Tag Archives: weekendnotes

The Eye Of The (Sand)Storm…

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Well here we are in 2013 and with it comes resolutions that for me, are just begging to be broken. But I have gathered the very best of all my intentions to fulfil a promise I made a couple of posts ago to give you all an overview of my visit to Sand Sculpting Australia’s Under The Sea.

Custody changes during my Melbourne stay (of me from Mum to Lil Chicky and back again, the latter of these taking place in a car park) meant that uploading of photos for this post did not go as seamlessly as planned. But with perseverence – and a return to Gidday HQ’s wifi realm – I have prevailed. So take your marks, get your thongs flip flops on and let’s get this Armchair Tour underway.

This hard working fella can be found in 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea….
…as the ‘in’ crowd – complete with piercings and an assortment of headgear – gathers at The Sign Of The Seahorse to catch up with the latest snail(mail).
The sirens’ song and come hither looks of Mermaids tempt you to venture further…
…whilst this giant of the sea keeps a beady eye on visitors and carries the weight of a former civilisation – the Lost City of Atlantis – on his back.
Maintenance is an important part of the Sand Sculpting world so it’s best to invest in regular check ups…
…before things get out of hand.
This creature of the sea casts a lascivious eye over passersby…
…as it would appear that, like Poseidon, wild horses can’t keep them away.
And just when a couple of cuties might convince you that it’s safe to go back into the water…
…you might find yourself caught out by the bare (faced) cheek of the natives.

It’s a fascinating exhibit with lots of intricate detail and cheeky fun throughout – it’s worthwhile going back and revisiting each to discover new elements you didn’t see the first time around – as well as a speedy 10 minute demonstration of sand sculpting by one of the team on site.


If you want to read a little bit more, you can pop over to Mum’s write up on Weekend Notes. Or if you are actually in the Melbourne area before the 28th April, get yourself down to the Frankston Waterfront and find your very own fishy favourites.

Phew! At last, that’s post 1 (and resolution 1) for 2013 done.

Pukka Picnic and Polo Ponies…

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As regular readers of Gidday from the UK will know, I had a birthday.  Not a ‘big’ birthday by society’s reckoning but I like to endow each of my special days with a significance and joyful anticipation befitting someone who has not yet reached double figures.  And faced with how to mark my special day this year, we decided to do the only thing one should do in south west London on a sunny Sunday afternoon – a picnic at the Polo.

Ham Polo Club is located just a 15min bus ride from my place and every Sunday from May to September, you can pop along for a fiver and picnic alongside the rich and…well the rich.  And every Summer for the SIX Summers I’ve lived nearby, me and A-down-the-hill have said ‘Oh we should go!’ and then before we know it, October arrives and we’ve missed the season.  Well not this year!

So on the last day of my year, the SS 41 chugging slowly and gracefully into its mooring, two Aussies, a Scot and four Turks packed their picnic vittels and headed to TW10 to grab a dainty bite of quintessential English-ness.

The sun beamed down upon us, the wine flowed freely and the players and their ponies polo-ed.  There was a smidgen of educating (we learnt about chukkas, treading in and the like), a modicum of movement (chair to field to chair to field to…oh you get the picture) and a whole lotta laugh-out-loud-ness as commentator after commentator filled the slow bits gaps in the action with that droll, dry humour that the Brits do best.

Anyway here’s how the day went…

The game started with something a bit like a passing out. The eight players and their ponies line up in front of the clubhouse (where all the posh people sit) and as the players are introduced, they ride in a little circle around their team mates before stopping back in their original place. Bless! 


‘Passing Out’
Then the action started – these eight grown ups ride around on their horses with big sticks trying to hit a tiny ball up and down a big field and through a couple of posts at either end. No, I don’t play golf either.

An unexpected and rather noisy spectator dropped in for a while…(I hope at least he paid his fiver!)


…before it was back to the action as well as a change of direction (the scoring end for each team changes after each goal)…

 …which is unbelievably confusing for all concerned.

Every so often play stops and they all gather around for a throw in, which look a little like a Rugby Scrum on horseback.

And lest we forget, polo is the sport of the everyman – NOT!  Ponies are usually changed after each chukka making it at least four per game.  Whatever happened to sweating those assets?

Anyhow, after paying for all those posh ponies, there’s not much left in the pot for grounds maintenance so it was our job to chip in and ‘stomp those divots’…

Stomping the divots or ‘Treading In’ as it’s called here
Stalking Up close and personal opportunities

 …while our Scot ‘minded the store’.


Four and half hours later, sun-kissed and inebriated it was time to go and in the back seat on the way home, I believe I gurgled happily about what a lovely day I’d had!

So that was my fond farewell to forty-one and another one of the ‘things I must do while I live in Kingston’ ticked off the list.  But to be completely honest, now I’ve been, being local is no longer a mandatory for future attendance.

Chin chin!

ps…I’ve also been submitting some articles and reviews on a site called Weekend Notes – why don’t you wander on over and check out what I wrote about this little adventure and some of the other things I’ve done in London.

Of Hearts And Minds…(NB: 15 Sleeps To Go)

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I have just spent a lovely few hours this afternoon with my friend A-mother-of-N, and little N.  They live on the opposite side of London so we catch up on alternate ‘sides’ once every couple of months or so.  Anyway, we were chatting today about how much life has changed for us both, particularly for me in the last 9 months, the challenges we have faced and the little victories we’ve celebrated.

One of the things we spoke about was my writing.  I will have been writing my blog for 3 years next month but it’s only been in the last 9 months, I’ve started to consider where it all might lead.  I’ve ‘guest-posted’ a couple of times and been acknowledged by generous fellow bloggers (you know who you are – and for everyone else, you can find them on my blog roll) but am now starting to get encouragement from outside the blogosphere with family and friends commenting ‘how well I write’.

Recently I started writing for weekendnotes, my first ‘paid’ gig depending on how many articles I submit and how many subscribers and page views I get.  I have just submitted my second article for publishing today. (My first, about my visit to the Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising, which I have also blogged about, was published last Monday.)  I love London. I love writing.  It seems a match made in Heaven.

But I feel…hesitant. 

You see, I am completely besotted with writing.  Even more so than when I was in high school (high school, not secondary – now that ages me!).  Some days I write what I see, hear, experience in the small things.  Other days it just seems that I can’t help but put my heart on the page.  It’s a joyful feeling, sometimes emotional, but always satisfying.  An expression of my creativity and passion that feels both cathartic and right in its current proportion.  

And that’s the thing – the balance.  I also love my work.  It’s commercial and fast-paced and dynamic and I’m part of a team – and it’s a big part of me as well.  And right now, the two things together feel balanced and right.  Yet I can’t help asking myself, could I still do both if I wrote more?  Could I keep managing the balance or would there come a tipping point, where the single, albeit dual purpose, path may naturally divide and I find myself standing at a fork in the road?

One of my favourite poem’s of all time is The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost.  There’s a line in it ‘yet knowing how way leads on to way’.  I feel like that now.  I am desperate not to lose the joy I have rediscovered in writing but suspect that life will take me down the road that it will. 

I will just have to be brave enough to keep my heart and mind open to whatever happens next.