The last couple of weeks

We're ticking off the days until our belated honeymoon in Vanuatu so have mainly been pottering around Sydney. We've been up to a few exciting things. Ben got some free tickets to the races. Australians love gambling. There's a big furore over rules around 'pokies' (fruit machines) at the moment. Whole rooms in pubs are devoted to them and the government want to set limits on them to stop problem gamblers losing all their money. In one go anyway.

But the races were a fairly familiar set up to the UK. Women in nice dresses and hats, women in not so flattering dresses and badly applied fake tan, steadily increasing levels of drunkeness. And horse racing.  So we spent a sunny afternoon at Royal Randwick, just down the road from our house.

Ben was pleased to see the Call to the Post.

After a very disappointing afternoon on the betting front, we had reached the last $2 of the betting limit we had set ourselves, and won nothing. After 'studying the ground' Ben decided we should put our last $2 on an 44/1 outsider.

Tension in the stands before the race

It only romped home!!!!!!!!!

We went home in profit with our first ever $100 note. Ben also went home with a sore nose from when I accidentally high fived him in the face during our celebrations.

Sydney is looking very pretty at the moment. The blossoms are out and there's lots of street festivals and bits and bobs going on as the weather starts gettting warmer. We watched men in drag singing cabaret recently in a museum. Not sure what festival that was. And there's a big noodle market in the main park. There's also lots of artworks on display and light installations.

The weather being warmer also means we've been able to head to the beach and swim in the sea. Still pretty bracing, as they'd say in my home town. Apparently Ben thought it was a lovely temperature. We nipped to Clovelly and Bronte beaches - both a 20 minute bus ride from home.

This one of Ben's bare chest is for Tim.