oh what's occuurrinnn.

Well well well, January has been a little diva of a month, I've seen more bands & artists in one month than i probably have in my entire life. Everyone just seems to want to play in Melbourne, there are so many events you could quit your job and be a full-time festival goer, the music scene here is far from quiet, and where they are my camera follows!

From working at Zest Marketing I have met alot of british people, having been living with aussie's and all my friends australian with the exception of fellow STApom jamey t, it has been quite the novelty to hang out for beers with brits again. A few of us went to an Andy C drum & bass gig @ THE HI-FI (http://www.thehifi.com.au) which was a dancing clammy spectacle of a night, topped with 'japanese slipper' cocktails at 'Hollywood' karaoke bar. With Zest we also spent a night with food & music at the late night Victoria Market, spent evenings drinking at Fed Square at Transport & in the city at The Curtain House building. There is alot of competition setting in the time spent together, one of which I unfortunately lost. This resulted in me having a carton of milk poured all over my back and neck in the morning before having to work the rest of the day by Nath my comp partner, who may i add just scraped a win & enjoyed a beer at my expense :) Another loser Dan, had his arm waxed by his partner and Sin had to eat a whole onion (yes he was sick) among other forfeits across the teams. Ledge company! I've learnt alot of marketing skills and great attitude & new confidence which can be applied to many area's of work, since having left uni, it has also been nice to be in a educational environment again. Im not going to lie, i'm abit of a geek and love a good inspirational lecture!

As you have probably noticed, the Australian Open Tennis is on at the moment and its causing quite a buzz in the city. I went along last week with some friends from work and scouted some free tickets off people leaving to get into the grounds...what, i'm not a backpacker as such, but I still need to look after the cents! We went firstly see Ladyhawke perform on the Heineken stage and then took a pick at one of the smaller courts for some doubles action. Later we went to the Tsonga (french) vs Almagro (spanish) match in a larger stadium, you could say this game took my tennis virginity as it was the first big game i'd watched. The atmosphere was amazing and it really surprised me how interactive the crowd were, i loved it, I later saw mine and Ally's little smiling faces several times on a playback of the match on Channel 7 Sport on the TV at home! As i have been writing this I have been watching the mens Grand Slam final and unfortunately our GB hope Murray just lost to Federer, winning his 16th Major.. urm greedy comes to mind, you could have given us one Rodger mate!

Last Tuesday 26th Jan held the yearly celebrated Australia Day, a day that the nation gets off work to celebrate Australia and all things Australian. We celebrated at our house with a classic barbecue with friends and listened to Triple J radio station's top 100 countdown of songs from 2009. The only tedious thing about this is that whilst listening, you are not allowed to exclaim that you 'love this song!!' or any similar comment otherwise down your drink goes -skull, skull. Later in the evening I went to Federation Square to meet with Jamey to watch the Murray vs Nadal game in the Atrium on the big screen & then to see the fireworks set off to a huge admiring crowd in the square. During the whole day I had to wear an australian flag at all times to make up for the fact I wasn't an australian (whatever that is, aren't they all pom's originally anyway?!) It was another of those days when you just think, god Oz is good.

The very last thing I did was the fabulous Melbourne 'Laneway' festival yesterday (http://melbourne.lanewayfestival.com.au). This tours many cities across Australia, and as the name suggests, constructs various stages & takes over lanes in the city for a day of leading a new music. My luuvely welsh friend Dee lives on the chosen location for this years Melbourne Laneway festival in Footscray, so she managed to get us some free Residents passes for the event, ledge! It was perfectly hot, and during the day I saw Mumford & Sons, The XX, Midnight Juggernauts, Dappled Cities & Florence and the Machine, who all equally rocked full stop. However this music malarky has got to stop, no matter how much fun ive been having, it's been a great start to 2010 but I need to do more work now to save for an Ayres rock/ middle australia trip I want to plan. I have just applied to work at the Melbourne Grand Prix which is in march & cross fingers and toes I get a position as I'm a Prix fan & we have an all English car & driver team this year, so we may not have the Tennis but bring on the F1!

use your flippers to get down.

