So as promised, I've finally got around to uploading some pics.....

This is Hyams Beach at Jervis Bay...in the Guiness Book of World records for having the whitest sand in the world


and this is Murrays beach, just up the road from Hyams


A wild kangaroo we spotted at the Botanical Gardens in Jervis Bay


At our friends wedding on Saturday


Gemma and Garry during the ceremony


Some pics of the Take That show at Martin Place I went to see the other day




with the Sunrise show presenters


A shot of Mum at the Harbour


Imagine our shock when we returned from the supermarket and saw this hulking great spider on our wall! The picture frame on the wall in the pic is 42cm in length, so you can sort of get the idea of how big the spider is....




we thought about putting our hands in the picture so you could get more of an idea of the size, but thought better of it!! I was only saying to someone the day before I saw this that I'd been here for 2 years and only saw one big spider, that'll teach me! I'm not sure if it's bigger than the one I saw last year, but it's big all the same, I'm so glad Jason was here to dispose of it!!
Which reminds me, it was my 2 year anniversary here a couple of weeks ago!

Thought I'd better catch up on my blog again, I think it's been nearly 2weeks! So, Mum went home a week last Saturday, was very sad to say goodbye,it's always hard. She got back home ok, and I think she now feels like she never had a holiday!!

So, what's been happening....we went to our Irish friends wedding on Saturday, it was at Bilgola beach which is on the Northern Beaches. It was our first beach wedding, so we were really looking forward to it, and to picking up some tips for ours! The ceremony didn't start until 5pm, which was lucky as it was such a stinking hot day, but it actually started to throw it down just after they'd finished taking the photos which was very lucky. It was a great day, I really liked the informalness of the occasion, we really enjoyed it, we went to a house after for a bit of an after party, and then went back to the hotel, very tired at about 3.30am! Luckily Sunday the clocks went back, so we had an extra hour to sleep! We got back home before lunchtime, went to the supermarket and then chilled out for the rest of the day which was really nice.

Oh, I played netball last Friday, our first game of the tournament. It didn't start off very well, half of our team didn't turn up, so there was only 5 of us, but luckily, we managed to poach 2 players from another team, so we didn't get disqualified. Anyway to cut a long story short, we got thrashed (well actually it was 6-3, but it felt like more!) I've never been so knackered in my life, we had to play 2 x 13 minute halves and it was sooo hard, I thought I was going to throw up at one point, then I thought I was going to faint, it was awful, I didn't feel right until the next day, but then I could hardly move I was so stiff. I laugh about it now, but it wasn't that funny then!! So we have another game on Friday, but it should be better as we have recruited more players, so we will only have to play one half each, which suits me!

That's about it really, well the interesting stuff anyway, I won't bore you with the usual day to day stuff.

I've really been neglecting my blog of late, just been very busy!

Had a great week off work last week. We were supposed to be going to the Blue Mountains last Monday, Jason even took the day off work, but the weather was miserable so we decided not to risk it, seeing as we've been there before when the weather wasn't so good. So, instead Jason kindly took us to Parramatta so Mum and I could go wedding dress shopping! We parked at the shopping mall, and when we walked through Myer (a department store) we were stopped and asked if we wanted a free make-over....of course we said yes. Anyway, turns out, my girl was new (I was her first customer!) so I wasn't so pleased when I looked in the mirror afterwards...I had about a ton of bronzing make up on my face, and my eyes looked awful. Mum's wasn't so bad, but it was still far too much make-up...she hated it. So we dashed to the loos to try and scrub it off!! Anyway, after that, we went to a couple of bridal shops...I found 2 more lovely gowns, and now I'm even more confused than ever. I'm going to take Sue with me in a couple of weeks to see what she thinks, but I won't go into details for obvious reasons!

So that was Monday, Tuesday the weather wasn't so good again so I think we went to the pictures. We did the beach walk on one of the days, from Coogee to Maroubra. We also went to the shopping mall and I spent lots of money!! Friday night we took Mum to the Rugby club to watch Linn and Martin do their jazz set which was really good.

Saturday we were up early to set off for Jervis Bay. We had a lovely weekend, it was about a 3 hour drive down, so we got there about lunchtime. We stayed in Huskisson which is a really tiny town, it was absolutely beautiful down there, Jervis Bay is renowned for their white sandy beaches. We took a long walk to check out the area, had a lie down on one of the beaches for a while, then headed back to get ready for dinner. We went to a nearby town and had a lovely Mexican feast (even Mum ate it which was great!). Next day we were up early, Mum treated us to a Dolphin cruise (Jervis Bay has lots of dolphins that live there). It was quite slow to start with, but we did see quite a few dolphins in the end, although they were pretty far away, we definitely would love to go back again. After that we grabbed some lunch from the bakery, then drove back through the National Park. First stop was the Botanical gardens to see the wild kangaroos, we were really lucky and saw 4 of them, we got really close up, Jason took a really good video of them. Then we went to the famous Hyams beach, which is in the Guiness book of records for having the whitest sand beach in the world. It was a lovely beach, but I was looking forward to Murrays beach, which the lovely lady at the motel said was even nicer than Hyams. Hyams was nice, but very crowded. Murrays beach was our last stop and it was worth the wait, it was a stunning beach, and hardly a soul there, the water was turquoise blue and the sand bright white, gorgeous! You can go snorkelling there too, so Jason went off and took some pics of the fish. After that we drove back home, I was a bit depressed cos I had to go back to work the next day :-(

