Busy weekends

So, back to my busy weekends. The week after Donna's bash, Gav and Rich were working up in Karratha (top of WA) and Les was going to be at work for most of it as well meaning that I had the house to myself for the first time since arriving here. I was planning on just chilling out for the weekend despite agreeing to go to a gig with Todd and his missus on the Friday night. The Force were also playing the Sharks (who caused a big upset at the weekend defeating the top of the table Kiwi side the Blues) but my usual partners in crime for watching the rugby were either in the UK, Karratha or working. So I was considering sacking the whole night off and saving bucks and chilling out. Then my boss offers me box tickets to the game an hour before I'm heading off. Fantastic! Free entry, food and beer for the next 5 hours. Sweet! Headed off to the gig afterwards too and had a brilliant night. The Bamboos were tops - a great funk band with a great bassist and drummer. Even managed to make it into the local music mag Xpress as well. Plus I won $150 on the game as I'd bet the Force would score first with a pen and then win by 12pts or less (last one looked pretty dodgy with 5 mins to go and Gitteau has a pen to take the Force 13pts clear but he hits the post making my bet safe). All in all a top (and free) night. Easter weekend was a big one too. Picked up 2 crates of Corona on Thursday after work and me and Gav went through the lot in 1 night and a couple of hours on Friday afternnon. Excellent! Also went paintballing again on the good friday to add to the bruises from 2 weeks previously. Had a huge session on Easter sunday - got tot he pub at half 11 to watch the rest of the rugby 7s that was being played at Adelaide (Wales finished 3rd and England got knocked out by Kenya - the rugby powerhouse of a nation that they are!) and got kicked out at 10 I think. Gav got stopped at the bar about 8 so had to drink water but he was still shit faced. Then it was a big family dinner on Monday (roast beef, pork and lamb that was cooking all morning and smelled so good and strong that you could smell it on the drive 25m away). After which I decided to stop drinking for a while to try and give my body a rest. Lasted until last night when I couldn't resist the black stuff anymore and had to have a couple. Although that was the 3rd time I was in a pub over the weekend so it was pretty good going. Going to be good next weekend... Trying to last until Gav's birthday on the 3rd May so only got a couple more weeks to go (Bryant, how did you go so long???). Off now to try and dig up some photos to wack on the blog I've taken over the last few weeks. Taff

Been a while!

It's been a bloody long time since I posted anything up here so I think I'll do this in stages otherwise you'll have a lot to read! I emailed you all saying I'd applied for a senior stato post nearly a month ago. Well I'm hoping to find out about it tomorrow - you can see why WA is nicknamed the Wait Awhile state. Had 2 interviews for the job and the last one was with a director of a HR firm that were brought in as a third party assessment. He told me on thursday after the interview that his recommendation would be to offer me the job so it boils down to whether they believe I'm up for staying beyond the end of this year. That's right kids - if I get the job I'm planning on staying until 2009 at least meaning I'll be needing a sponsored visa which the company will have to sort out if they want me to carry on working for them come the end of the year. I'd kinda already decided that I wanted to stay until then anyway - whether that was another year on a working holiday visa or being sponsored. If I stay for 4yrs I can get residency which means I can then come and go as I please. But that's a long way down the track... got to get the job first! If I don't get it then I'm not sure what I'd do. In the mean time I'd carry on where I am until the 6 months is up and after that I'd have to see what opportunities were available. Not too many stato posts here in Perth so if I wanted to do that then heading East is probably my best bet. Melbourne ot Sydney... tough choice! But I'm not thinking about that at the moment. What I am thinking about is the couple of good gigs I've got coming up in the next few months. Watching the Black Keys down in Freo next month which should be pretty good, then it's Maximo Park on the 19th August in Perth. That should be really good as their new album is chuffing brilliant! Been kinda busy on the weekends lately too - keeping myself pretty busy. Back end of last month was Donna's birthday and we were meant to go deepsea fishing but the swell was too big so it got cancelled. Me and Gav got pissed in the city instead throughout the afternoon down on the Esplanade in the Lucky Shag (barmy army HQ for the Perth leg of the Ashes tour - no doubt full of pasty English muppets like Riley) before heading off up our mate Todd's hawaiian party (Gav got really dressed up and put on a AC/DC shirt). So all in all a messy day and night. This led nicely into paintballing on the saturday for Donna's birthday. I shot anything that moved and pretty much anything that moved shot me. Caught one lad in the nuts and he wasn't wearing a box so he dropped like a sack of shit. Made me realise how close it was to being me as I got hit in the top of my thigh. Shot Donna a lot as well. Then it was back to the Flying Scotsman in Mt Lawley (just north of the city centre) for a good drink. I'll tell you about the other weekends in my other posts. Until next time...

Big weekend.............