Deciding I deserved a little more time off post-december work frenzy I took my friend, Ingrid, up on an offer to holiday at Phillip Island with her, Bubsy and her family for a long weekend. Phillip Island is only approx 90 minutes drive from Melbourne and is an island of coastal scenery, wildlife & surfing beaches. It's actually based on our very own Isle of Wight, originally named 'Snapper Island' when founded by George Bass and eventually named after captain Arthur Phillip. Commander Cox thought the island resembled the Isle of Wight in England and gave it's towns similar names such as 'Cowes'. Me and the girls at home are regulars to the annual Cowes sailing events on the island so I was quite interested in its history & found it was strange but special to be able visit Cowes the other side of the world!

Staying at Ingrid's beach holiday home we enjoyed a huge BBQ when we first arrived and then took off down to Summerland beach for the famous Penguin Parade at sunset. The 'Fairy Penguins', now politically corrected to the name 'Little Penguins' due to homosexual references... can you believe it... emerge from the sea as the sun sets and waddle ashore to their sand-dune burrows! It was an adorable experience, and i brought an equally charming bobble hat decorated with penguins to remember my evening & wear back in chilly britain. I actually found out that the night after we visited, Miley Cyrus went to the very same parade as she was also holidaying on the isle, 'party in the P.I!'

The following day we drove to Cowes for ice- cream and to get a tourist snap of the Isle of Wight pub, where we later went for beers. During the day we went out on Ingrid's dads speed boat for abit of a thrill ride and some sea fishing, we caught nothing but someone else's fishing line! Unwinding with a barbie and a beer became the way of life for the days spent there, which I felt was much needed for essential falls festival-recovery. We also took advantage of the surf and caught some waves in the warming sea, this being after someone had showed me a picture of the biggest shark caught in the world in the same waters, so as you can imagine I was a little apprehensive but still keen to practice! Refreshed & relaxed we headed home back to Melbourne, feeling like I was ready to get back into the rat race & to make a start 2010.

Since being back I have picked up some new work with Zest Marketing Concepts, the team is awesome (not to mention very english) and its nice to be doing something slightly different for the time being. I have also had some of the best nights out in recent weeks, on Chapel St in the area of Prahran at 'Electric Lady Lounge' and Bar 'HooHaa', also at an alternative bar called 'Nevermind' in Hawthorn and the clubs 'Eurotrash' and 'Korova' in the city. I also joined a great gym that my housemate works at so despite the partying i have been keeping fit and healthy mum! Money is getting tight now after the christmas and new year splash, so im holding out for payday then I promise to have some more adventures to blog about...I hope you are enjoying, keep up the new year's resolutions beauties.

I ♥ marmite, engagements and falls.

We finally got the tree! My housemate Bubsy's parents had arrived for the big day and immediately starting making the house feel like christmas; decorations, the smells of home-cooking and the sounds of traditional carols, I could have nearly mistaken it as an english chrissy until walking outside to 4O 0c heat...dreaming of a white christmas, no chance shelia! Festivities were good, I had alot to open on christmas morning as I had a fair few parcels delivered from home, boxes of stoking gifts including beloved Marmite and presents from Harrods, london :) I spent the day with Bubsy's family at his aunties, for dinner we had a cold meat feast with roasted pumpkin, salads, veggies and stuffing & enjoyed the arvo drinking and playing wii game classics like who wants to be a millionaire (english version so pressure was 0n me to answer correctly!) In the early eve Kenny, my other house-bud came and picked me up and drove us round to her family's round the corner. Dinner: round two, her auntie felt bad that I had a cold lunch before being a pom and all, so heated up some roast pot's and veg finished by xmas pud and custard to satisfy old-age traditions! Full-bellied and sleepy from pink champagne I tumbled into bed after a long day and only awoke for a lazy boxing day & to skype all the family who were still merry in christmas day activities. This was when I found out the romantic news that my Dad had proposed to his partner of many years, Mel, that same day, I was so excited i had to go for a walk to calm down! I defiantly have an excuse to go back to England in 2010 now...dare i say possibly for bridesmaid duties? probably more like photographic duties!

