JULY ROUND UP

I had a change of work locations this month, working out of the back office at Windale Library until my temporary stint in Special Projects finishes. I also commenced negotiations regarding where I will land in the restructure. Still in negotiations, and to be honest, the less said the better at this point.

So to counteract the stress, I have had a fun-filled month. Life is for living, I am alive and here to do so!!

I caught up with Jayne for lunch at The Mary Ellen, after a morning whale watching at the beach.

Our choir performed at Adamstown Uniting Church with 3 other choirs for a cancer fundraiser. What a wonderful afternoon it was. The other choirs were great, and we were very well received.

Our repertoire were some of my favourite songs to sing, and we here are the videos of them:

In This Heart - Sinead O'Connor

Nurruwiyi - Mal Webb, Seraphine Presley-Haines, Seini Taumoepeau.

Shallow - Lady Gaga

Yil Lull - Joe Gaia

Linda and I went to see Mystify, the new documentary about Michael Hutchence. It was one of the best documentaries I have seen. I found it very upsetting to watch at times, knowing that this beautiful man and great talent was no longer with us, and worse, I never got to see him and INXS live. I was a huge fan as a tween and teen. I love INXS from the very beginning, due to Countdown. I had all the early stuff and played it over and over. I was too young to see them live then. After Kick and the during the Kylie phase when they were touring significantly and I could see them, I was no longer a fan, so I didn't. The documentary had loads of unseen footage with voiceovers rather than interviews. Michele, Kylie, and Helena featured widely, with fascinating insight into the man, personal videos and anecdotes. You could tell they all still loved him so very much by hearing the quiver in their voice. Kylie still had loads and loads of faxes, which was how they communicated whilst on tour. There was a lot of eye to the camera footage of Michael, those beautiful brown eyes hypnotising you and caressing your soul. Oh my. It didn't delve too much into his final hours, it was more about the man and the deep loss in all our lives. 

We had a family dinner at the new Texas BBQ Grill at Mayfield Wests. The food was good and the atmosphere ok, but it was overpriced and to be honest, a little over spiced/sauced etc. We had a great time as always though.

Mid July every year for the past 4 years, I have gotten together with fellow Kate Bush fans for The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever. We dress up like Kate in the Wuthering Heights filmclip and do her dance. I cannot begin to tell you how much fun it is, it sounds weird, but if you were there you'd just love it. People of all ages and shapes, men and women, children, dogs turn up and it is one of the best things I do all year.

Here is the footage of the morning.

I followed the morning, having lunch with friends at Cafe Inu at Carrington. Cafe Inu is a dog friendly cafe, with Japanese style food. Such a great vibe.

From there I headed to my bookclub at Talulah Bar.

The One Song Sing for the month was the fabulous duet by Iggy Pop and Kate Pierson, Candy. At our new regular haunt, Babylon. Have a look at it here. We do One Song Sing on the second Sunday of the month at 4pm. It's always a blast!

I took an afternoon off work, and went into Newcastle Library to catch two exhibits. One was old posters and information about selling blocks of land in the late 1800s and early 1900s, fascinating and quite beautiful. The Second was a display of Trevor Dickinson's work, which was delightful. I am sure a fan of his work, this was great. I then had some afternoon tea at Coco Mondo and a shop on Darby Street.

I also went to The Stag with friends to catch up on another friend's old band, doing a one night only. The Mansons do 60s type bubble gum pop (original and covers) in the style of The Ramones. It was an excellent night.

I ended the month with a 5 day mini break.

This commenced with a wonderful catch up with Diana and Mary, we have known each other since Kindergarten and whilst we don't see each other that often, when we do it is like no time has passed. We had a lovely evening of chatter, laughter, food and cocktails at Parry Street Garage.

I decided to escape to Sydney, you can read about that here!

I met my friend Tracey at Charlestown Library for an author talk. I have been a fan of Kate Forsyth for a while, despite never reading any of her books. I had heard her on Richard Fidler's Conversations and was fascinated by her. She was wonderful, talking about her research and her books, historical fiction crossed with retelling of fairy tales. I have bought a few titles for her to sign and of course to read.

July is also Le Tour, so much late night watching men with tight butts on bikes as they drive through a lot of castle porn! Tremendous!!!

Here are my reviews for July.

And as always soccer and markets.

And additional pics: