Port Stephens

After suffering for a week with man-flu, Em and I booked in to a hotel in Port Stephens (2 hours north) for a couple of nights as Em had just also finished her nights. Weds morning, Em got back with a load of canulas as I had agreed to be Izzy's pin cushion as she practised inserting grey canulas as she keeps failing them. Just to picture it, a grey is a 16 gauge needle (roughly 1.6mm diameter) and looks pretty evil! Luckily, she got it straight in, and then with a bit of advise and assistance from Em, she got the plastic canula tube into the vein, and I have to say it didn't hurt a bit :-)
We then jumped in the car and headed north. As we got to Newcastle, it started to rain as we passed through a rain cloud. We got to the hotel about 4 and then went for a stroll around the place. It was right on the waterside, had a 90 berth marina outside, pool, beach - the works. We got back, got changed and then went for a couple of drinks in the bar before heading down to the restaurant for some food. Was excellent food, but the service was a little slow.
Thursday, we got up late and had breakfast and then Em spotted that there was a beauty treatment area in the hotel, so we wandered down there and both ended up having a half hour massage. After that we drove around Nelson Bay and walked up the headland beyond Shoal Bay. We made our way over to Soldiers Point for a late lunch and then went back to the hotel. Em wanted to make use of the pool, so we went for a dip (Em stayed to do 60 laps of the pool) before heading back to the room to get showered and changed. I challenged Em to a couple of games of pool which whiled away an hour in the bar before tea. We ate in the restaurant again, but the service was even slower than the night before. If we had stayed another day, we would have definitely gone looking for an alternative restaurant nearby.
Spent the Friday on the beach, and going to one of the wineries on the way home.
Was a nice break and was good to find another part of the central coast.

Birthday

Apologies for not being in contact for a while - after my birthday I came down with a dose of manflu and haven't really been online since.
Birthday was nice and quiet - spent the day reading and playing the guitar - learnt Jose Gonzales' Heatbeats - and then went out for a meal in the evening to an Italian in the village called Onda. Good food, even better company and finished it off (reluctantly) with a drink out as I really didn't fancy being plyed with drinks all night and ending up with a stinking hangover. Thankfully I managed to stick to the same drink all night, so any ill effects were minimal. Ended the night round at Freyja's and stayed the night as didn't fancy the walk back.
Didn't do much on Sat, but Sunday I was told I had to be up earlyish, and I was taken for a drive by Em and Iz. Ended up at Glenmore Valley Horse Riding centre and we had a 2 hour ride booked. Was great fun. I actually trotted, and maybe cantered - although at that stage I was just holding on for dear life!! Loved every minute of it though, and I now plan to go and get a couple of lessons just so that I know roughly what I need to do in future as Iz and Em both want to go again, and want to hire a few horses for half a day and just go off and ride, so I need to be able to keep up with them!
All in all, a pretty cool weekend

Return of the Ginger-Dread Man

Went to see Newton Faulkner last night in Sydney, and I was absolutely blown away by his performance.  I knew, from his album and a few tv appearances that he was bloody good, but to see it live was something else!!

His style is a mix of fingerpicking, hammer-on/pull offs, slides and of course his trademark bongo-styley beats which run throughout many of his songs which he gets from hitting and tapping the body of the guitar.  The sounds he gets out of an acoustic guitar - admittedly going through a distortion/sustain pedal at times - are mind blowing.  Fantastic harmonics, drum beats, great melodies and to watch him in one song moving the capo mid song and then de-tuning and re-tuning notes to give a whammy bar effect was awe inspiring.  What can't he do??

If you ever get a chance to catch him live - do it.  He's got a real monty-python sense of humour too, which was nice to hear!  The encore - although he openly admits he doesn't see the point in walking all the way off stage to come back on again, so just stayed on stage whilst people shouted for more - was stunning, culminating in a performance of Bohemian Rhapsody which he wanted to do on Radio 1's Live Lounge a couple of years ago, but realised it would take a bit more work to get into his style.  So a culmination of about a year's worth of fiddling with the tune produced a stunning performance.  I've found a copy of it on Youtube (last night's performance) so you can see it here.

Sarah Bareilles was supporting in her first Australian gig.  She's an american act who had a number 1 in Oz, and probably in the UK with her song 'Love Song'.  Cracking vocals, bit of a jazz/blues mix with a pop overtone.  Of course being the support act, didn't get the reception of Newton, but she was deserving of one.  I reckon there'll be plenty more from her in the future - I'll definitely try to get to see her on her own in the future.

When faced with danger, run away! Works every time!!

On Tuesday night we won through to the final of our group of the Oztag tournament. I'd like to think that I was an integral part of the victory ... which I actually was, but not in a particularly good way.

First half, we're defending on our try line, the ball is passed to one of their players, I step up (literally just stood up and took a step forward) in an attempt to tag her, but instead of trying to run around me like most people would, she decides to run full pelt, head first into my chest. I was fine, but she bounced off and was looking a wee bit dazed for the next 5 mins or so.

10 mins later, after we were matching each other try for try, I am passed the ball. Have nowhere to run to, and someone in front of me trying to tag me so I do what any sensible person would ... I run away (just happens to be towards my own try line as there's nobody behind me to pass the ball to. In hindsight, just getting tagged would have left us further up field, but in the heat of the moment I ran, dodged back and forth, and eventually one of my team mates ran back to receive the pass. However. Just before I made the pass I jinked to the right and as I turned to watch our guys running the ball back up the field and prepared to make chase I heard a blood curdling scream from behind me. Hastily thought 'what did I do?!' looked down and saw the guy who had been chasing me writhing on the floor in agony clutching his knee. I reckon what happened was he went over on his ankle, but his knee (which was already strapped up) decided to go 'pop', quite literally! Thankfully half time was blown and everyone came back to see what was up with him. Turns out he'd had some lateral ligament/muscle knee probs before and it had gone big time. Queue feeling rather guilty, then realising there was nothing I did other than run away, which I can't really be blamed for. Turns out that that incident opened up the game for us in the second half, and we scored quite a few more tries and ended up winning fairly comfortably, so as I said, I was an integral part of the victory!

Tootle pip.

Rich