Winter Ball

Hello! My name is Dee and I'm officially 30 years old (and thirty-six days, if we're being pedantic). So far, so good. I apologise for my virtual absence as I have been busy getting lost in Tokyo, eating crispy duck pancakes in London, and being mooed at by hairy coo in Perthshire, Scotland. We returned to Sydney a few days ago via a grueling 27 hours in transit, and are mostly through the veil of jetlag that tends to cloud most brain activity after such a thing.

Here is a coo I prepared earlier - pic courtesy of Becky P

Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, though, I can recall that we held a Winter Ball. We did! Our lovely friends Mushu and Jimi Linton (from Ranger Spacey) were charitable enough to join us at the Oxford Art Factory and donate their time for the cause, which was Northcott Disability Services, an organisation which helps support families living with spina bifida and other lesser known disabilities. The wonderful Carol helped us to make it all happen in a legal sense.

What a ball. Many of the crowd showed up in their finest (Jimi's Colonel Sanders tie and trucker cap combo was particularly inspiring) and the room was packed out. Unfortunately the only photo I took was this one:

Accurate signage

At the end of the evening, we had raised $606.90 for Northcott. Considering that we weren't sure if anyone would show up at all, this was a pretty mammoth effort. The Gallery Bar only holds about one hundred punters and I reckon we got them all in there. I was hoping to make $500 to at least have the "500" from the original challenge still upheld in there somewhere; we were stoked to have smashed it.

And Dusker did alright. We sounded mostly like this (handsome man responsible for filming this video asks for forgiveness for drunken zooming).

It's Sufjan Stevens Day!

Howdy folks! Here is a post completely unrelated to the Project, but just thought I'd keep you updated on my movements. Had two gigs in two days with Dusker - the first was a band comp in which we won our heat, and if we win the whole thing we get a 5-day recording package in a studio (which would be totally amazing, since we're recording anyway with money we don't have). The second was an Australia Day gig in Wollongong, our first gig down there, and it was pretty fun. It's not every gig you get to go to the beach immediately afterwards. Ben learnt how to bodysurf and I nearly drowned. Good times, good times.


And tonight: Sufjan Stevens at the Opera House! One of the last great gods on this musical throne I revere that I've never seen live. The realisation of this momentus occasion is slowly starting to push through the fatigue. It's been so hot the last week or so that sleep is something I have only a vague recollection of experiencing.

Guess it doesn't matter so much when as of next Tuesday I'm going to be unemployed...

And so begins 2011

Ahoyhoy! Sorry for the absence but we have been out in the internet-less desert lands of my hometown. The temperature started at 31 degrees on the day we arrived and steadily increased to be 40 degrees on the day we left. Unbelievable. We arrived back in Sydney yesterday - Crunk did the whole thing without a hitch - just in time to drink a lot of cider and ride our bikes down to Ashfield Park for midnight. Happy new year!

Will do a more thorough post after we've been to see The King's Speech, and Harry Potter 7A, and eaten more junk food, and been swimming, and had more wine, and sat around on our arses watching episodes of Giles & Sue Live The Good Life until I'm crying with laughter. Man I love being on holidays.

Christmas

Anyone for Yule Log?

Ducky-wuck: before.

Ducky-wuck: after.

Voila! Dinner is served. With crispy potatoes and honey mustard carrots.

Don't forget the orange sauce.

Dinner: after. Cider courtesy of Monteiths. Also, if you're wondering why we have 3 rubix cubes on the table, it's because 2 of them are salt and pepper mills. The third one is an actual rubix cube put there to confuse people.

Merry Christmas! Best one ever.

Come on! Let's Boogey to the Elf Dance!

Merry Christmas! I'm sitting in the kitchen wearing a brand new 'Scotland' apron (thanks Adam) which I have already managed to coat in such things as flour, icing sugar, chocolate, oranges, and duck juices. This morning I made my first 'Yule Log' (up until yesterday I'd never even heard of one) but turns out it is mostly just a swiss roll. I've now got a 2kg duck slow-roasting in the oven thanks to Crash Test Kitchen - so if it doesn't work, I'm blaming them. It came with vegetable stuffing already included thanks to the excellent folks at Gus's and I'm planning to do up an orange sauce with some roasted vegies to boot. It's a little nerve racking, this being my first Christmas dinner, and me having no back-up plan if it fails, but I figure, how hard can it be (she says flippantly, ignoring everything she has learnt thus far)? The trickiest part is making sure the oven temperature stays true.

I actually forgot how awesome Christmas is. Ben is working which is a big pile of plops but we had a lovely morning opening gifts and skyping with the Scottish contingent. Life is wonderful.

Keep your fingers crossed for my poor little ducky-wuck, and I'll keep you updated.

Overwhelmed

I am now officially too busy to do anything, ever. This is multi-tasking at its most ridiculous level. It's Monday morning and I am no longer in denial about my desire – nay, necessity – for energy drinks. I’m wondering exactly at what point I decided my life wasn’t full enough as it was, who had spiked my drink at that time, and how I should punish them. Unfortunately, the more I think about it, the more acutely aware I am that this was my own preposterous idea.