Work was pretty busy as I expected, was quite hard to go back! So, as for this week, on Tuesday evening, Mum and I did the Harbour Bridge climb! I wasn't really that excited about it, I was really nervous and scared, I hate heights! But as everyone told me, the first bit is the worst, you have to walk along some really narrow walkways until you get to the actual bridge, and you can see right down below you, it was very scary, and really high too, I was shaking like a leaf. But I got through that and some more hairy moments, but once we got onto the archways of the bridge it was much better as you can't see right down below you as they are quite wide and it was much more sturdy. Another bad bit was crossing from one archway to the other to get back down. It was an amazing experience tho and we were really lucky that the weather was great, the views were cool. The group we went up with were really nice, mostly English tourists! I can't remember facts and figures as to the height etc, but we learnt some interesting things (that we were very high up among one of them!) We got a couple of pictures taken which Mum bought at the end. The whole thing took about 4 hours, including getting geared up with all the equipment, so we were pretty exhausted by the end. Overall it was a fantastic experience, definitely worth the money and I'm really glad I did it with Mum.

I actually asked my boss on Weds if I could take the day off on Friday as it would be Mum's last day here before she flies home, he said it was cool, and he even told me to take yesterday off too, but I said I had some stuff I urgently needed to do, so he told me to leave at lunchtime, which was really nice, so I got to spend some more time with Mum. So after a nice afternoon (and a bit of a heart attack....I couldn't get hold of Mum on the phone and I thought she'd had an accident...turned out she'd knocked the plug for the phone out of the wall!) we met up with Sue and Grant for dinner. It was really nice to catch up with them again.

Today we took it easy, then went for a bit of a walk and did some shopping, we've just eaten dinner and are now settling down to watch a dvd. It's still really hot though, today has been a killer, and it hasn't cooled down still.

Mum is leaving about lunchtime tomorrow, I'm trying not to think about it as I get upset, and I know that I won't see her now until our wedding next Feb :-( It has been really nice seeing her again.

Oooh, I've just remembered something else, I saw Take That on Thursday morning! I got into work and Ryan said "Take that are playing at Martin Place in 10 mins for the Sunrise TV program, do you want to go??" so naturally I said yes! We ran up and got there just in time, they sung Back for Good twice, I guess one was a rehearsal for the TV program. They are really good live, I must say I didnt' recognise a couple of them to start with as they look a lot older. There were quite a few people there, lots of screaming girls, well I say girls, they were probably my age!! but they are older now, and so are we, so I guess that's their fanbase now. Anyway, it was good, and I got some good pics and videos too. I've got lots to put onto my blog, I just haven't had a chance yet. I do really love Sydney, I've got to do so many cool things here.

Finally got our computer back!! It's all good, apart from us losing our documents on the hard drive, that'll teach me not to do a back-up! oh well.

It's been an exciting couple of weeks, so much has happened. We went to see the Queen Mary 2 when it was docked here, you probably saw it on the news. It was a huge ship, quite amazing, it was packed with people trying to get a good look. The QE2 came in that evening too, I couldn't hang around to see it though as I had to get home. I did however see it the next day as it was docked in Circular Quay.

Mum arrrived last Saturday, it's great to see her again. Although I had to work last week (which was very stressful and busy) she managed ok on her own, she even has been going to my gym! We went wedding dress shopping on Thursday night, tried on a few more dresses, but I still think that the one I tried on before is my favourite. I did try on another one which was lovely too, so that confused me a bit, I don't think I should try on too many more otherwise it might be a difficult decision. We're going again next week, so I'll see what else it about.

Friday we went to see Priscilla (Queen of the desert) at the theatre. It was really good, the costumes were amazing. The theatre was full of gay men, and they loved the show!

Yesterday afternoon, Mum, Sue and I went to watch the Mardi Gras parade(yes, we've had a gaytastic weekend!). Had a great time, the parade was amazing. Apparently there was about 350,000 people on the streets. I actually sat down, then looked to my side and a guy I work with was sat there with his mates. It was great fun, Mum kept asking him all these questions about being gay...typical Mum! Ryan, another colleague came over too, but he didn't stay as he'd paid for a ticket for a rooftop view. We had such a laugh, some of the floats were very good, Rupert Everett was there also, he followed the Dykes on Bikes, I got a great video of him going by in the car, I'm really chuffed with it. We had loads of people coming up and kissing and hugging us....well I say us, mostly they were kissing Mum, they loved her!!

I have the week off now....yay! Hopefully we'll get to do some nice things, but I think the weather is forecast not so good (it wasn't so good last week either) I feel a bit bad for Mum that it's not been great. Anyway, that's about it for now, will post some photos soon.