rang to find out WHY.

It's not a difficult question really.

I spoke to Michelle.

She told me that the problem was staffing and waffled about not having a full crew and passenger safety is a priority, and when I pushed harder she said it was an engineering problem.

And then the wheels feel off the excuse wagon.

What I managed to copy verbatim was that the plane was  cancelled due to Operational Requirements. It seems that the plane and the staff were needed in Canberra due to possible fog tomorrow morning.

I am not sure what is going on in the nation's capital tomorrow which requires such an urgent exodus but I  bet they are all pretty shitty they don't have God on their side cos if they did they could have sent the fog to sunny Queensland and then I wouldn't be shitty about the delay cos I'd be sitting at the airport staring out into the fog and not seeing my plane, so I could see the reason for my delay.

The fucking excuses just kept coming thick and fast. And no one it seems was the least bit interested in telling the bloody truth.

What Michelle wanted me to believe was that because God was in the employ of Virgin and had deemed it very likely there would be fog in Canberra, they would have to line up planes for all the Canberra people so they could leave whenever the fog lifted. Michelle said she felt this was quite a viable explanation.

Michelle came and went and I was lulled to screaming point by shitful bad jazz and Michelle found it impossible to confirm or deny that MANAGEMENT  had taken a decision that prioritised Canberra folk over us beach bums. I bet there is some conditions of employment that require Michelle to complete her calls herself, because it was only after 50 minutes that she offered to put me through to her supervisor. I was gleeful.

Tequila came on the phone and it must be said that she was far easier to understand so we cracked on much more quickly. I asked her how many people had been booked onto my original flight, and she hummed and haaed around for a while and then said she wasn't able to tell me that info, but that she could tell me that they had all been reallocated onto the next flight. Well finally a bit of truth! 2 flights but only 1 plane load of people.

Economic rationalism!! An excuse that had it been given an hour and 10 minutes earlier I would have been a happier, if not happy girl. What's wrong with telling the truth?

'We are not a charity!' 'There was no profit in that flight so we cancelled it!'

Just stop with all the bullshit and the insults to the cognitive capacity of even rather simple minded people.

Just tell us the truth!!