Some of my week in photos

I headed off to Watsons Bay where I had a takeaway fish and chips that I managed to eat all myself this time without a seagull knocking the fish out of my hand.
A walk along Camp Cove beach to a kiosk where I got a choc ice.
On my walk to the South Head I saw this sign.

 

and a blue tongued lizard.

 

A view of Camp Cove.

 

The other evening the Opera House was lit up in red as part of Aids day.

 

The following evening I met daughter and we had a meal in Circular Quay.
The sun was setting as I was on the ferry home.

 

On Friday I decided to watch a T20 match between the womens teams of the NSW Breakers and the Victoria Spirit at the Blacktown International Sports Park.

Here is the venue. I emailed the venue asking for directions from the local Rooty Hill Station. They could not be bothered to respond. I have to give them 0 out of 10 for customer support.

 

Between these two teams there was a high percentage of the Australian national side in the match. An exception was the English International Danni Wyatt seen here.

 

Danni only managed to score 8 runs and I am sure that she was disappointed.
Here Ellyse Perry is bowling for the Breakers.

 

Jess Cameron did well with the bat before getting out.

 

Once the Spirit had batted for their 20 overs and scored 136, it was time for the NSW Breakers to bat. The scoreboard operator could not spell Leah Poulton's name correctly.

 

Eventually somebody must have said something and it was corrected.

 

Here Danni Wyatt is patrolling the boundary.

 

Eventually the NSW breakers had a fairly convincing win. The weather got cold and blustery as the match had proceeded. It reminded me of watching cricket in England.

 

Today the sun was back out and so I thought I would go and watch a local first grade match at the North Sydney oval. As is usual the scoreboard operator stood in front of the board for the entire match. Guess the score.

 

Sunny North Sydney oval.

 

Team Ibis.

 

I guess that will be OUT then.
The Paramatta team celebrate a wicket but having only scored 100 in their 50 overs, they were soon beaten by North Sydney and I was walking back down the road earlier than expected.

 

There is another T20 match between the Breakers and the Spirit at the same venue on Sunday. If the sun comes out maybe I'll make the trip.
Peewit

Sydney Sunday

After a relaxing morning, I walked up to the North Sydney oval to watch some cricket.
It was a 50 over match between North Sydney CC and Sydney CC. Normally this sort of match would be held in the impressive North Sydney oval ground, but as there was some sort of kids event taking place there, the match was on the nearby second oval.

The match had started at 10am and North Sydney had batted first. I got to the match just after 2pm. I sat in the shade became one of the few spectators.

 

North Sydney had scored 176 off their 50 overs.

 

Sydney CC were losing wickets fast and were soon all out.
So an easy win for North Sydney.

 

I was heading home early and maybe it was just as well as the skies were blackening, strong gusts of winds were appearing and rain was forecast. I walked through St Leonards Park where a jazz event was taking place.

 

I was going to take more photos but heavy rain drops began to fall so I did not linger.
Luckily the rain soon stopped and I got home in the dry just before the real rain arrived.

Looking out from my window you can see this tower block that was where I was renting an apartment on my last visit. As you can see, it was a great place for ship spotting.

 

Peewit

Mosman v Randwick & Petersham

It is a sunny Sydney Saturday. Time to go and watch some local cricket.
I chose to take a short bus ride to Mosman where I could watch a T20 match that started at 2:30pm

The match at the Allan Border oval was between the home team of Mosman and their opposition for the day was Randwick & Petersham.
I'm not sure who won the toss but Mosman came out to bat.

The Randwick team are fielding and yes that is the England cricketer Monty Panesar in the team.

 

Monty opened the bowling and took a wicket in his first over.

 

Into the fourth over and Mosman have already lost three wickets. Not a great start.

 

Some defensive strokes were required from the Mosman batsmen.

 

The score for Mosman at the end of of twenty overs. I see that the scoreboard operator kept up that fine Aussie tradition of having the scoreboard wrong most of the time as well as sitting right in front of it so nobody could see it. I had to be quick to get this shot.

 

Mosman now fielding and again a couple of wickets fell quickly. This was looking like a tight match.

 

Randwick & Petersham just managed the win in the 20th over. Here the teams shake hands at the end of the match. Monty never did get to bat but was probably due up next.

