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It was Uncle Ronnie and Aunty Elona's 25th Anniversary; they met and lived in Sydney so it was a perfect chance to drive down from Brisbane and spend a week reminiscing. They walked the streets, rode the ferries and spent their evenings listening to Jazz at the Basement - a favourite haunt.

Royce and I had them over for a drink to see our apartment and then it was a quick train ride to the Art House Hotel - the old school of arts building dating back to 1836. We enjoyed a lovely meal at the Dome restaurant and talked till we were the last to leave. It was a wonderful evening and I'm glad we were there to celebrate their anniversary with them.

The third photo is one of my favourites; it captures Ron and Elona perfectly!

I discovered Talking Heads fairly late in their career - so late in fact they had well and truly broken up. I had just moved out of home and bought the double CD "Sand in the Vaseline", which was a greatest hits collection I bought ostensibly to listen to the songs I already knew. What transpired was that I found that I was drawn more to the less known, less radio-friendly songs. I played these CDs over and over again, to the chagrin of my friend Matt who's place I was staying at. Though that was over 12 years ago, I'm pretty sure he must have forgiven me by now.

A few years back David Byrne performed at the Sydney Festival - thankfully Laura was able to get us (free) tickets through work (thanks Grant). I'd heard that these days he only did his solo stuff, so I was really, really pleased when he performed mostly Talking Heads material. I had pretty much given up on hearing my favourite song live, and so was pretty damn excited when halfway through the set "This Must Be the Place" started up.

Fast forward a few years and I was really stoked to see in the entertainment section of the paper that David Byrne was coming to the Enmore, with a show billed as a fusion of greatest hits and some new material. Laura and I got our tickets and despite last minute complications, made it to the venue just before the opening act started their "performance". I should have loved these guys, their influences being Talking Heads and They Might Be Giants among others, but they were just too weird and lacking the polish that band who do oddball well pull off.

When David Byrne and band came out (the batteries in my camera were dead) they were all in uniform - dark brown trousers and the same dark brown shirts, though David was the only one whose shirt was tucked in. With his white spiky hair I guess it made him look kinda small.

The show was amazing - he perfomed many of my favourites (though "This Must Be the Place" was way too early in the set") - and must have made it though 20-odd songs. They did 2 encore's and received 3 standing ovations, the last of which went for close to 10 minutes. You could tell from his slightly suprised and embarrassed (yet pleased) look that the voracity of the applause took him by surpise.

It was an absolutely brilliant concert - I feel truly priveledged to have been there.

Our friends on level 15 invite us up quite a bit - but I usually forget to take the camera. Tonight would be an exception.

I love Jimmy and Sue's place - much bigger than ours and facing North - spectacularly toward the harbour, Opera House, Bridge - all the main sites.

Food and wine were great and we chatted a long time into the night.

Well not in Ireland, but at the Ireland's. Merilyn and Andy hosted Laura and I and our other friends Ann and Leigh at their place for dinner. Their place was really cool, with quite a bit of reno work going on but it was coming together really well (must have been all that architectural advice I'd given Andy when he worked at BVN).

Not only that, but Andy cooked up a storm on the BBQ and spent much of the evening speaking in French. What a multi-talented guy!

After dinner and desert Leigh raided the boot of his car we he had a frisbee and assorted footballs that we were able to kick around the street - apologies to any of Merilyn and Andy's neighbours who had cars/front gardens damaged...