Category: Melbourne

Happy 90th Harry!

/ Renae / 1 Comment

A couple of weeks ago, Hubs and I had the pleasure of attending Hubs’ grandfather’s 90th birthday. We had a great time catching up with family and friends, and meeting some new people as well – mostly family I didn’t know about! Here are some happy snaps from the day:

Wifey, Alma, Geoff (Hubs’ Dad), Harry, Hubs

Harry & Alma and their 2 sons Geoff & Wayne

Grandad Harry has dementia, but he seemed quite present for a lot of the party. Even though he wasn’t quite sure who some of the people there were, he could comprehend the stories being told by some of his old Navy buddies, and even corrected a couple of details along the way! He’s still pretty switched on when it comes to cheeky comments (on our wedding day I told Harry that I had just married his grandson, and asked if that was okay, to which he responded “well with you looking like that, I reckon I’D marry you!) but day-to-day things he struggles with a bit more.

Grandad & Grandson

Harry & Wifey

I’m so impressed with the longevity in the family! Both Nanna Alma and Grandad Harry are 90 now, and they had a few relatives there who were also in their late 80s and 90s. Not to mention my grandparents as well! I hope to have a loooooooooooooong and happy life with my lovely Hubs, and genetics seem to be on our side!

Happy 90th Harry! We look forward to celebrating 91 with you next year!

AFL Grand Final (better late than never!!)

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I blogged last September about the fact that the AFL Grand Final was coming up, but I never followed up on that piece of information! The final was between Hawthorn and Geelong. Hawthorn had had a solid season, but Geelong were the hot favourites to win back-to-back premierships.

Hubs and I ended up going over to our friend’s place for lunch, beers and footy – what a great combo! It was a beautiful Melbourne Spring day – about 28 degrees (I was wearing a summer dress!!) and we were excited!! We had decided to back the underdogs because that’s a lot of fun, and plus we were also watching the game in Hawthorn. It was a really close game and heaps of fun to watch! Here’s a snap from the day (of course!):


Me, Hubs, Cal & Nathan.

Although we really enjoyed backing a winning team (St Kilda are unlikely to deliver the goods for us) the real winner on the day was the company! Thanks guys for a great afternoon!! (Aw shucks!)

Karaoke of the dodgy variety

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This is a karaoke fail:
(Background: We were promised karaoke by a friend who was in town, and karaoke to me means an awesome night at a pub singing your lungs out. Instead, we rocked up to karaoke booths, waited half an hour for our own booth, paid by the hour, paid $7 per beer, couldn’t find any good songs, and found this sign outside our room…)

Nasty, nasty, nasty…

Yowsers!

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A Whine

So I’ve spent most of the last few days, and particularly today, listening to Victorians whinge about the heat. Now, granted, it did reach 40 degrees yesterday, 43 degrees today, and a prediction of 40 for the next 2 days, so maybe they have something to complain about… a little… But it just didn’t stop! People were exclaiming that there should be air conditioners for all of the rooms etc etc etc. Come on people!!! Fair enough if you had more than 15 hot days per year, this might be a consideration, but a little heat for a few days? I don’t think so.

Unfortunately I had to play a touch footy game tonight, and the thing about Melbourne is that it doesn’t hit it’s top temp for the day til about 3 or 4 in the afternoon, and it stays that temp til after 9. This game was brutal. It was such a dry heat that I felt as though my insides were drying out. Not pleasant at all. But did I complain? Well, maybe a little in the end.

It’s just part of the charm of Melbourne that Hubs and I are embracing – you never know what the weather will do one hour to the next, let alone one day to the next. Perhaps that novelty has worn off with the locals though! I wonder what tomorrow will bring!?

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY!!!

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A Beer

We celebrated in true Aussie style – in 28 degree sunshine, with some beers and a bbq.

Here’s Hubs cooking up a storm on our balcony:

I tried my hand at home-made potato chips.
POTATO CHIP FAIL!!

What a great day!

Burn Baby Burn

/ Renae / 1 Comment

Hubs and I popped down to Sorrento a couple of weeks ago to visit some rellies and spent the night on Saturday. We didn’t have anything planned for Saturday arvo, so Hubs’ Dad took us for a walk along the beach. Now, I thought we might be going for a nice leisurely stroll along the beach for an hour or so, so I was just wearing my jeans and joggers and a singlet. I didn’t bother putting sun cream on as we were leaving around 3pm and wouldn’t be out long.

Or so I thought.

3.5 hours and 12km later, we were back home. When we left it was pretty overcast, but by about 4pm the sky had completely cleared and I could feel my poor nose roasting!

I also got a lovely singlet mark, complete with a white patch where my pendant was sitting! Nice!

But the best sunburn of the day goes to Hubs and his chesty bonds tan! Classic!

So the moral of the story, kids? If you’re going to go out in the sun and not wear sun cream, don’t wear things that leave embarrassing tan lines!!

Stuff it

/ Renae / 2 Comments

I can’t BELIEVE how much stuff we have. Seriously. Hubs and I have just moved into our new place on college and it astounds me how much crap we own. Plus we had a trip down to Sorrento over the weekend to pick up our kitchen stuff that we hadn’t needed so far, and there is SO much more STUFF than I remember!! I really didn’t pack lightly for Melbourne at all. And unfortunately, while I was packing things in Brisbane, Hubs kept asking me “are you SURE we need all of this?” and I kept replying “yes dear, of COURSE I need these 8 tea towels and 24 pieces of Tupperware.”

