THE POOL

We have a really great outdoor swimming pool near us that we try to go to as often as we can. It was in a really bad state for many years but a few years ago they did an amazing restoration of the whole thing and now it's really good.

They also had a fantastic exhibition of photographs there last year, called WET+DRY showing the photographer's, Madeleine Waller, fellow swimmers in and out of their swimming gear.
 I have to also add that all the staff are very friendly, and although the comic is real, I think this was probably a case of early-morning-no-coffee-syndrome. Entertaining nevertheless.

THE SLEEP TALK

I never really realised how much I sleep talk. And there is some quite entertaining acting that goes with it too. Sometimes it is just a bit too much for poor Jacqui. It doesn't happen every night but quite often she gets woken up by a seemingly awake and very insistent me, who tries to convince her that something is happening. Here is a selection of some recent events.

THE KANGAROO

On our trip to Australia we managed to get down to Tasmania, which turned out to be the most amazing place, with great food, cosy little villages filled with arts and craft people wearing felted hats in various shades of purple and also the home of MONA, the amazing art museum that I can not recommend enough if you happen to be anywhere near those parts of the world.

I had been talking about how much I wanted to see some kangaroos and koalas, so when we heard about Bonorong Wildlife Sanctuary we decided to go and have a look. It was even better than expected.

THE GLASS BELL

Here is a snapshot of our current visit in Sydney featuring Jacqui's parents. Naturally, I was a bit nervous before meeting them, but as they are such nice people and have made me feel so welcome in their home I had nothing to fear. However, situations like the one described below will always come up at some point. So watch this space as I'm sure there will be more embarrassing moments worthy of being captured in black and white.

THE ACCOMODATION

Last weekend we drove for 2 days south from Sydney. We stopped halfway in Canberra and went for a visit to parliament and got a sneak peak of the Australian Question Time. One of the ladies of the opposition got expelled for 1.5 hours for insulting the Speaker and there was general shouting and booing every now and again. Entertaining. Then we went on to Melbourne and the house of a friend of Jacqui's from her student days in Paris.

THE COFFEE

We are currently in Australia, and together with New Zealand there is no better coffee-making people in the world, so one of the first things I did when we landed was to find a good coffee place to sample the goods. I also met some of the locals.

THE SILENCE

There was a small invasion of people from the Ma family this week....