September 1st

Today is the first day of Spring and the day has dawned with blue skies and a chill in the air. While Rob is sleeping off his night shift, the girls and I will go to Callan Park for a play. Callan Park was once a huge psychiatric hospital, not unlike Oakwood, but now, apart from a few, rehab facilities, has become a beautiful public park with harbour front paths and playgrounds, sports fields and lovely views. What happy memories I have of walking to school through Oakwood, encountering happy, bonkers patients only too happy to discuss their corduroy trousers. This has been my last week of sick leave, so Rob and I managed to squeeze anothermovie in - Tina Fey's pretty funny Baby Mama. I'm back into the office on Wednesday, jonly just missing the strike action that ended this morning. The walk out was in response to  Fairfax Media management announcing 550 redundancies across all the company's papers in Australia and NZ. The previous round of redundancies was only l18 months ago, so it seems unlikely they are going to get 550 volunteers and some people are going to get a tap on the shoulder this time.

I had book club this week which is always great. There are 8 of us in the group and each of us takes a turn, every 6 weeks or so, choosing the book and then hosting a night of dinner and drinks to talk about it. Unlike most book clubs I have heard of, we actually read and talk about the book. (My mate Nick's book club comprises 10 middle aged men who meet in the pub every Thursday and get drunk.) We just finished the very heavy going Seven Types of Ambiguity by Eliot Perlman.

It's my turn next, so I've picked The Mayor Of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy, mainly because I did it for my English A level, many moons ago, and hope to appear very knowledgeable as a result by re-reading old notes. Ha!

Tonight Rob and I slip into high heels and evening wear, and something nice for me too, and go out to the Good Food Guide Awards. It's always a brilliant night of great food and wine, where Sydney's best chefs are awarded one, two or three chef's hats according to their culinary excellence. We get to catch up with lots of mates and drinks a lot of champagne.  After years of reviewing bars for the book, this year I have reviewed restaurants for the first time. You can look forward to tomorrow's blog on hangover cures.