in the ghetto

To prove that all is not perfect here in paradise we have had a shooting at the pub near Clovelly pool. Strange to think that as I get older and fartier I choose to live in nicer areas but you still have shootings and stabbings and general unpleasantness on your doorstep. Man shot at a pub that I could have been drinking in, just as in Richmond a man was stabbed and killed in the park I regulalrly ran and cycled around. The shooting did remind me of that stabbing. Ho hum.

In more uplifting news St. George Bank have finally got our mortgage documents to us and it looks liklier than ever that we will be buying our house in Willoughby. Considering Sal and I worked for St. George Bank, have accounts and two existing mortgages with them it is amazing that it has taken around three weeks for them to give us approval for a new mortgage. In the process that managed to get the mortgage package we asked for wrong, had my marital status as "single" and Sally as "de-facto" and best of all managed to get the address of the property we are buying wrong. And we had to chase them all the way to get the documents to us. It is lucky for them that Sally had pretty much decided we would go with St. George because I would have gone elsewhere after that malarky.

Sal, getting ever more excited about the new house is looking at sofas and beds and I think has spatial awreness issues. Or a bad memory. Large - ugly - sleigh beds and L-shaped leather lounges are simply not going to fit into our compact and bijou californian bungalow.

Work was very quiet today and the highlight from 8-5 was the lunchtime "tech trot" around the Domain and Botanical Gardens. I'm still not feeling on top f my running but I managed the 4.6km in 18.22 and I think I can probably go under 18minutes. The hills are bastards and John, who dfesigned the course to make it a tad challenging has done a good job. Daily exercise news for the locals is that just as yesterday afternoon Queens Park had touch footie going on on every pitch. Assuming it was different teams today to those I saw yesterday I conclude that there are an absolute shitload of people playing this game. Other sports news is the re-discovery, since unpacking our last bag to get to Sydney, of my In-ger-land shirt. Could come in handy if any Englishmen are in town taking on the natives.

And now for the weather. The Gold Coast, where Sally's sister Jo lives with husband Nigel, kids Jax and Jesse and another in the oven, and where we have a rental flat, was smacked with a massive storm. The morning weather reported a rainfall of 23mm in just 10minutes in one place the name of which I forget, and hail stones the size of apples causing property damage. I wonder what type of apple?