Sunday, January 30, 2005 (Perth - Australia)


The luxury of a sunny summer's day in Perth's King's Park - bliss. The chicken, the whole chicken and nothing but the chicken - for dinner. And still they try to guess what the big secret is.

Day 328 (138). Since we arrived here in Perth, we’ve strangely had a long lie in each day. This little luxury is becoming progressively better and better. I remained in bed until just about noon today and by the time we were both up and about, it was already lunchtime so Sandy warmed up the leftover sausage rolls from yesterday for lunch – yummy!

We thought we’d take the car over to King’s Park on the other side of town this afternoon. We were having all sorts of problems trying to follow the map so, in the end, we threw the map away and just drove on instinct – and drove straight there. The park is quite a big one as parks go and is probably the very best park I’ve ever visited. The whole thing sits on the side of a hill that overlooks the rivers and estuary here with the city skyline laid out right in front of you. With today being a gloriously sunny day, the atmosphere was one of pure tranquillity. Perhaps it’s because of Sandy’s condition but we seemed to spot an awful lot of people with small children all through the park. We kept catching ourselves looking over to them and wondering if that could be us in the years to come. We found a nice spot to sprawl out our little blanket and lie down in the shade for a while whilst listening to the noise of the fountains splashing, birds calling and children playing – sheer bliss. Some of the parrots that fly around this part of the country are just gorgeous. Again, it’s much better watching them in the wild as opposed to caged as pets back home.

Our signature whole chicken was going to be dinner for tonight and we swung by a supermarket on the way home to pick one up along with some other supplies for the next few days. It was quite busy in the communal kitchen when we returned but with most everyone else concentrating on the Australian Open tennis final that was in full swing, we found a bit of space to cook and eat our meal without too much trouble.

With little else to do for the rest of the day, we sat and read some more and I spent some time on the Internet chatting with relatives. Still lots of guesses being put forward as to what our big news is but I did my best to fend them all off. We’ve decided to spill the beans when we get back to Melbourne next week so we’ll see then just how much of a surprise it will be to most people by then. I can hardly wait.

Posted: Sun - January 30, 2005 at 12:03 AM        

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