 

It was an enjoyable three hours in lovely sunny conditions.

Peewit

Sculptures by the sea

Along the coastline between Bondi beach and Tamarama beach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peewit

Saving whales

I've been enjoying staying in Sydney and wake up to this view every morning

 

The Bob Barker that is one of the Sea Shepherd anti-whaling ships is moored at the Overseas Passenger Terminal at the moment. The Japanese fleet will be off killing whales at the end of December and the Bob Barker is one of the ships that will be trying to protect the whales.

 

I went on a tour of the ship. Here is the bridge. The ship can break through ice if necessary.

 

Looking onto the foredeck from the bridge.

 

The Sea Shepherd flag at the bow.

 

Let's hope that many whales can be saved and the slaughter brought to an end.
It is hard to respect a nation that finds ways around the International Treaties. A financial disaster for the whaling fleet over the next few months would be a good outcome.

Peewit

Love and hate

Having recently got back to Sydney for another six month stint, it is a good time to report on what I love about Australia, but also what I find annoying. I feel well qualified to make these judgements having just spent the previous half year in England. These are my personal views and inevitably are comparisons with England.

What I love about Australia (it makes me keep coming back) is the fantastic weather combined with the natural beauty of the country. Even in the city (Sydney) it is a great place to live with impressive harbour views and always that cooling breeze coming off that large stretch of water that is Port Jackson. The beaches, harbour, ferries and an iconic Sydney city are a perfect combination.

It was a sudden break in the spring weather that made me stop and concentrate on some of the negative aspects of the Australian way of life. Apparently yesterday was the coldest October day in Sydney for seven years. It was a dull and damp day with frequent showers where the temperatures struggled to rise to 17C from a start of 15C. Time to write a post for my blog.

So here is my list of hates in no particular order (as they say on some uk tv shows) :-

The Australian TV is truly dreadful. Why pay for Foxtel and then be bombarded every few minutes with adverts where the sound volume is increased by design. The Australian broadcasters are so under the thumb of big company advertising that it is almost impossible to enjoy watching anything on tv. Even with cricket there are adverts between overs. If you are diligent with the remote control and can record the program, then you can replay the program and fast forward through the ad breaks. Even the ABC (the Australian equivalent of the BBC has frequent breaks within programs). The Australian version of the Tivo has been made useless by Australian advertisers.
As an electronics engineer by training, I am designing a device that automatically detects the advert breaks and mutes the volume while they are running. It is almost complete. Does anybody want one ?

Whilst talking about the overwhelming influence of large businesses, it is worth mentioning Australian politicians. The lobbying groups here seem to have so much power that most politicians just seem to be their mouthpieces. Yesterday, Tony Abbot was saying at a venue arranged by the gambling industry and with a large audience of gambling industry participants, that his party did not support the idea of problem gamblers having a limit set of the maximum amount that they could lose. He even went on to say that if a law was put into place to provide this limit on losses, that his party would rescind the law if they became the ruling party. His comments (not actual promises) were greeted with loud applause by the audience. What a surprise.
How did Australians ever choose Julia Gillard as their prime minister. She is awful. Maybe the public were hardly involved and this was organised by powerful lobbyists.
Julia Gillard is currently lecturing the European countries and demanding that they sort out their debt problems. Her oratory style really grates and her body movements are as if she has the limbs of a puppet being jerked on strings. I am not her biggest fan.
It does seem hard to get any change in policy into place in Australia where there is both a parliamentary system and a senate.

Incidentally, vested interests have won the right to start building a monstrously large and ugly financial centre at Barangaroo. This is just 500 metres from the centre of Sydney and the tall buildings seem likely to destroy the character of Sydney. It is akin to building Canary Wharf just a quarter of a mile away from Big Ben. It is not going to work is it ?.

I wanted a broadband connection in my rented apartment (to upload pictures taken out of my window to www.sydneyview.com ) and thought that I could avoid delays by ordering it whilst in England. I had the choice of ringing my chosen ISP (Internode) or completing an on-line form. With the then nine hour time difference and the high cost of the call, I decided to use the on-line application. Big mistake. Although I filled in my new address correctly on the application form it subsequently turned out that Internode’s software jumbled the address and used an incomplete address for the application. This started a nightmare scenario, where it proved almost impossible to recover from their initial error. Everything went wrong and I spent lots of time and expensive phone calls trying to sort it out. The net result was that the broadband went live about 10 days after I arrived in Australia. My website is now live at last.
Currently I am house and pet sitting for a relative who is on a well earned holiday. Guess what, the internet went down yesterday. After speaking to tech support and getting the account holder to speak to Telstra, they then promised that an engineer would investigate and get back to me within 48 hours. I am still waiting for that call but have managed to re-establish the connection myself.

