/karen/

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Tuesday, 17 July, 2007

Warning: This post contains holiday snaps of our week in Jamberoo.

So we're back from a lovely time away in which there was much sleeping and eating and TV-watching and walking and shopping and hanging out together and catching up with old friends.

That's the summary. Now for the detail.

Monday

We meant to pack the night before but things were too hectic and in the end, we didn't finish the packing until well into Monday morning after our house sitter had arrived. It poured down in patches so we were able to get all the luggage to the car without getting drenched. Then we drove straight to Wollongong, swapping drivers halfway.

Leftover mango chicken (with the mango added) was for lunch and then also for dinner. We spent the afternoon unpacking, relaxing, napping (because Ben felt a bit sick) and watching TV. I watched She's the Man and really quite enjoyed it. (Note to self: remember to lend this to George.)

Tuesday

We slept in, then went and did food shopping. I was feeling sick by the afternoon so I went back to bed, reading comics (Ex Machina Volume 5: Smoke Smoke which I didn't get and Superman: Secret Identity by Kurt Busiek and Stuart Immonen which I absolutely loved) and doing more sleeping. The evening was filled with more television: The Simpsons, NCIS and Numbers.

Wednesday

My birthday! Ben had the best present ever for me: a CD recording of him playing the piano (original songs and covers, including “Simon Smith and the Amazing Dancing Bear” (which was performed on The Muppet Show by Ralph, Scooter and Fozzie). His other presents (which came later) were also fantastic: Wild like children by Tilly and the Wall, The Mysterious Production of Eggs by Andrew Bird (Guan's favourite Andrew Bird album) and a lifetime subscription to LibraryThing (woohoo!).

We drove to Berry, me getting nice text messages along the way and looking forward to donuts from the Berry Donut Van. But unfortunately the van was shut. We still had a lovely time wandering around the shops (well, I had a lovely time wandering around the shops; Ben just put up with it) and we bought a proper mortar and pestle from Haven & Space (which makes me feel like a real cook), clothes for Ben (who needed them; I can't remember the last time we bought Ben clothes), and a cable needle and beads from the craft shop (which was crammed full of knitting goodies and I was sorely tempted to buy a book on knitting jackets but I only really liked three of the patterns in it so it probably wasn't worth it. One day I want to make something like this though it would have to be thicker and longer and more of a coat and maybe not with cables—I just like the cut of it).

We had lunch at the Berry Woodfired Sourdough Bakery at Judith's recommendation:

The place used to be a surfboard shop and then an art gallery. It was quite a nice little café. We ordered pizza for lunch and it was delicious:

Here's us making faces at each other:

I saw these flowers blooming on our way back to the main street but I don't know what they're called. Crocuses?

At around 4, we drove home, then had a bit of a rest before heading up to Wollongong to have Japanese for dinner at Roppongi. Because there weren't that many free tables, we decided to sit in the partitioned off bit where you remove your shoes and sit on cushions.

The menu bore these three very strange items:

We ordered sushi, sashimi and tempura and it was delicious. I think I'm close to declaring Japanese my favourite food.

We asked for green tea for dessert but the kitchen had run out and only had one scoop left. So we shared that and also ordered a Japanese pancake at the waitresses' recommendation:

It had red bean in the centre and was quite tasty.

Thursday

In the morning we went for a short walk, enjoying the sunny weather and the landscape around us which was dotted with rather skittish cows.

I also noticed that the tree just outside the house we were staying in was rather popular with the local galahs:

This is one of my favourite shots from the holiday:

Then we hopped in the car and drove back to Sydney—to Burwood, rather—to eat Subway for lunch and see Ben's surgeon because he thought he had developed a second hernia. Since they were already operating on the first hernia, the surgeon thought we might as well do them both at the same time.

Afterwards we drove back to Jamberoo again, then got in touch with Simon who invited us over as Amanda was off at Mid Year Conference. We got a bit lost trying to find their house (especially as there were completely unfamiliar cars out the front of it) but eventually we got there. Tim S was also around, and he and Simon were laughing about the “cheese in a can” they had found at Aldi's: you squeeze it on like whipped cream. (Ben said it tasted disgusting.) Simon showed us wedding photos and we in turn subjected him to silly YouTube videos. Tim S had to bail but we spent the rest of the evening at Simon's watching Death to Smoochy.

Friday

After rising really late, Ben got an SMS from Jono saying he was free to meet that afternoon. I wasn't feeling up for it as we were going to be having dinner with the Roedigers later so he went alone up to Wollongong to have coffee with Jono and I stayed home and did nothing in the afternoon.