What Would Danny Wallace Do? Quit his day job? If my day job was writing articles for the paper about how awkward my life is, it probably wouldn’t be this crazy. It would fuel itself. I bought ‘Awkward Situations for Men’ on the weekend as a reward to myself and am hoping it will somehow inspire me… another idea that is slowly dawning on me as not-very-well-thought-out. Also, the 22nd is 4 days away and I still have 2 songs to write. This is a problem because I have choir tomorrow, dinner on Wednesday, and band rehearsal on Thursday, but I’ll figure it out somehow.

I was asked to join Briscoe as a full-time band member, to which I immediately reacted in 2 ways: soul-leaping joy, and brain-constricting tiredness. Dusker have a lot of shows coming up, which means more frequent rehearsals, and doubling that worries me. But, you only get out what you put in, eh? I love that band too much to turn it down. I was thinking about sticking with the gospel choir longer-term but now know that the only sane thing to do would be to drop out once we’ve done a live performance and I can tick the box; free up some time for the next thing. I rode my bike again today but my head and lungs were working against my legs, and it felt like pedalling while being hugged by an octopus. I know I’m in an emotional trough right now and this will pass soon enough, but the fact of the matter is I’m still in a trough, and the pigs are looking in, and it smells a bit like rotting food scraps.

BUT! We booked our flights back to the UK over the weekend (our departure date is July 24th, 2 days after my 30th) AND we bought a car. Damn straight, we are people of action. It’s a 1997 VW Polo and it is Fully Sick, something us middle-class inner-west vegetarians-on-Thursdays bicycle-riding herb-growing white folk are going to have to work on. We’ve already removed the crass medallions from the rear view mirror and the Everlast car seat covers, but it’s the embarrassingly loud modified exhaust muffler that really needs to go. I’ll post a picture of it once I’m a bit more organised.

Our rescheduled horseriding lesson is happening this Saturday, so now we can even drive out to Glenworth Valley instead of catching the stinky old train. Amazing.

We also bought a new Jamie Oliver cookbook, 30 Minute Meals. I really dig the style it has been written (step by step through the whole meal, not just one section of it at a time. So for example it tells you to take care of the potatoes after you’ve done your bit with the meat, and then while the potatoes are doing their thing you go back to turn the meat and then you can start on the salad, or whatever). He’s still Jamie Oliver though so mostly it’s hard for me to get past the fact he’s a bit of a twat, but I have warmed to him somewhat over the years. Still, I resent having to go hunting for fennel seeds. Also, it took me 50 minutes to cook only 2 of the 4 components of his 30 minute meal, but that's probably saying more about me than it is about him. Just as well it tasted good.

Blowholes and buses

I've only had one so far, so I don't have much for a point of comparison, but Wedding Anniversarys seem to be pretty great. Happy 1st year, Ben Husband Pask! We had a little getaway down the south coast where we discovered that the Little Blowhole is more excellent than the Big Blowhole, coastal walking tracks are not greatly signposted, the Vietnamese restaurant is top class, and if you keep your eyes peeled on the ocean for long enough, you might even spot an unexpected and beautiful pod of whales. Good times.

Some interesting outcomes arose from the weekend, one being that Cityrail thoughtfully chose to have track work on the day we travelled down and consequently made our journey 4 hours long rather than 2. We were made to get off the train at Waterfall and take a rail replacement bus to Wollongong. Buses obviously travel less by rail and more by road. The road that is going to become more familiar to us in a few weeks time when we are pedalling feverishly along it (or potentially, when I am dragging my bike along the side of it). Needless to say, it was a little daunting. Even Ben felt a lump in his throat.

Secondly, we are officially tired of public transport. We have done our time with buses and trains, and even hire cars with their stranglehold of garage opening/closing hours, forcing us to drive through the loathsomeness that is East Sydney. The decision was planted and swiftly germinated into a hulking great oak - we're going to purchase a car. True story.

Speed blogging

I have decided I would like to have Louis Theroux over for dinner. And a drink or seven. He seems like a charming individual, although I fear that Ben and I are a little less interesting than the weirdos he usually finds himself hanging out with.

As work descends into absolute chaos again, I am finding the gap widening between things I have to say and the time allocated to saying them. Here’s a brief rundown:

- Ben and I went to the south coast for our 1st wedding anniversary. We saw whales, completely by accident. It was awesome.
- I got another postcard. It’s dangerous.
- I went to my second gospel choir practice. It sounded pretty.
- I have not been riding my bike, because I suck. Must get back on tomorrow.
- I finished reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. … I can’t even think of what to say about this.

I have many more things to say on all of the above subjects but for now this will have to do. Come to the Sly Fox tomorrow night if you want to talk to me about them in person. Dusker are onstage at 9.30pm.