Why is the cost of everything in Sydney twice the price of anywhere else in the world ?. This not only covers white goods, gadgets, etc. but food too. Somebody is making a lot of money here. There seems to be genuine surprise by retailers that people are using the internet to purchase items from abroad. Even paying the shipping costs, it is far cheaper to do this than buy in a store. Retailers seem hurt that this is happening and are lobbying the politicians to introduce levies.
Why is it that I can buy an Australian brand bottle of Shiraz red wine at an English supermarket for much less than I have to pay for the same wine in its country of origin ?
With food there is no choice but to suffer the high cost. I guess it is the price that you have to pay for living in one of the most desirable places in the world.

Well that’s it. Moan over. The weather is improving and the sun is coming back out. Time to spend my days exploring beaches and countryside in a perfect climate. Having spent idyllic days in beautiful surroundings, Sydney is one of the best places in the world to go out for a well prepared and enjoyable meal. The standard of catering is consistently high, just as long as you can afford to pay the bill at the end of the evening.

Peewit

Some salt info

Hi

With my SRP starting next month here are a couple of photos of the food labelling on some Stilton purchased from Morrisons in Woking, England. Morrisons is a supermarket chain that tends to appeal to those on a tight food budget.

 

 

Note the easy to read labelling on the front of the product that gives the amount of certain significant constituents per typical 30 gram serving, as well as the percentage of your daily guidline amount. You can see a bigger version of the photo by clicking on it.

Sorry, some of the cheese has been consumed. I can testify to it's creamy texture and smooth taste.

Here is a link to an interesting article about salt reduction in Australian food.

Peewit

My SRP starts soon

I will be starting on my SRP as soon as I get back to Sydney. I will also get my webcam at www.sydneyview.com running again.

Yes, having just spent almost six months in the British summer, I will be heading back to Sydney soon. The summer in England was a disappointment with very few sunny days and an awful lot of cloudy, dull days. I remember wearing shorts and a T shirt for a week or two back in April soon after I had arrived in the UK. Since then I have only dug out my shorts on one occasion. Trips to the coast or cricket matches have mainly been on cold and windy days. I feel more than ready for a bit of Sydney sunshine.

Maybe I should say what SRP stands for. Well it is Sausage Research Project although Salt Reduction Project would also be appropriate.
I love a lot of things about Australia but it seems impossible to get a decent British style banger. All the sausages I have tried on my previous visits have not been good. It hardly matters what type of sausage you buy because when you come to eat it, all you can taste is salt. I also noticed that when buying Stilton cheese from a Mosman deli that again the cheese was very salty and this masked the expected creamy Stilton flavour. I can only assume that all this salt is to improve preservation in warm temperatures. Yet there are plenty of refrigerators here and beer is always served cold, so it is hard to see the problem. Maybe the Australian health authorities are out of touch with the sort of salt reduction programmes taking place in Europe. It is known that high salt consumption can contribute to problems of heart disease and stroke.

Anyway in my SRP I plan to visit lots of butchers and deli’s around Sydney and the inner suburbs. I intend to tell the proprietor that I am looking for an English style pork sausage that is not too salty and that I can actually taste. I will then purchase their recommended sausage. Once I have cooked it and tasted it, I will keep a note of my results. I will tell the shopkeeper that I intend to publish my results.

If anyone is interested in where to get a low salt, tasty sausage in Sydney then let me know and I will publish my findings in this blog. In fact if you can suggest a suitable purveyor then please let me know.

While I am at it, it would be also good to know where you can get a decent pork pie. The ones from David Jones seem salty and on one occasion, I walked the entire length of Mosman High Street and going into all the shops selling food asked for a pork pie. Most of the shopkeepers looked at me as if I was mad and nobody had any.

If I can find a satisfactory Sydney sausage then my Sydney sojourn will be perfect. (Hard to say that).

Peewit