In the evening the Roedigers showed up with little Miriam who is bigger every time I see her. I made coconut chili basil chicken and vegie stir fry for dinner. It was great catching up with them as they are cool people we don't get to see that often.

Saturday

After sleeping in late (again), we drove to Wollongong, checked that the Asian grocery store was open and then went for a walk around Wollongong harbour, the lighthouse and the mall. There were pelicans down by the boats:

The harbour was much the same, although Boufflers (where we used to get fish and chips) was now gone.

I had fun taking photos of myself and of Ben:

The lighthouse was there, as beautiful as ever. Being there brought the memories flooding back—how Ben and I once walked there at night and sat at the foot of it, talking for ages until it got too cold—that photo I took of him from below with the lighthouse in the background—the place where Naomi and us pitched a tent and stayed up to watch the sunrise on New Year's Day 2000 but it was cloudy and the sun was a no-show, and so on:

This is one of my most favourite shots of us together:

And I have to say the lighthouse is an awesome place to take photos:

Ben was excited by the ice cream truck but I didn't feel like having any:

Once in the CBD (if you can call it that—it's pretty small in Wollongong), I looked to see if the wall of faces near the Town Hall still existed. It did. Mark C took this stunning photo of Ben in front of it about eight years ago:

Ben now uses it as his Facebook photo. I suggested to him that we take an updated one:

We went poking around the shops—in Redback and the Rock Factory—and I found Bic Runga's Drive for $10. Then we went to the Asian grocery store and stocked up on food for steamboat. I kept fretting that we didn't have enough for six people but Ben kept reassuring me we did.

Strangely enough, none of our guests had ever had steamboat before. (Our guests were Simon, Amanda, Matt and Hannah. They brought me presents because it was a sort of birthday dinner.) None of them really knew what it was when I initially invited them. Nevertheless, I think everyone really enjoyed it and we ate ourselves silly and had lots leftover:

Simon and Amanda had to leave early but Matt and Hannah stayed around and we chatted (and then did the dishes) well up until midnight.

Sunday

We made a special effort to get up early to go to the 10 o'clock service at Jamberoo Anglican. I wanted to see what it was like. Funny enough, just after we had sat down, who should sit down behind us but Kara and her friend (we know Kara from Moore College and she spoke at EQUIP Women this year). They were also on holidays and visiting. I think our present boosted the congregation's numbers somewhat for there were only about a dozen people in the building. The challenges of trying to do church with such a small number became readily apparent, but it also meant that things were also relatively informal, with a short discussion time with set questions by the minister following the sermon (which was on Exodus 17:1-7). We hung around a little afterwards to chat (and the minister was really friendly—told us the next time we were down to let him know, and he and his family would have us around for dinner!) but we had to go because Pakman and Stacie were coming for lunch.

We served them leftover chicken zucchini risoni, then took them for a walk around Jamberoo. Pakman played us two new kids' songs he had written (which were awesome—I love the way he sneaks heavy metal into children's music) and then they had to go. We promised we'd see them at church later in the evening.

The afternoon was spent packing and cleaning—we vacuumed the floors and put the house back into respectable order. We had leftover steamboat for dinner, then drove to Wollongong to attend church at St Michael's, our old congregation. In three years a lot of things had changed and there were plenty of faces I didn't recognise. Sandy was doing a sermon on “Doctrines under threat” and the one for the evening was marriage. It was a great sermon—it was really clear and it helped us understand the biblical position on marriage and why gay marriage/de facto marriage/sex before marriage falls outside of that.

Afterwards we spent ages catching up with St Michael's crew (including Morwenna [who is getting married next week], Anne, Mel, Kester, Rob and Janet [who I had half a conversation with and had to finish the other half on Facebook]), then we went to Wollongong McDonald's for more hanging out with people (over Shrek flurries which were very very green).

At 11 pm as Matt was leaving, we decided to go home too. I decided that I probably wouldn't get another chance to have a bath (since we don't have one at our place) so I ran myself a bath and made lots of bubbles (I think I ran it a little too hot though!) We finished off the evening with the last episode of Northern Exposure Season 1.

Monday

An earlier start to the morning made us sluggish but nevertheless we managed to pack and clean up all our stuff and leave by about 10:30. We got back into Sydney as I was falling asleep in the passenger seat to find that our wonderful house sitter had gone but had vacuumed all the floors and taken out the garbage. I got distracted checking email so Ben had to make lunch and then had to go up to college to do research for his Old Testament essay but couldn't find anything useful so he came home and we did the grocery shopping because we had no food.

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