riding to the beach every day

watching plays at the sydney festival - we were disappointed by ‘the party’ (it was british political satire)

ollie’s birthday picnic in the park with frisbees; the birthday boy impressed all by cycling with an entire case of beer under his arm

cold salads on the deck in the late afternoon

dumplings in chinatown, you know the place, with the tacky mishmash of tapestries and plastic grapevines hanging from the ceiling

having old friends stay - marcus and peter visited from melbourne; peter starred in a gay porn film.. maybe we need to have a screening sometime! meanwhile, marcus developed the ‘blush’ look after staying out too long in the sun. as a result, the house invested in a record quantity of aloe vera.

having new friends stay - a perchance meeting brought philippe the canadian bike mechanic to our house - who dissected our bikes, and (perhaps intentionally; we’re not sure) made sculptures of the pieces in heaps around the house

our courtyard spattered with overripe sandpaper fig berries. sorry there won’t be a figtree pudding party anytime soon - they are unfortunately as sandpapery as the name suggests

bushwalking at wentworth falls with a much-missed old housie, april

han’s gingerbread-making extravaganza. the Gingerbread House had structural problems, but was otherwise a visual and gastronomic feast!

ben’s little brothers drawing faces on our dusty windows. they also verbalised a constructive critique of the architecture of the gingerbread house.

nick’s stellar chocolate cake. words cannot describe, pictures cannot illustrate. stephanie alexander was outdone.

discovering dry-ice-ice-cream at the farmer’s markets

new tricks: chris the contact juggler made magic with his crystal balls and danced to daft punk in his neon-lit robot suit. wowza! chris and the german couchsurfer toby put on a laser light show in the trees. the bats got a fright!

nollie’s friend darius coming to stay before his film-making expedition; last time, we enjoyed projecting his film further we search onto the walls

solar-powered fairylights (ikea pleasantly surprised us)

loafing at wombarra on new year’s eve, watching the waves hit the cliffs like fireworks

… meanwhile, ben, paul and spud spent the sydney summer in the copenhagen winter, campaigning with global youth at the UN climate negotiations - but that’s a different story to blog.