The Blue Mountains

One of the nice things about Brighton is that the sea is at the front whilst behind there are the Downs. Sydney has something similar, although the Pacific is slightly wilder than the Channel, and the Blue Mountains are somewhat higher than Ditchling Beacon. We went away to the Blue Mountains to see if there were better views than from Mount Caburn. And you know what? There were.

We stayed at a cottage in a place called Springwood, which had a minuscule cooker, and we were expected to cook on the barbeque. Australians are famous for their barbeques - one might even say they're proverbial. Now to us parochial English folk, a barbeque is a tray of not quite white charcoal, over which meat gets completely crisp on the outside yet somehow remains raw inside. So I always wondered why all Australians were so keen on Barbies when they were so proud of their meat. And then we saw that an Australian barbeque has nothing to do with charcoal, and everything to do with having a fully equipped outdoor stove, with adjustable rings and a perfectly controllable griddle. Arriving in Springwood, we found we had our own barbeque on our own deck, less than 1 metre from the bush of the Blue Mountains National Park.

Eating our barbequed steaks, we heard movements in the trees in the darkness. We peered into the leaves of the gum trees and could just make out a rather large bear-like shape, about 1 metre long. It was a possum. Not only Georgia and Ethan were excited. Other nightlife were the most vicious mosquitos, which bit Helen everywhere but for some reason didn't go near Ian. Inside, our little cottage had a very large spa bath and after everyone had been in it at least 4 times, we set off to explore the mountains the next morning. At first we weren't sure what all the fuss was about, the main road is so ugly it gives no hint of anything picturesque. We finally turned off at Leura and found the most amazing views.

Katoomba is one of the highest points in the Blue Mountains, with absolutely spectacular views over the valley. It's hot here still but that didn't deter Ian from planning a hike through the bush, that began by descending 1,000 steps, from Echo Point, down past the Three Sisters. We then walked through the bush until finally reaching the cable car to take us back up to civilisation. Ian went up the hard way, via the steps and a wine shop. The cable car brings you into Scenic World, truly awful and we were glad to escape this tourist trap. We went back to the highway and drove onto the Hydro Majestic Hotel (1904), which had fantastic views across the valley and did a very decent afternoon tea. After scoffing scones and sarnies, we headed back to our cottage and another BBQ, now Ian's got the hang of it


The next day we went swimming at Jellybean Pool, a waterhole in the National Park at the base of the lower mountains. The water was clear and cool, a really relaxed way to spend Sunday morning. We drove further into the park along dirt roads, in search of kangeroos, which we found in the domestic surroundings of the camp site.

It was only 45 minutes from our house to the Blue Mountains but there was so much 'nature' up there compared to surburban sydney, that it felt much, much further. We plan to go back soon.

Croydon: Its like no other Croydon

We're living in an Inner-West suburb of Sydney, 5 miles down the beautiful Parramatta Road from the Central Business District, which is called Croydon. We're two miles from Ikea, and there, the similarity ends. Its an almost grid-like arrangement of streets, but with plenty of cul-de-sacs which connect into each other, concentrating traffic onto the main roads, and keeping the streets pleasantly livable. We live on such a cul-de-sac (Google Earth) in a beautiful Federation bungalow, tastefully restored and extended to form a great place for us to live.

We've been here for a month, and it now feels like a home. We're embedded in the local community to the extent that we pop next door to use their pool, and get asked to pick up children from school. Ethan and Georgia now spend the hours from 4pm-8pm playing on the street with the other local children. There are three boys from 8yrs to 10yrs, so Ethan is immensely happy, and Georgia is enough of a tomboy to join in most games. Both children are now at Croydon Public School and coping well, we think. Education seems pretty traditional here and maybe more like the UK private sector than your average state primary school (small class sizes, lots of uniform, homework and games lessons).

Georgia did herself proud today at her first Australian competitive sports event, the Swimming Carnival at the local pool. She did wimp out of the first event, as the competition was pretty fierce but after a few stern words about 'taking part not winning' from her parents, she entered 2 races, getting ranked third in the backstroke race.

Anyway, back to Croydon...the neighbours and school mums have been really friendly and hospitable and basically we're very glad to be here rather than a more trendy central neighbourhood. We also have responsibility for a small dog called Cocoa, he's very cute and we've all grown very fond of him, just look at the pictures and you can see why and he's really affectionate, especially with the kids (OK, cleaning up dog poo and being licked a lot is a bit of a downside). We live near the station, so it's fairly easy to get into town quickly and past the station is a small parade of shops, including, thank goodness, the excellent Strand Cafe, which does an great cappacino, a frequent requiement after dropping the kids at school. Big shopping needs to be done at the local mall, I will be happy never to go into another shopping mall in my life after 8 months here.

Coppermine on a Friday Night

On an ordinary Friday night, after the children's second week at school. Ethan has achieved ten pink stamps, the only one in his class to have achieved such honours. At least we think its an honour - we assume that Sydney's rainbow education uses pink as a colour of praise, appropriately. Georgia has been out to art class, where she has bought her first set of oils (Ilse Marshall, eat your heart out), and has created a wonderful butterfly. Ian has spent the day getting rid of annoying administrivia which eventually catches up with you, no matter where you flee. And Helen? Well, she's walked the dog, finished Richard E. Grant's With Nails and done lots of washing. Are you all impressed if we say it all dries in half an hour (a pleasant 5 degrees celsius in Brighton so the BBC tells us)?