And even MORE unfortunate, was that after I saw how much stuff I had brought down, and how I realised I should have left half of it in Brisbane, I had to utter those 3 little words to Hubs that made him the happiest man alive.

“You were right.”

He even did the Lleyton Hewitt “c’mon” and a few fist punches in the air. Very annoying. Oh well. As my good friend would say: I digress.

I managed to cut it down and bring back only half of the stuff to Melbourne which I thought was a pretty good achievement, so I’m looking forward to unpacking our kitchen tonight! All the other rooms are pretty much done, so I’ll have some photos up in no time.

Aaaaah. Home sweeeeeeet home.

It’s oh so quiet (sshhh sshhh)

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Since we kicked all the Junior Common Room students out… ahem… since they left of their own accord… a few weeks ago, we’ve pretty much had the place to ourselves. Oh, apart from the 175 Homeless World Cup delegates who stayed with us for 10 exciting/crazy/entertaining days, and now the 30 or so “maths nerds” who arrived yesterday. Anyway, apart from all of those people, there are only about 30 of us staying here at the moment. It’s lovely! We don’t have to line up for dinners, the food is even better (we had corned silverside the other night – delish!) and it’s just nice and quiet.

I guess we’d better not get too complacent though. They’ll be back before we know it! In the mean time, we’ll be moving into our new unit (still on college) once we get back from Brizzy and will have much more of a home, rather than just a couple of rooms, so we’ll be looking forward to some visitors in the new year to show off our new abode. I’ll be sure to post some photos of the new place once we’re settled in, but in the mean time I have a bonza (yes, I just said bonza) before and after sequence of Swanston St, where we live.

Taken in late August:

Taken in late November from around the same spot:

Noice huh!? Though, I’m not sure what Mother Nature is playing at the last few days – it’s December and it’s currently 16 degrees and raining. Can’t wait for those 35 degree days back in Brisvegas!! (I’ll be complaining within a week, guaranteed!)

Hockey 1, hockey 2, hockey 3!!

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Just a quick post to mention that I played hockey for the college this “season” and had a blast! I was the oldest player on the team (by about 6 years) and probably the most unfit too. But the girls were heaps of fun and very encouraging to an old gal like me!

College sports are generally played in September and October, and you only play about 6 games if you play all the way through to the grand final. Which we did! Both the Newman Boys and Newman Girls played in the grand finals this year which was terribly exciting. Unfortunately, after VERY close games, we both lost. (Boys 1-0, Girls 2-1). It was a little disappointing, but the girls will be back next year to try and end Ormond’s 11 year winning streak!

Here’s a team photo after the game:

Ultimate Fun

/ Renae / 1 Comment

I am desperate to blog about our weekend back in Brisbane, but until I can upload the photos, there’s just no point, as they explain our weekend so much better than I ever could with words.

So in the mean time, let me tell you about a new sport Hubs and I are playing. Ultimate Disc! (aka Ultimate, flying disc). It is SO much fun and very good for our fitness. My friend from high school and her partner are very into it and invited us along for a game a few weeks ago. Actually, it was 3 games and we ended up playing for 2 and a half hours. That’s a LOT of running.

It’s kind of a mixture between netball and gridiron. Kind of… We play in Albert Park (St Kilda) on a field about 100m by 30m and there are end zones where, if you catch the disc whilst in the zone you score a point. You start the game and each point with 1 team at each end of the field, lined up Braveheart style. At the start of each point, one team starts off in attack, and the other team “pulls” the disc (throws it as far as they can) and are on the defense. We play either Man-D (pick a player and mark them) or zone defense (which we’re still getting the hang of). You can’t run with the disc (like Netball) but you can take a few steps to slow down once you have it. You’re often sprinting when you receive it, though in my case, it’s more of a fast jog.

As I mentioned, there’s a LOT of running and it’s very fast-paced. The good thing is, after each point you get a bit of a breather. The game finishes either when 1 team has scored 15 points (half time is at 8 points) or after an hour and 20 minutes has passed. It’s self-refereed which makes it a very honest game and Ultimate is all about the Spirit of the Game. So much so, that they have Spirit Captains whose job it is to keep the game running smoothly.

Last night Hubs and I both had a great game. Hubs took a massive leap in defence which prevented the opposition from scoring a goal and our Team Captain was so impressed that he ran on to the field to give Hubs a high 10! He told me on the sideline that people will play for 10 years without ever pulling off such great defence. I was so proud. We both went on to score goals in the game as well – Hubs scored 2 and I scored 1. We won 15-4.

At the end of the game we all huddle in a circle, ensuring we are standing between 2 opposition players, and the Captain of the losing team (different to Spirit Captain) thanks their opposition for a great game and perhaps shares how they felt the game went, and gives the team 3 big cheers. Then the Captain of the winning team does the same. It’s a bit mushy but it’s actually a pleasant way to end the game.

It’s a nice way to start the week on a Monday night, though when we play the 8:30pm games, we don’t get home til almost 11! Lucky I’m working so close to home these days.