The calm before the storm.  Or is it the storm before the calm sanctity that is (or supposed to be) marriage.   Either way before we got hitched we had a couple of awesome stag and hen dos.  Actually we were lucky enough to have two each.  All the pics of my second one are all on facebook. (http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=49881954858)

So for round one of the stag and hen, Nance blinged it up on a beautiful house boat for weekend up the Hawkesbury river.  Complete with spar and enough champagne and wine to open a winery showroom, the ladies enjoyed a 3 day chug among the natural beauty of the area.  To tell you the truth, the recipe of alcohol, boat, river and intoxicated ladies didn’t fill me confidence that we would ever see the wedding together.  However, Nance had an excellent time and only had a couple of life threatening moments, when looking back on them do you think, ‘How did I survive that?’

My first stag do of course was a surf trip four hours up the coast to a place called Boomerang Beach.  We hired a house and despite the lack of surf, we had a fantastic time.  We even had a visit from a couple of naughty angels hence the last couple of pics where i’ve been stripped to my undies and got covered in source.

Went to work the other day to be welcomed by fire crews, police and news teams.  Our office had been taped off and there was smoke bellowing out of the office next door, which was in fact on fire.  It turns out a homeless man started the fire and has been arrested.  The fire started early morning and by 11am, we were allowed (unfortunaty) to return to our smoke smelling building.

Easter, easter, easter, and birthday, birthday, birthday.

 

We’ve had an excellent couple of weeks.  For my birthday, we went to Jack Johnson in concert and dined at a  restaurant called Tetsuya’s, which is by far not your normal restaurant.  Tetsuya’s currently ranks 5^th best in the world!!!!!  And I can certainly see why.  We had to book a table 6 months in advance, but was def worth the wait for the 5 hour dining experience over 14 courses.  Check out gaz’s blog for some pics of the food.

 

For Easter, we headed down to Fingal Bay, which is a little passed Port Stephens.  Basically, we surfed, played board games and ate our own weight in cheeeeese.  We also drank wine, went on some beautiful walks seeing some of the best scenery so far in Oz.

 

Good times had by all!                          

Wowzers, tis been a long time for a blog update.  Will probably post some back track ones over the next couple of weeks if I’ve got time.

 

Anyways, this weekend we found ourselves in the Blue Mountains, living in a cave.  That’s right.  A massive sand stone cave, right in the heart of the Blue Mountains, about 1.5 hrs from Sydney.  The place is called Hatter’s Hideout, and is probably one of the coolest places I’ve ever spent the weekend. 

 

We stayed there with band and co (16 of us in the end), so you can imagine the evenings were very much filled with music.  We also had about 6 drums, and a couple of Donkey Bass’s which you can see me straddling in couple of pics, which made for some epic rhythmic sessions.

 

We also had time for a walk to Wentworth Falls, which made for some excellent photos. 

 

No doubt there will be a video of the fun on Gary’s site soon enough, http://g2007.com/

 

 

 

So another year fly’s by. We had a good one and really ended it in style aboard a lovely boat on Sydney harbour disco sylie! Perfect clear and warm evening for the fire display and bad dance moves. Also managed to give Nance another extreme experience for her birthday, diving with sharks! Good one! Christmas was chilled with the turkey roast, drinking wine, playing the wii and hanging out with our special Christmas guest jenny t. hope you all had a great Christmas and new year and look forward to seeing you back in the UK in may!

So yet again we where blessed with excellent weather at the brilliant Seal Rocks.  This is our second visit here (http://marcusmiles.spaces.live.com/photos/cns!6BECE57CD36A033D!1458/).  The surf was a little disappointment, however, not even small surf brought down a truly smashing weekend.  Roll on Seal Rock 2008.

This weekend was Jenny’s Birthday so in true Sydney tradition of it we hire a beautiful yacht and cruised around the harbour.  This would be the third time we’ve hit the water for Jenny’s birthday, however, we were defiantly better blessed with weather from last year (http://marcusmiles.spaces.live.com/photos/cns!6BECE57CD36A033D!1479/).

 

Good time had by all, and finished off with a good old sing song at viva kaioke.  My ears are still ringing.