Hey Kids! Last weekend was a bit of a busy one. Involved a lot of sport, booze and music. Lets start with the sport. Went to see Western Force kick-off their super 14 season and it was abysmal. They lost 8-7 in what can only be described as amateurish style. Imagine the scenario: your pack is getting shoved all over the park but you're dominating the line-out and you have a penalty on their 22 10m in with 10mins to go. Do you a) kick the points to put you in the lead for the first time in the game; b) kick to touch for your lineout and spin the ball quickly to the backs for a try; c) kick to touch for your lineout, go for the driving maul and get pushed into touch by their superior pack? Well option c is what they chose, squandering any chance of a win. Rubbish. Also rubbish was the crowd. No-one sings!! Riley was right about the Aussie singing. They don't know any songs and only get involved if they're winning. As for the rest of the weekend's sport, well Utd pummeling Spurs was nice to watch (more on that later just for Riley) but the Wales-Ireland game was appalling. Great phases from Wales for most of the match but some equally abhorrent play too in a couple of patches. Why oh why didn't Cekaj just watch that O'Gara kick go into touch???

I've jumped ahead of myself here a bit. I should try and put all this in some sort of order. On Friday I went down Subi to watch the super 14 game and it was then onto the Irish Club for a decent (yes decent!!) pint of Guinness. Mind you, we got to the club sober as they shut the bar 20 mins before the end of the game - what the hell is all that about???? Heathens!! Saturday involved a lot of chilling by the pool as it was really hot (topped 45) and then I headed down to Donna's pub The Queens in Mt Lawley. After a few refreshing ciders we bought a carton and headed back to Donna's for some darts before heading off to the Inglewood to watch the Liverpool derby (very disappointing). Got back to Donna's around midnight and it is at this point I should have called it a night and headed to bed as I had the Big Day Out the next day. Unfortunately there was a 21st next door so I took a load of cider and headed over and promptly drank till 3 talking to people who had no idea I was. Great stuff!!

All that cider (and Guinness during the football) and only a KFC to eat the day before meant that I was not feeling too great in the morning. In fact, I had a monster hangover which will please a few people no doubt. Took me an hour or so of chucking at the Leederville where I was meeting Gav and Ricky before heading down to BDO. Once there though I was alright. In fact the day was amazing. Saw a fair few bands including some local talent. Pics as follows:

Little Birdy. Lead singer lives opposite Donna! Eskimo Joe. Brilliant band. Go and download them! Latest is called Black fingernails, red wine. Kasabian. I'm sure you all know these. They were fucking amazing. 2nd best band of the day easily. Killers. Need I say more?? Actually I do. They'd be great in a hall or a closed stadium, but on the open field they were not so hot. At least not for us. Jet. We watched these from the beer tent. Thirsty work watching bands all day! They were pretty good but the crowd ruined it and the gig was paused half way through whilst security pushed everyone back. Pesky kids! Finally. We get to the act of the day. This was the 2nd best set I'd ever seen so it suffices to say it blew me away. (Only Kelly and co. have outdone this on a cold December day in the Millennium Stadium in 2003.) I give you.... MUSE!!! Ok, so the pic is really bad and it was also at this point that my batteries gave out so had to switch to my phone. Gutted! This happened last time I went to BDO!! As it was a big weekend, this rant is also going to be big. Still need to talk about the 6 nations. After BDO me and Gav headed to Northbridge (via Donna's as I needed trainers - not allowed flip-flops in a pub after 7 usually) to Rosie O'Grady's to watch the rugby. The Celtic game was on as we got in so there were a few oohs and aahs before the real event. All I can say is that it was a bit shambolic at times. Ireland were lucky to have 13 players at one point. How many times are we going to see hands in the ruck and players not penalised for it? I should have guessed they were going to get away with it as soon as the Kiwi ref walked on . They're the masters at it after all! In fact the ref was atrocious. There was one incident where Peel kicked the ball in to touch thinking he'd get the deliberate knock-on by the Irish forward on 3m from the line and was rightly flabergasted when the ref awarded Ireland the line-out instead of a scrum 5. What cheered my up (apart from the good Guinness... I tell you, Bryant and Riley you need to come to Perth) was the crushing defeat of Spurs later that evening/morning. Great stuff! Also, a special mention to Pussy Bunny. The man has learned the meaning of the c word... commitment that is. All those who know him, go and pester him to find out what it means. All I'll say is that he's going to be needing a bigger flat... Till next time!! Taff

All good things come to an end...

It's happened... I've been given a job. I'll be working for the loss management company starting on the 12th Feb. That means I've got 10 days of freedom left so I'll make the most of it before re-joining the real world! I'll probably head down to Margaret River for a few days next week - back in time for Lesley's birthday on the weekend. Then it'll be work, work, work. Although I am looking forward to it (yes, I am weird). What's great is that I'll be earning more than I was in London, for less responsibility and the cost of living is less. Sweet!! Not sure what I'm going to do in terms of living yet. May move to Donna's, but may also try commuting from North Perth. We'll see. What I think I'd really want to do is find a flat/house share somewhere in West Perth where the job is as walking to work would be ideal. Subiaco is a prime candidate as is Leederville but we'll see how things pan out. Right, got to earn my keep and do some cleaning before heading to the beach. I'm off to watch Western Force kick off their season against the Highlanders in the Super 14 league tonight too (that's rugby to all you ignoramuses out there!) which should be a good match. The Force have made a couple of signings over the summer including Matt Gitteau so the standard of the backs should be pretty good - they're just light up front in the pack. Speak to you all soon... Alex