On Friday, we've always sat to eat dinner, and Australia is no different. Except that here, we get to drink all the fabbo Australian wines we can buy at auction. Tonight, its prawns and steak, with which we match a D'Ahrenberg Coppermines Cabernet Sauvignon 1997. The tastes? Georgia says spicyish, sweet and sour. Helen - smooth, peppery in depth. Ian - leather around the mouth in a pleasantly long finish, front of the tongue has pepper and spice, with a large alcohol kick from vapour, really needs something in the middle to complement the big things happening at the side. Of course, after we're eating, more interesting things happen - predominantly vanilla in the middle, which explains why other people rate the wine.
On other matters, we've watched the whole of "The Worst Week of My Life" in two big chunks served up by ABC. Have I told you all that I played football with Ben Miller at college? And we were happily and joyfully surprised that Ben had produced something that was funny. We've met Ben a couple of times since college, and he's been walking a fine line between being normal and a wee bit too self-focussed. But he's still fundamentally a nice bloke and its good to see him doing well. I'll leave it to Tuhin to add the Rachel Weisz tales.

Somehere, The Pet Shop Boys

Seven O'Clock. Just completed the family dinner without having to tell the children to eat. Watering the lawn, where first Helen sprays Georgia, Ian sprays Helen and Georgia sprays Ian. Showers and joint shaving. The afternoon spent lazing with Brett and Simone, the next door neighbours with the pool. Ethan arrives from the kids across the road to take his part in watering, which ends with him running around naked with the dog. I bring ripe kumquats in from the tree.

We miss you all terribly, but you know, there are compensations.

Bidding for Birthday Happiness

It was my birthday, and for the first time in many years, I wasn't able to gather friends around a table, for my favourite dinner of the year. Disconsolate, I sought for ways to revive my spirits, searching high and low on the InterWeb for a suitable birthday present to myself. Nearly everything was discarded, but then I found Langtons. Wine auctions have been taking place for many years, but for various reasons, they never seem to have taken off over the Internet within the UK. This is something that obviously needs to be investigated - I presume there are problems with licensing - and I'll have to go spend good EPSRC money to find out why. In the meantime, Australia seems to be happy to flog second-hand wine, for extermely reasonable prices.

Searching through the lists a few days before the end of the auction is like seeing an oenilogical Christmas list. So many exciting new tastes, for seemingly so little money, with the joy that many of the lots were single bottles. I placed a few bids down on things I wanted to try, and then returned every day to see if the prices had changed, expecting the normal EBay style of last minute bidding and sniping. And there was - I wanted to try one of the big Penfolds wines, a Bin 707 from 1997, so I put in a bid of $69, which went up on the day of sale to $102. However, other wines were obviously less attractive - for instance I got 3 bottles of Tyrrell's Vat 47 Chardonnay 1999 for only $2 more than the initial bid price of $20 ( I should explain, that just like EBay, the site uses proxy bidding, where you enter the maximum value you're prepared to pay for an item, and it will bid up on your behalf. Whilst superficially this should encourage single bidding, for knowedgeable buyers, an optimum strategy ends up being to do last minute bidding see The Timing of Bids in Internet Auctions: Market Design, Bidder Behavior, and Artificial Agents for fuller explanations).

Unfortunately, even though the auction ended on 29 January, I couldn't pick up the wines from their warehouse until the 1 February, so the actual birthday dinner was accompanied by a rather more prosaic 1998 Metala Original Plantings Shiraz - you can see that I'm getting quite blase about commonly available wines now. The Shiraz was pleasant, blackcurrant and coffee, but still rather closed with a short finish.

The Tyrrell's thus emerged with dinner when we entertained Mike Fry and his wife Kate. Mike is the guy I'm working with in Sydney, and great fun it is too. One paper written, with several more to come. We cooked the Endsleigh special of Beetroot Risotto with Parma Ham Quail's Eggs and Horseradish, then Salmon wrapped in Parma with Puy Lentils. Of course, the local supermarkets aren't like Waitrose, and we haven't yet found a posh food delicatessen. There is a gaping hole in Autralian supermarkets for better class of shop than Coles or Woolworths, but more of that another day. Instead, Helen had to travel into Davy Jones for the ingredients, for a day's shopping whilst the children were at school. Life is hard.

Dinner was excellent, with grown up company, with conversations ranging across a wide panoply of subjects - I now have a slightly different perspective on Austrlian politics. The wine, Tyrrell's Vat 47? Well, I destroyed the cork in opening the bottle, so I had to jug and fish out lots of cork bits. The colour was surprisingly dark, very green and oily. The texture matched, with the thick gelatinous feel that comes from good old wines, which coat the entire mouth and stay for several seconds afterwards. The flavours were initially lemon and rather simple in the first taste, but then opened up with sweeter melon flavourings in the more complex later sips. We drank one bottle from the three that I bought - others will come home for drinking in the aniticipated cold of the English Autumn.