The One with the Bridge's Birthday

With work filling my week, I pretty much live for the weekends at the moment, and so try and cram them full with as much as I can, and this weekend was no exception.

Friday night was cause for celebration (and not just because I had survived another working week!) but because it was Lincoln's 30th Birthday. We headed round to Newtown to where Rachel and Lincoln are living, a really lovely house, with a veranda out the back, with a chorus of frogs singing in the moonlight, and delicious smells wafting out of the kitchen.

Rachel and Lincoln had done themselves proud with a joint of beef marinated in Red Wine and Garlic, and so many veggies, Yorkshire puddings and roast potatoes. Absolutely divine, and with the odd glass of vino to wash it down, plus a multicoloured birthday cake, we were soon full up fit to bust.

We were also joined by Pete, Kate and Jen, and what with party poppers and cat woman style masks, it all made for a very pleasant evening.

The next day, (St Patricks Day), Helen and I met up with Gemma - it's a long story how we know her, it was the first time I met her but we all got on famously.

We were planning on doing the Bondi to Coogee walk but the weather wasn't looking too promising. We headed off anyway and stopped en route at the famous Paddington Market. The craft market is in the grounds of a church and has everything from jewellery to pictures (and most excitingly for me!) a second hand book stall - I'm going through books like a hot knife in butter at the moment, so we took the opportunity to pick up a couple more!

We wandered about for an hour or so before getting on the bus and heading on to Bondi (with a random stop for 20 minutes by the road side where our bus driver got off and never came back... was it something I said?)

Finally back on the road we pulled into Bondi just as the heavens opened and it poured down. We decided to give the walk a miss and just go and get a late lunch instead! The place we went was awesome. Some sort of Irish bar I think - the place was blaring out random Irish ballads including Mr McCulloghs favourite - Black Velvet band - but with a more Moroccan style seating arrangement. Think a small table on top of a bed - and that's pretty much where we ate lunch. I was so comfy I could barely get up to go home... which I guess is the whole idea. Throw in waitress service for drinks and the customers never want to leave!

We had to leave eventually, and caught the bus along with surfers and their boards, back to the city.

H and I were planning on staying up all night again to watch the back to back games for the last weekend in the 6 Nations tournament. As we weren't heading out until midnight, we had Lincoln and Rachel over for dinner (surpassing myself yet again!) and watched a film. To be honest by the time midnight rolled around I was ready for bed. Joe came round, and he was about as enthusiastic as I was, but Helen persuaded us and we headed round the corner to an Irish pub called the Porterhouse.

What kind of Irish Pub shuts at 1am on St Patrick's Day, when Ireland are playing rugby from 12.40am? A very stupid one! So we grabbed our cans of Red Bull and set out on a mission of finding somewhere where we could watch the games. This eventually led us back to the Sports Bar in Kings Cross.

Obviously it was full of inebriated Irish Men and the Irish team pulled out all the stops to win the championship. After England's defeat the other week I decided I'd support France to beat Scotland by enough points so that France would win the Championship... which obviously made me very popular surrounded by the Irish. At least we had a bit of banter!

So this week watching the rugby was even weirder than normal. Not only was it Stupid O'clock in the morning, and I was sitting cross legged on the floor of a pub, I was supporting France (what was I thinking?!), and one of only 3 people going crazy when they scored! If you didn't watch these matches you must trust me that it was all VERY VERY exciting! I'd like to point out that I only put this hat on for the photo and then I took it STRAIGHT BACK OFF again!

Thankfully, I was still buzzing that Ireland didn't win, and that kept me from crying too hard at England's performance against the Welsh. The less said about that the better I think. It had been a long night, and to be honest a long tournament. We crawled into bed as the sun came up!

Finally, the weekend wasn't complete without a weekly Sunday celebration. We've been so lucky in Sydney - there's been some sort of parade or party most weekends, and this weekend marked the 75th Birthday of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The talk of the town was about the walk across the bridge itself. Thousands had signed up to do it (the traffic had been stopped!) but there were no places left by the time H and I checked it out, so we decided to go down and mingle in the celebratory atmosphere.

We wandered down to Circular Quay and headed to the Rocks Market. It was whilst perusing the stalls that we got word from Joe that anyone could walk across the bridge, so we hot footed it down to the ferry and across to Milners Point.

We joined the masses of people heading across the bridge, expecting to be stopped at anytime, but soon we were passing through the pylons and under the magnificent arch of the bridge itself.

Music filled the air (rousing in a Chariots of Fire kind of way), and ahead of us the crowd pulsed with bodies. It reminded me of watching the start of the London Marathon on TV. We passed two women in Wheelchairs who had walked across the bridge when it opened in 1932!

As we neared the centre of the bridge the music changed to snippets of radio broadcasts of historic events which have taken place in the last 75 years... this sent goose bumps over my body, and I knew that I too was taking part in an historic event!

As we headed through the toll booths at the other end of the bridge, we headed down to join Katie and Joe (who had got hats when they did the walk... they must have run out by the time we went across!) They didn't stay long, but that meant we got their seats and settled in for the laser show.

The bridge was lit up in various colours, and there were searchlights coming from the pylons. To be honest, I have seen more impressive laser shows. They took a while to change colour, and it was a little nippy out. Maybe the guy changing the coloured light bulbs could have put roller skates on. I wish that they'd done fireworks instead!

We sat for a while and were joined by Lincoln and Rachel, and simply soaked up the atmosphere. All in all, it had been a fantastic weekend!