City to Surf, some history

As regular readers will know I am doing the City to Surf this weekend as one of my new year's resolutions, so I have been ruminating on it and thought I would share some trivia about it with you.

FACT:  I was at the first ever city to surf!  Not as a competitor but an observer!


It was 1971 and we were holidaying at Bondi  (as you did in those days, before the trendy and beautiful people moved in),  we were from the country, so a seaside holiday was the done thing then.  Usually we spent the August/September school holidays ( this in the olden days where we had 3 school terms a year, not 4)  at the Entrance but this year my parents pulled out all the stops and we were at the "Hotel Astra" right on Bondi Beach. My sister and I even got to have our own room, which was a bit of a hoot! My poor brother had to share with the parents!

Anyway these were the days when the sewerage was pumped out at Bondi and this particular time it was apparently very polluted, so much in fact that Channel 7 news came and filmed it for the evening news  and I even made it to camera ( and the news that night!) swimming in the water which was apparently too polluted for the normal swimmers to enter, but I had no problem with it!

We did wonderful things like going to the Harold Park trots on the Friday night and I can recall having dinner in an Italian restaurant which had the fish nets and empty Chianti bottles all over. Doubtless it is some trendy cafe nowadays.

Anyway one thing I have never heard mentioned over all these years is that there was a great tragedy at the first City to Surf. I have managed to find a reference to it here, so I am not going to ruin the story, you will have to follow the link to find out!

One other item of interest is that my wedding reception was held at the Bondi Icebergs ( before it was trendy, but then I have ALWAYS been ahead of the curve!).

So I hope you all wish me well for Sunday and hopefully I will still be here to blog about it next week.

It's mad mad world....

Last Friday night we hosted here at GG central a dinner party for 6 of our friends with a theme of "Mad Men". Mad Men is one of my all time favourite TV shows, I love the era, the clothes, the music and the drinking and smoking (at work no less!).

I decided about 2 months ago this was to be my theme and I set about to orchestrate my dinner party with the right mix of people, food, wine and of course dressing up!

First of all, in the mad men days dinner parties would have been a rather formal affair,  so in true GG style a formal invitation was sent out, ( my concession to modern times was that it was via e-mail rather than snail mail), here it is

Personal information is redacted for security purposes.
Hello, NSA! :-)

I googled images of Don, Betty et al, to create my invite, also searched for old (read here sexist) advertisements which I then put together  and laminated to make placemats,  here they are below , and the best thing I have them for the future  (or available for hire, at the right price! :-)

I love setting the table to look special, so I worked out how to fold my lovely white linen Nanna napkins (from my op shop scouting) to make them look like a man's white shirt, then I used a thin black velvet ribbon to make it look like a man's tie, and I was rather thrilled with the result.

My effort is on the left, in case you could not tell!

Some funky orange and hot pink coloured dahlias in a vase set the scene perfectly.

Ready and waiting for the guests to arrive, the Parker furniture is rocking this theme!

Now the menu...
this had to be authentic to the era, so I went through my cookbooks, internet and my own (repressed) memories and came up with this menu, and then added a touch of my own sub-editing to it and then, folded them in thirds to create a place card for the table.

My Beef Wellington! Thermomix making a guest appearance

so I had the invites, table decoration and menu sorted, what else was left but my apparel. 

Luckily for me,  one of the Junior Glenquarry Goddesses is a very skilled needlewoman, and a couple of years ago she made for me a skirt based on a design that Grace Kelly wore in Rear Window, here is the original

and here is GG herself in her interpretation of "being Grace Kelly"

Now some pics of our fabulous friends, and see if you can spot the photo(s) taken later in the night.....

there is no prize for guessing correctly!  And they all were great and got into the spirit of the evening and made an effort dressing up. I must say it is so much fun to be a little bit special and dress for dinner, why don't we do that anymore?  ( I think I might have another post on that topic).

My  chocolate mousse with pistachio Persian Fairy Floss! 

My very dear friend, the Pyrenees Princess, we went to school together , not with the dog of course! It was a Ladies College after all! 

Well, this has been a long post with lots of photos, I hope you enjoy reading about my dinner party and I am now thinking about my next "themed" dinner party, any suggestions?

BTW I have to hold another Mad Men dinner for the rest of the family and offspring who were not able to attend this one, so stay tuned.

Badges of Honour

Today is the last day of the Sydney Monorail winding its way around Darling Harbour and the city. From what I have been hearing in the media, it won't be missed a lot,  but it reminded me that I had a piece of history related to the monorail.

Here it is

a badge from the original protest against the monorail. I have managed to keep it all these years in a box where I keep old coins and badges. 

As I was looking for it I came across a couple more vintage badges from the late 1970's,  from the time when Gough Whitlam had been sacked as Prime Minister and Malcolm Fraser installed.  One even managed to combine 2 political protest movements, the sacking of Gough and the exporting of uranium as shown below..

I think that is meant to be the opposite of a good day!

My favourite, and don't you love the caricature?

It got me to thinking as I am wont to do, we don't seem to do or wear badges like we used to. I had quite a collection over the years, some hilarious, some philosophical and some downright silly. However they were a good way to convey what you were thinking, a bit like wearing your heart on your sleeve, you wore your badge on your lapel. Here are a couple of other oldies but goodies.

Mothers Day circa 1989 or 1990, Mothers got free rides at Luna Park on Mothers Day, and I sure got my mother's day worth!

Need I say more??

I have been known to wear this one to work on occasions!

A good message for all of us

Remember the "flat cat" craze of the mid 1990's, I loved them, this one especially appealed to me.

A funny story about one of my most favourite badges. I bought this particular  one in Leichhardt around 1980 on a Saturday morning after a big Friday night, it read "I used to feel young". 

I kept it and wore it occasionally and then on my first trip to Paris I had it on my backpack. At this point the badge was 22 years old, so it really DID mean what it said.   

Well,  while visiting Napoleon's tomb, it fell off my bag and down into the crypt where he was buried  and then bounced along the marble floor. If any of you know it you know it's all very quiet and solemn so the noise of the badge running along the floor made so much noise, that I got spooked and picked up my bag and slunk out, hoping not to get arrested!

Here is a pic of the inside, I was up the top and it fell down from there.

However,  I  do think of that badge from time to time, and if anyone ever found it down there near Napoleon's tomb and wonder how it got there, and how apt it was,  saying;

"I used to feel young" indeed you did Emperor!

What about you, did you ever "get into" badges, or do you think they should make a comeback??

I'm living in the 70's ( well almost!)

Not taking my own advice, ( see previous blog) and having a drink in the Qantas Club before I fly off to the USA! Very excited as we got our requested upgrade ( thanks Qantas!) but that is not the topic under discussion today, I will save my travel exploits for another blog.

We have been frantically trying to get our house clean, tidy and bathroom renovated in the space of the last month, and those of you who have seen the chaos I have been residing in can realise what a mammoth undertaking this has been.


Well,


I am proud to announce that WE did it! The bathroom is done, bar painting, but very functional, the crap
 (read here really useful things we keep but not sure why) are in the shed in the backyard and we now have something resembling a lounge and dining room furnished with my finds on e-bay ( hence the 70's theme).

 I wanted to pay homage to the era the house was built in and it is funny that the 70's furniture is really the right size for the house, modern furniture seems to overcrowd it, but old  and lovely parker furniture fits just right!

take a look at my rooms!

Anyway I am going to fit in another champers before my flight is called, so will blog from sunny ( well sunnier than Sydney at present!) LA!