hot or cold....

I think the weather is confused.....

A couple of weeks ago we had weather in the mid 30's and it was so hot. I dared not venture out of my nicely air conditioned office as I could see the buildings were radiating heat. When I eventually went home, I put a damp towel in the freezer and then sat with it on my head to try to keep cool....

Then we have had a few weeks of nice, mid 20's weather with sunshine most days and the odd thunderstorm.

Today however it feels like winter. It has rained all day and we had lows of 10deg (I know that is quite warm for the UK but we have no heating or double glazing!) There are snow reports just west of Sydney.... It is nearly summer.

Olympic glory.... (not)

This week saw me hire a people carrier and take 7 members of my staff to Olympic Park in Sydney to compete in the Accor Cup. An annual event where hotels compete against each other at touch football, volleyball and soccer (I get in trouble for calling it football!)
With Ibis Newcastle shirts on, and absolutely no training we thought we were champions. Until we realised that it was taken seriously and lots of other teams had been in training for weeks.
Oh well, we had spirit and at least I learned the sport of touch football. We didn't come last but were not far off. Maybe some training required prior to next years competition. Beers and hot dogs after the event went down well.

Country wedding

Last weekend, we were up on the farm in Gloucester for Brad's mums wedding. Spring has well and truly spring and we couldn't have asked for a nicer day. There was not a cloud in the sky (although I did feel a bit warm wearing a suit and was a bit red on Sunday morning!).

All of Brads family had jobs to do to help get ready. Brad had been up for a few days during the week to help, his sister and brother were doing the catering (well his sister did most of it) and I was just pottering about (as usual). Bev (Brads mum) asked me to take care of the cake cutting part of the ceremony and I spent most of the time helping prepare platters (or skiving off into town for coffee or shopping!)

The ceremony was outside and Brad give his mum away. It was shorts and sweet, with a few reading and photo's at the end. The bar opened and everyone chipped in to serve finger food. Then came the cake cutting. Well by this points I had consumed 4 or 5 glasses of white wine and champagne and one of my learning curves from work is that the further I go from Sydney, the harder it is for people to understand me. So here I am, on the microphone trying to get everyone organised. he he what a laugh. Anyway it was all good and after proposing a toast and getting the cake cut, my part was done.

It was a nice day with most people camping on the farm or surrounding properties and there were a few sore heads in the morning!


Click to see the photo's