Monday, March 24, 2008

Run, Fatboy, Run!

A time for giving, a time for sharing… oh hang on… wrong religious festival. Where are we? Oh yeah, Easter, so early in the year it crept up without us knowing! Somewhat surprisingly I didn’t head off to some exotic location here or world heritage wotsit there but mostly stuck around the capital of Australia. That might sound boring but there must be something in it as I really really really don’t want to go back to work tomorrow! Earlier in the week was strenuous, made even more challenging by the task to cook something Irish related for St Patrick’s Day. Like most things this week it turned out good in the end… steak, Guinness and cheese pie, mmm mmm mmm.

After weeks of heat, the weekend cooled sufficiently on Friday to bring out the long sleeves. I mostly stuck around the house feeling cosy and not doing much at all. It was a good Friday.

With energy restored on Saturday I headed to the north of Canberra to yet another unexplored section of Canberra Nature Park, Goorooyaroo Reserve (love the name!). This typifies the landscape so common along the drive to Sydney… the browning grassland dotted with bush and rounded golden hills. Of course, I climbed up one of these hills – Burnt Stump Hill – which had a burnt stump atop it no less. The view takes in the whole of North Canberra and down to the sights and sounds of the centre and parliamentary triangle, cloaked by the surrounding hills.



Interesting Australian fact for you – almost everything closes on Good Friday as opposed to Easter Sunday (apart from Harvey Norman of course, because you only have four days to pick up the bargains in the crazy mega price slashing sale… until next weekend). The result is that Easter Saturday seems to be one of the busiest shopping days of the year since people have missed out on consumerism for a day. The Canberra Centre was a veritable buzz of happy shoppers buying cut price chocolate and warmer clothes for the months ahead… it felt like a busy city, aghhhh!

In that topsy-turvy way down here I had my traditional Easter roast dinner on Saturday evening as I planned a getaway on Sunday down to the coast. Given how cooler and cloudier it had been I was fortuitous to be blessed with plenty of warm sunshine down near Pretty Beach in Murramarang National Park. Pretty by name, pretty by nature.










Monday was my equivalent of the family get together as a few of us beautiful Canberra people gathered beside the southern shores of Lake Burley Griffin for a BBQ in the park. In true English style it decided to look a bit dreary, spit a few drops of rain, transform to glorious sunshine and rain cats and dogs. The cats and dogs came midway through eating (though I hasten to add we were not eating them!) but I managed to sizzle the snags on the electric barbie just about in time. The stress of the electric barbie seems to be greying my hair and expanding my belly.

I tried to work on my belly a little at dusk, climbing Mount Ainslie in 20:35, cutting a minute and a half off my previous time but gutted not to break 20. As for the hair I might resort to Just For Men and look like one of those guys in the adverts with the badly synchronised dubbing. Or just get it cut.

And on that bombshell, I wish you all a happy Easter and a prosperous New Year!

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