Another Sydney Week

Sunday morning I headed up to Sydney again.

But instead of visiting Dad straight away we ended up getting invited to Andy R's engagement party.  Which was basically just a family thing that mum got invited to as a good friend of "Aunty" Di's (not my aunty, but that's how my friend Crust (Chris) referred to her as).  Anyways, I've seen Graham and Di many times over the years, but I hadn't seen Andy and Dave (and Suzannah and Robert) in probably close to twenty years.  So it was a little odd (I felt like such a ring-in at a family event), but good to see everyone again.  

Suzannah

Milly and Andy

Then we went off to see Dad.  The butthead he shares a room with got grumpy when we made him turn his tv volume down.  Whatever.  Stayed a little while then went to Aldi to buy mum her first ever sim card, to go with her first ever (brand-new-second-hand) mobile phone.

Mum's phone

Evenings were spent clearing crap out of the garage.  I continue to be astounded by dad's box fetish.  It seemed any box that passed his way he'd keep "for storing things".  So we found boxes and boxes and boxes hidden away and in alcoves.  Not only that, but he used to make little boxes to go in bigger boxes for storing little bits and pieces.  So there's was piles and piles of cardboard, some of it already cut up and ready to be folded into little boxes.

Boxes of boxes

We are starting to feel somewhat overwhelmed by it all.  We've been at it for weeks but it seems we've barely made a dent :/

Monday morning I dropped my car off at Bargwanna's and said *please* fix it!  It turns out that the alternator was just wired incorrectly.  They fixed that up and made sure it wasn't drawing any current.  They also fixed a few other things that probably should have been done ages ago but just *weren't*.  I'm still undecided whether I'll ever go back to Melba Motors.

In the city, there's snails everywhere at the moment.  Although when I researched it I found out the display is finishing today, so alas I won't be able to go find any of the others.

Orange snail

Blue snails

Yellow snails

Martin Place has a stack of plants in front of the fountain, making it feel somewhat tropical.

Martin Place tropics

The monorail is almost completely gone too.  This is pretty much all that's left - stumps.

Monorail stump

Wednesday I had lunch with @StuartCRyan again, and we had Peking Duck again.  It was pretty awesome.

Peking Duck again

Came home Wednesday night, with Harry to keep me company again.

Cactus flower