Secretaries that STOP traffic

Meat raffle, Secretaries that stop traffic, Double Bay/Double Bay, and a Pneu Health update…. oh boy!

Double Bay Double Bay

Last weekend Julie and I struck out to explore the village of Double Bay. Mark (bro) had mentioned it as a place he had a coffee with one of his reps on a previous trip — he thought it was nice and relatively level. He had me at relatively level! So we caught the ferry to Circular Quay and then took the 10 minute ferry ride to Double Bay. Double Bay is (obviously) on the water — it might even be a bay? It’s an area of Sydney where money seems to begin settling in greater abundance — in fact, Double Bay is known as the village with the most exclusive/upscale shops in Sydney. There are only about 5,000 residents though the shopping area is quite large - obviously a destination for Sydney folks, especially those in the Eastern villages.

To give you a feel…. you get off the ferry on the wharf and are immediately greeted by a pub over water called the 18-footer club. It’s where folks drink and snack while waiting for their ferry - folks with 18-foot or greater boats are also allowed but only as members. ;-) It’s a hopping place full of happy people and some pretty exclusive shopping bags. You venture off the wharf, walk past a park, and within 4 minutes you are in the shopping and restaurant district. Lovely pubs and cafes, great shops full of famous designers as well as well regarded Sydney designers. The place had much wider streets than Balmain East (where we live now) and a much more ”current/upscale” vibe. There are plenty of beautiful homes and a fair number of apartments overlooking the harbour. All-in-all we loved it and moved it into the category of places we would move. The only drawbacks are ferry schedule (every 60 minutes) and a seeming lack of grocery near the apartment areas. On the upside, it close to CBD by ferry or bus, close to the beach (10 minutes) or Bondi Junction (western mega shopping area). Definitely a great place to spend our time here if it works out.

Meat raffle

As if to prove Balmain East is a bit less refined than Double Bay, on Sunday, we attended a meat raffle at the local lawn bowling club. $1.00 gets you 5 tickets in the raffle — we bought $5.00 worth and won 2 drawings. Conservatively, the meat was worth $60 - $80. The local group of lawn bowlers were away at a tournament so we had a great chance of winning one of the 12 drawings. Ummm, meat!

Health Update

I went to the Doctor on Monday for a follow-up. I’ve got about 3 more weeks of suffering ahead of me but the progress is definitely in my favour. She put me on some new/stronger medication, discussed allowable activities, and ordered me to two days of bed rest. Upon leaving I asked her, “what about sex” to which she replied, “I have patients until 3 o’clock but I’m free after that.”

Secretaries everywhere

I’m in the middle of my second day of bed rest and I hear helicopters and boat traffic and just a lot of commotion outside. I get up to see what is disrupting my slumber. As you can see from the photograph, Secretary John Kerry, Secretary Chuck Hagel and Prime Minister Tony Abbott are motoring past my sick bed with an armada of police in tow. Kerry and I shared a wave (seriously) and I went back to bed. Bizarre.

That’s all for now blog stalkers… things are good… weather not so much. WE CRAVE SUMMER!