Windy Tuesday in Syndey

Well, I promised to post yesterday but things were a little hectic at work. Here's what went on this weekend:

Friday night I met up with a girl I used to work with and had a couple of drinks at the NSW Leagues club. We laughed for a few hours and shared stories. She is living in England now and it was great to see her. She has just made it into the robberies division in her precinct and she is doing very well in the Police Force.

Grahame came into the city and we went to see the Christmas tree at Martin Place (see above). We are the 2 dots infront of the tree, needless to say it's beautiful. Tonight I will be putting up the Christmas decorations, one of my favourite times of the year.

Saturday morning it was up early to cook the sausage rolls for my Writers Club Christmas party. Thanks again Jo for the recipe, they went down a treat. See picture above

I had to nick out early to get to the Fire-Fighters fundraising day. Down at Como Markets we spent the whole day cooking sausage sandwiches. I was lucky because one of my friends Carmen droppped by and kept me entertained for an hour which was really good. She's a little crazy but heaps and heaps of fun. The day was a great success and we raised over $3,000. Grahame came up and bought me a snow cone, what a gentleman. The temperature reached about 38 degrees so I was very greatful. One of my buddies Stubbsy decided to have a pineapple snow cone and it looked a little like he had found the yellow snow. I really shouldn't have said anything to him because he spent the next 10 minutes flicking it in my hair.

Sunday it was off to training with the firies and what a great day we had. Our acting Captain Matty was our leader for the day and he went through using the portable pump with me. I operated it myself and fed 2 hose lines through it down by Mirang Pools, near Waterfall south of Sydney. Again it was a hot day and Matty decided to fill my helmet up with water and throw it all over me...............it was a great relief from the heat. The first time he tried it I managed to spill the water all over him so we were even. The picture above is me in front of one of our trucks. We have 2 trucks called Loftus 1-Alpha and Loftus 1-Bravo. Sunday at training we used Lotus 1-Alpha. When we got back to the station we filled up the tank from the hydrant outside and I called back to our communication headquarters to tell them we were back at Station 14 (Loftus). We then ate lots more sausage rolls which my station buddies loved.

Back home in the afternoon and I relaxed with Grahame for a bit before he took me out for a beautiful dinner at Jai Dee Thai restaurant. I had mussaman lamb and he had chicken with cashew nuts (as always). We had a great night and I nearly made it through a whole bottle of Fifth Leg Cabernet Sauvignon..........not a bad drop.

And now back to work for me, Ihope your weekend was as great as mine

Friday at last

What along week it seems to have been. A big thank you to my faithful sis Jo for commenting on my blog. We are really sister's-in-law but I love her so much she is like a sister to me.

Thanks to Jo for the sausage roll recipe, I am wowing the office this morning with the delights of yummy sausage rolls. Grahame ate them last night and loved them too. I had them for dinner, breakfast and I just had 2 for morning tea.

My mission to lose 4 kilos before Christmas has stopped at 1 kilo. I weigh myself every Friday morning and this morning I was the same weight at 74.0kgs. Ah well, better luck next week for me. Truth be told exercise went out the window this week.

Well, what a busy weeekend I have got ahead of me. Tonight it's off to the NSW leagues club for a few tasty beverages. One of my mates from Westpac (I worked there in 2001) has popped back from England for a few weeks so we are catching up for a beerie. Hopefully Grahame will make it into the city to have a couple of light beers. I'm heading home at 8pm to make more sausage rolls.

Tomorrow morning it's up early and off to Sutho library for my writers meeting. We have a little Christmas celebration tomorrow for end of year and guess what plate of food I am taking....you guessed it, those delightful sausage rolls.

At 2:30pm I have to be down at Loftus Station to get my yellows on for our Como Markets day. A great day to show the kids the truck and the weather is holding out for us too. Lots of sausage sandwiches will be sold (I hope) to increase our fundraising. That finishes at 9pm and then I am sure I will be ready to drop dead.

Up early again on Sunday for Fire Training. One of my favourite days of the week. The crew down at the station are all fantastic, they are like a second family to me. We check the trucks for gear at 8am then usually about 9am we head out into the bush to fight pretend fires. I will be sure to blog about this on monday and tell you all about our amazing adventures. Our deputy captains are great because they put a lot of thought into our training. Sometimes we have to attend pretend car accidents. last week we simulated a fire over-run. An over-run is when the wind changes direction and all the fire-fighters are caught in a dead-man zone. The only action you can take is to get back to the truck , turn the sprinkler bars on to cover the truck and shield yourself with blankets hoping you don't die.

Our area has had some bad fires in the past and this season has already been classed as potentially catastrophic. We have done many hazard reductions to try and bring the fuel load down to a minumum in the bush. Although we a very prepared who knows what the summer will bring. Fingers crossed it's not too bad.

Hope your weeekend is going to be as fun as mine. Oh, and Alex if your reading this (the cutest niece in the world) I hope you had a brilliant time at camp.........be good to your mum and dad and give Oliver a big hug from me.

Love yous all
Clare xo

Updating my blog coz I haven't done it in ages

Here I am again back on Blogging, thanks to my sis Jo for giving me a push. It's now 26/11/09 and I think today our family emigrated from England in 1982. Well done for sticking it out everyone. My life has changed a fair bit since I last blogged. I am now living with a new flatmate called Privy, she's nice but she buys 1 ply toilet paper...........derrrr! I am thinking she buys the crap stuff so I will just take over and keep buying the Sorbent paper.

Today I am happily at work paying all the hotels superannuation. I work for Rendezvous Hotel Group as a payroll contractor. Apparently I am filling in for someone while they are out on stress leave. My contract that was supposed to go for 2-3 weeks has lasted nearly 2 months. Thanks for that boss 'cause I seriously need the money. I love the job and I am hoping I get to stay on forever.

I am now kind of dating a guy called Grahame. We have had our fair share of problems but we have worked through everything so far. Big problem being his drinking but now he is attending AA and spending a lot of time trying to keep me happy....it's working!

I am a volunteer fire-fighter with the Rural Fire Service at Loftus and I love it. We have training evey Wednesday night and every Sunday. This weekend is our biggest fundraising weekend. We take the truck down to Como twilight markets and sell lots of sausage sandwiches and bacon and egg ones with or wothout onions. I show the kids the truck and let them hold the maglite. For some reason they are fascinated by the maglite, go figure?

I am getting more into my writing and I have joined the Federation of Australian Writers. We only meet once a month and I have been voted in next year as treasurer. We are having a little Christmas bash on Saturday lunchtime so I am taking some sausage rolls..thanks Jo for the recipe. Grahame is out today buying me the ingredients.

This year I finished 5th in the Board Games Association. I am an avid member of the Sydney Board Games Association. After coming 3rd last year I was really hoping for a trophy again but I was just pipped out by our president.

I'm off to Mebourne to spend Christmas with my family and that is the biggest thing I am looking forward to at the moment. I am also looking forward (heaps) to the end of year firies Christmas Party. They are a great bunch of guys and we now have 2 new girlie recruits which I am very proud of.

Thanks for reading me
I'll be blogging soon (yes Jo, soon)