The next party on the agenda was one I have been looking forward to and had a ticket for since I arrived in Oz, the music and arts Falls Festival 09-10 (www.fallsfestival.com.au). Its held from the 29th- 1st Jan each year at a large clearing in the beautiful Otway rainforest above the Great Ocean Road, Lorne. We left on the 28th & firstly took road-tip up the Great Ocean to reach Lorne and Bubsy's family-friend's seafront holiday home, with a balcony and view to die for! Bub's, Junior, Tim, Gray and Myself were staying overnight so that we could get an early start the following day to set up camp. Whilst the boys went for a run and swim in the sea, the girls that lived there and I took a stunning walk along the beach before all meeting back for a bbq, nice chook & haloumi skewers boys! Before bed we went through the tedious task of attempting to hide alcohol in the car due to the strict no BYO at falls...but obv everyone does anyway you just need to be clever with it. After much deliberation we ended up taking the inside casing of the back left door off and stashing it in there before replacing it, better to be safe!

We left early, stopped at Deans Marsh for brekkie and met a few more cars of friends so that we could convoy the rest of the way to Falls. Heading deep into the rainforest we started to trail along dusty tracks and eventually came to a holt for a long wait whilst security checks proceeded ahead at the gates. Alcohol sneaked through without a bat of an eyelid we got directed to our camping spot, on a hill as steep as you could possibly get before being declared as uninhabitable. We all used muscles in our feet that we didn't even know existed to try and keep ourselves upright and started pitching up tents & a constructing a central gazebo which would be home for three days. Happy with our wonky work we wandered off to investigate the main arena, grabbed some beers and enjoyed The Beards, followed by Whitley (the later I had not heard of but were amazing and are getting straight on my download list!). On the money-save everyone piled back under our gazebo for drinks, in the excitement of it all booze-o-clock started a little too early in hindsight! That evening we danced and sang our way through Sarah Blasko, Datarock, Wolfmother and DJ Yoda finishing in the early hours.

The next morning we woke up half way out of our tents from sliding down the hill in boiling heat with fuzzy heads. Today our friend who we where camping with, Tash, was performing on the local-music stage so we hid out of the heat and listened to her gorgeous performance; afterwards me and two of the boys ran off to catch the last of the Chairlift set. During this time I missed The View on the mainstage which was a little gutting but no worries! Later that day we saw Little Red- brilliant, The Temper Trap- incredible, Editors, Midnight Juggernauts, Yeah Yeah Yeahs- Karen O is literally a performance Queen! Major Lazer Soundsystem- to say I was a little excited is a HUGE understatement, never danced so much in my life!! Finished by a set by Andy Murphy & Chardy in the Grand Theatre Tent until 4am, and thank god it stopped then as my little feet were crying out for me to stop jumping and jiving :)

Everyone had been pretty sensible with the alcohol-situ that night so we were all feeling fine and dandy the next day, bar a few, so me and Ash went off to see KidSam who I love love loved, and then Philadelphia Grand Jury, who were insane and had the funniest drummer to watch. I then Missed Dappled Cities from escaping the heat under the little shade back at camp which i now regret, c'est la vie, the sunburn will thank me. Next on the main Valley Stage was Art Vs Science who shined and clearly loved every minute they were up there, as did the audience, followed by Little Birdy whom I wasn't too familiar with but adored. Today was of corse New Years Eve so the line up was looking good for the evening, however the weather had another thing on its mind and a big storm was brewing & on its way. Just as we had pinned down the last tent as tight & secure as we could, winds whipped up out of the heat and fat drops fell from the sky, utterly soaked through to the skin in seconds we huddled around warming up by passing around bottle of Jagermeister to sip then traipsed off through the mud, soggy, but in high spirits. Whilst the rain continued to fall we saw Jamie T & the Pacemakers (I was overwhelmed by his english accent!) and Xavier Rudd & Izintaba, an awesome twist of modern band-meets aboriginal world music with didgeridoo's, guitarists and vocals. One outfit change later, and we were dressed fit to enter the next decade, starting it off with a killer set by Moby, and entered the New Year with a short and sweet countdown during the Hilltop Hoods performance. Singing and swaying with sparklers my mind was not in the right place, with thoughts of home I didn't stay out long that night and woke up only to listen to the Playing with Knives DJ set from the campsite at 4.30-6am.

The festival brought new friends, new music and a great end to another fantastic year, 2009 will not be forgotten and will be a hard year to beat, but 2010's prospects of london & love will make a different but exciting year to come and im looking forward to it so much already ♥.