So a lot has happened in the real world while time has stood still in the blog world yet again. And also yet again it comes down to the not traveling thing. Can’t really write a travel blog stationarially. And if people come to visit you from abroad does that count? I mean, they’re traveling. Maybe it’s Einsteinian and everybody’s traveling relative to everybody else. Or something like that.

Anyway – two things have made me start this next blog entry. The first is that we’ve done a bit of traveling recently. The second is that I left my keys in work and my phone is dead. No option so but to go the pub for a quiet one and wait for Marie to get home. And so here we are.

It’s been a bit of a frantic couple of months. First the parents turned up and demanded our bed. Well, not really – in fact we insisted they take our bed and there was much protest. Until they saw the hotel prices in Sydney. We slept on the couch and all did a very good job of being patient and understanding considering we were forced to live in such unusually close proximity.

We showed them around the city, took them to the Hunter Valley where we drank some fantastic wine but stayed in mediocre hotel and travelled by train to the Blue Mountains which were their old reliable stunning selves. We dragged them to all the local bars and restaurants. I even took my Dad to the Sly Fox, the local lesbian bar. We’d had a few and as we were entering, the bouncers reminded us “You know this is ladies night, lads?” My Dad looked at the bouncer who nodded, and we started to walk in, only for Dad to pause and ask “Are you sure… they wouldn’t mind?”

Half way through their visit, while they were away at the Barrier Reef, my Canadian cousin Jason stopped by on his way around the world to install Windows on several mining company computers (or something like that). We didn’t have a lot of time so we just went out to a the Courthouse and Corridor, a couple of our locals. Jason warmed to Newtown immediately. It’s odd how gratifying it is to bring somebody to an area you love and for them to love it too.

 And then it was Ann’s 60th so we took her 36 floors above Sydney to the Altitude restaurant in the Shangri La. The city glittered in the clear night and the road from the Harbour Bridge snaked impressively into the distance. The food was good too. Soon after Mam and Dad met a bunch of our friends in the form of Julia, Mary and Nicky in Parramatta. It was after, I think, the sixth drink that Dad decided they were going to move to a beach house in Manly and Julia assured him that she’d get him a job in CMRI.

A couple of weeks after, we went to Broome. If we’d started off driving north from Perth last March, we’d have ended up here instead of Port Fairy, but there would have been a hell of a lot less to see on the way. It’s a pearl farming town and it’s hot and humid in Northern Australia. We spent most of our time seeking out air conditioning, but did manage to discover dinosaur footprints (via hovercraft) and alcoholic ginger beer (there is a god).

Last night we got back from our third trip to India and you will have to come back next week to find out about that one. I haven’t even taken the photographs off the camera yet.