Sooooo, this week we’ve been up to Tropical Queensland.  We stayed in the beautiful Port Douglas at the Rendezvous Resort http://www.rendezvoushotels.com/port_douglas/.  It was a 3.5 hour flight from Sydney; however, it felt like a totally different country.  A sort of Thailand meets Bali.  With surrounding rain forest and sea tempertures around 26 degrees, tis a ‘super put pounds on’, ‘lay by beach’, ‘see some fish’, holiday.  Smashing!

So this week we see the arrival of my dear mum.  Picked her up from the airport last Wednesday on blistering, 34 degree sunny day.

 

Also we had Katherine and James’s wedding party at the Harbour View hotel.  Was great to see them both returned to syders safe and happy.

Well it’s been a long time since my last confession, I mean entry.  So, whats been happening?  Lots of things with nature.  Couple of weeks ago, there was a spell of bioluminescence in the water at Manly.  You can see from the picture in the album the colour it generates when a wave crashes.  It was amazing to watch.  I’ve never seen anything like it.

 

There was also a Luna Eclipse the other week.  We went down the beach to watch it.  It was very busy down there.  Gaz got some great pics (www.g2007.com).

 

Also, ages ago was James and Ian’s stag do.  We started the day off with laser skirmish, which is like paint ball but better.  Then finished the day with a curry and trip The Cross. 

  

This weekend we celebrated Christmas in July (http://www.santaswarehouse.com.au/history_of_christmas/christmas_in_july.shtml)

in the blue mountains.  This was our first Christmas in July and defiantly won’t be our last.  The weather really reminded me of home in December.  It’s amazing that only a couple hours out of Sydney into the mountains how the temp can drop so dramatically.  There wasn’t any snow however with over eating and drinking it was massively Christmas like.  We even had a visit from santa himself.  

 

We stayed in a big family house complete with tennis court and games room (however, we couldn’t get into the games room).  On the Saturday we ventured round the grand canyon track to try and work off the billions of calories consumed.  This was done while some the lads went off to play golf and the remaining ladies ate ice cream, soup and drank wine.

 

Merry Christmas  

So another fantastic (If I do say so myself) gig.  Acoustic stylie this time though.   Was a Sunday afternoon down the old Fitzroy in Woolloomooloo (I think that's how you spell it), where played.  Got some vids of the gig on YouTube

 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Wyunc5fF4xY

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=udNg850jKEE

 

Thanks to all that came to see us.  Had a fantastic time.  Roll on the Hopetune, where we'll be headlining on the 2 ^nd Aug.  Very, very exciting stuff.

So, after much planning and anticipation we had our engagement party.  When I say planning, I mean Nance arranging the venue, invites and decorations.  We held it in the cocktail lounge in the Manly Pacific Hotel on the beach front. Was excellent to get everyone together and enjoy a few cocktails, much champagne and a great band to top it all off.

 

Nance looked absolutely lovely, as you can see for yourself from the photos.  Thanks again to all that brought us gifts and travelled to be with us, especially Andy and Anna who flew up from Melbourne in the storm (complete with plane getting hit by lighting).  Felt like xmas morning on Sunday having all the boxes in the lounge and unwrapping everything.  Roll on the wedding I say.

Well, this weekend we've had the biggest storm of the year so far.  Complete with weather warning and Newcastle declared as a natural disaster zone.  We went to the cinema last night to watch Pirates of the Carrabien 3 (not the greatest movie, but great eye candy for Nance), when half way through there was a power cut.  Felt very war like.

 

Anywhos, check out some of the nut cases that braved the massive waves at Dee Why.  On the big sets they were rolling in between 15 and 20 ft.  Suffice to say, I kept my feet on dry land and watched.  There was even tow-in action just of manly beach.

 

On another note.  Thanks to people trying out MeNeedsIt.com, there were few teething problems discovered by you using it.  Thanks for that.  Hopefully I’ve fixed it now. 

Well it’s been a bit of a head down few weeks.  Been working on a little project on the side and has knocked out a few weekends here and there.  It’s a social gift list site.  I’ve got a first release up at http://www.MeNeedsIt.com/ if you would like to have a little look.  It’s amazing how much time it’s swallowed up.  Have a look, register etc and let me know any probs etc.

 

Anyway this weekend was the Manly food and wine festival, which is basically a civilised piss up.  To say the least a few wines where savoured. 

For those of you who have had the pleasure and delight of meeting Dillon, will be sad to hear of his passing, 6th May 2007.  There will never be a dog quite like him again. L