At the Crossroads

Here it is, the story you're all been waiting for...how Brendan and I proposed to each other.


Let's set the scene: It was a warm evening in Sydney, two weeks after Easter. A strikingly handsome couple are sitting inside their favourite Newtown restaurant, Splash, ordering a feast of seafood to share. The girl looks pensive as she sits and contemplates a beautiful wedding they both recently attended in Wollongong. They make small talk until the food arrives and whilst the boy helps himself to the mussels, fish, octupus, prawns and rice the girl decides to 'get serious'.

GIRL: Hey Brendan can I ask you something?
BOY: Hmmmm
GIRL: You know that question I've been waiting you to ask for awhile...
BOY: Mmmmm
GIRL: How would you feel if I asked you that question?
BOY: Why would you want to ask me that question now?
GIRL: I was just thinking about how nice it would be to tell our friends and family in person while we're in Sydney for the week.
BOY: Hmmmm

The boy pauses for a momemt, looking contemplative until a sly grin creeps across his face. The girl, noticing the smile and a new glint in his eye, says nothing but starts smiling to herself and keeps eating. The conversation turns back to small talk, with both of them pretending not to listen to the conversation at the next table which, ironically, was between two girls discussing an upcoming wedding. They finish their food and decide to go for a walk.

The girl, sensing that this is the moment she's been waiting for, can't help but look out for suitably romantic places. She covertly glances around as they walk along King St back toward Central Station, passing by many of their old haunts from the uni days. Again, the couple makes light conversation pretending that nothing is going on, deliberately not making eye contact as they know they'll start laughing and giggling. As they walk past the park at Sydney Uni the girl starts to get excited, thinking that the boy would definitely turn into one of the pathways into the park. They keep walking. Past the first few paths. They walk further. More paths disappear to the left until there is only one more turnoff right at the very end near the traffic lights. They walk past.

The girl's face falls as she thinks how it was all in her imagination. Suddenly, the boy grabs her hand and pulls her onto the traffic island at the T intersection in front of Broadway shopping centre.


BOY: So, we're at the crossroads now...(laughs)
GIRL (laughing): Should we say it together?
BOY: Yeah, I'll count down. 1-2-3
BOY & GIRL: Will you marry me?
BOY & GIRL: Yes!

The couple laugh, kiss, hug and take photos at the traffic island for awhile, oblivious to the Sydney traffic around them.


The girl congratulates the boy on still being able to surprise her even though she was expecting it. Then they walk back to Central Station.

Bread and Scarves

Okay, one more.

Here is some bread I made tonight. Proud of my leavened bread I am.


Here is a scarf Naomi made for me. Proud of Naomi I am.

Just look at that cabling detail!! Ah, stitch, purl, purl, stitch... or something like that.

See you later.

The Netball Runners-up

Hey,

Just a quickie for the sake of blogging something.

On the 7th of this month our mixed netball team, the Horny Devils (because of our apparent and rampant lust for naughtiness), made the netball finals.

It was in a glorious semifinal match that we gained our spot in the finals. It had everything; running, stopping suddenly, catching of the ball, racist slagging (albeit by one of our own players against himself) and, the best bit of all, disqualifications against the other team for fielding too many men. They may have beaten us on the scoreboard but we kicked their arses in the rule books. Woohoo. Woohoo indeed.


We try every week to get to the court in a uniform but as you can see we don't get much uniformity.


Here we are post game. posing with our thanks-for-participating blue certificate in Brett's hand as we did not win against the other team. We played very well though, holding them at 11 points which they only got in the first quarter. We were closing except the game wasn't long enough. Isn't that always the way.

From the top row left to right, Sarah, Scotty, Adres (hanging from the rack), Kristy, Erin, my lovely Naomi, Ioan (or Ewan can't spell these damn ethnic names. He's the redhead hanging from the rock climbing grips), Jason, Rebbecca, Brett, and in the front, myself and Ben.

I only ever played one game and some might say I shouldn't include me when talking about the team but I think of myself as a lovable mascot or score keeper and soccer mum (yelling abuse on behalf of my team).


Then there was the after game drinks. Ah, the circle of life.

Ciao. See you all later.

P.S. a big thanks goes to Erin who tirelessly organized everything so that we had something to do on our Thursday nights.

Weekend Shenanigans

Hey,

Two posts this weekend.

Just remembered to take my camera to a pretty tame house party this weekend. I didn't kick on with the rest of the gang but everyone else did.

It was a little like a nightmare moment when we rocked up as the party had a bogan theme but hardly anyone was dressed in bogan clothing. I didn't care though as I find bogan attire quite comfortable and so did Naomi.


Here is a picture of the gang loading into the 'Troopy' (or I think its called the Toyota troop transporter) and I took this photo at the very moment when Michelle was getting into the vehicle. This has to be a great way to go to a party.


Apart from that excitement in a car (a luxury we don't often get). The party was a fairly typical affair of standing around someones backyard with a fire going (it's about 2 degrees at night at the moment) and looking at each other through a smoky haze.


I was dressed as an 'Airport bogan' and Naomi was dressed as a 'I-just-got-out-of-bed bogan.' This bogan attire was very warm and I can definitely see the appeal in wearing it. After this everyone went into town and naomi and I went home to warm beds and I slept in my overalls. Soo warm.


And this last picture is just gratuitous scenery shots from our driveway at sunset every afternoon. I love Alice Springs. You can cycle from our house to the Gap (which is the gap between the MacDonnell Ranges) and walk up to the top and see it change colour. Sometimes it even looks purple. Gotta come see.

Bye.

Doing the Shopping on Our push bikes

Hey folks,

Chuck here again for yet another exciting installment of... dunt, dunt, duhaaa... the Alice cycling experience.

Here in Alice Springs Naomi and I are dedicated to living without motor vehicles as much as possible. We try to walk and cycle everywhere and it works most of the time except for when we want to leave Alice but we are working on that.


Here is a picture of the 'shopping ute' as I call it. The bike that I can fit a weeks worth of groceries on. The best part about it is that the bike only cost $150. Probably a little expensive but I ride it everyday to work.

I do get a little flak for the basket (you have to have thick skin to ride past a group of ten year old school kids on bikes who call out 'fag basket man' and not mean it in a good way).


Here are the two everyday bikes parked in our carport. Everybody else has four wheel drives or two cars so we get all self righteous and snooty with our left wing dogma and lord it around the place with our giant calf muscles (just kidding. We only do that in private). I love that our landlord saw a need and bolted an old fence to the column and made us a bike stand.

Ciao.