It’s Tuesday night and I’m half watching ABC-TV‘s coverage of the Federal Budget. I notice the commercial networks are all but ignoring the budget this year, thereby confirming my observation that Channel 9 only makes a claim to be “the national network” on an irregular basis. Anyway, I’m only half-watching it so I don’t exactly know what’s been announced. I guess I’ll have to watch Lateline later tonight to make sense of all this. Anyway… what’s been happening in my life? It’s a week and a half since I last wrote and some of the things I’d planned to do I haven’t and some of the things I haven’t planned to do, I have.
It’s been a reasonably busy week with work with a national conference held in Sydney which has involved lots of additional hours, including lots of socialising. Perhaps the greatest highlight (or lowlight) was ending up at a bar in Kings Cross called Baron’s Restaurant in Rosslyn Street. It’s a late late night bar that resembles going to a party at someone’s terrace house. It’s very crowded, very noisy and very boozy. And if you can’t get a shag here… No seriously, it’s quite a bizarre place, but I figure it’s the kind of place you should go to on a Friday night because you’d need Saturday and Sunday to recover. The highlight for me, of course, was singing along, at the top of my lungs along with the rest of the pub to classic ABBA sad songs such as “Knowing Me, Knowing You”. Yes, this was no bar for “Mamma Mia”… I have mixed feelings about the place… I shouldn’t go back there, but probably will, if you know what I mean.
As well as the social aspect of the conference, we also worked extremely hard and come Saturday evening I was really tired. Chair-stacking and concentrating meant that I spent Saturday night vegging out on the couch. That also meant regrettably, due to time contstraints, I was unable to attend either the Sydney Blogger Meeting or Blog-Grogging 2. I was looking forward to both, but was either too busy or too tired due to the work commitments.
I did, however, catch up with Colin on Sunday night. He came over for dinner and to watch the “Diva Las Vegas” concert featuring Bette Midler that screened on Pay-TV. We had both been to see Bette Midler a couple of weeks earlier at the Sydney Superdome and so were keen to see how her show played elsewhere. We both agreed the Sydney show was much better. Mind you, the television concert was recorded in 1997.
I also had a drink last week with Judy and Greg from ABBAMAIL. As much as I’d planned a quiet night at home, Judy begged me to come for a drink and dinner and so, of course, I had to respond to her pleas. They’re both coming to my Eurovision Party which will be held in a couple of weeks. This year, as well as the usual party food and great company, I thought I might decorate the place a bit too, though I’ve yet to decide on a theme. Also, Judy is coming over early in the afternoon. She told me she has heaps of ABBA radio reports from the 1970s/1980s on tape that is close to the end of its life and I said I’d copy them, fix them up and transfer them to CD. That should be a fun, nostalgic afternoon.
Patrick is also coming up from Canberra for the Eurovision Weekend which should be a hoot. And then a week later, Sue (from Melbourne) and Anthony (from Canberra) are also coming for a visit.
And then on the Queen’s Birthday Weekend, I’m heading off to Coonamble in far Western NSW. Yvette has organised a weekend away for a group of us to the Coonamble Rodeo. We’re hiring a couple of mini-buses and staying close to the action in the Sons of Soil Hotel (pub) on the main street.
So the next few weeks look busy.
But otherwise, the last week has been life as usual, coming home and watching television, listening to the radio or reading (or cleaning up the house, which I’ve done a bit of lately, ridding myself of years of excess baggage).
Not much else to report, aside from heading off to Melbourne for a few days with work…
Anyway, I must go… The Bill is now on. Something WORTH watching!
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