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Our friends John and Colleen had moved to a spectacular apartment in Point Piper (as you do) and hosted a lavish dinner with a group of their friends (as you do).

The view from their apartment was spectacular, the food and wine was great, and the company matched. Highlight was John's new trainset (well if you ask him it was anyway).

Dave (my brother) was in town for the races and we caught up with him and a couple of his mates at The Royal in Randwick then went onto dinner at Thai-riffic.

The Royal was a great pub, made all the more so by the lack of smoke. After a couple of drinks at the pub we walked down and ordered a feast of Thai food.

The restaurant was stacking up the chairs behind us when we had managed to finished all of the wine and food. Royce and I headed home while the boys went off to sample some of the Sydney nightlife. Arriving at the races before midday was never going to happen anyway.

Walking through the 'Cross on a Saturday arvo is usually quite interesting, but was made even more interesting because of the chalk art on the footpaths. Ok, so there were no Julian Beever's amongst the artists, but it was a stinking hot day and they were giving it a shot.

Tonight was a celebration for two outgoing members of the EC (Joe and Daniel), and I suppose a welcoming of some new members. Dinner was at Jimmy's favourite the Iguana Bar, which, with the amount of alcohol consumed, was ideally located only a very short walk from our apartments.

I was a little disappointed with my meal on this occasion - Laura and I had eaten here a few times and it was usually not-too-shabby. Well as long as they get it right in a month or so for my birthday then all will be forgiven.

Hint: BYO Glitter and Milk Crate.

This year Royce and I left it way too late to get to the Mardi Gras and see anything. People had been there since the morning setting up chairs and stocking up on milk crates, which they later sold off for a healthy profit! The parade had just started when we arrived and there was no chance of seeing any of it, we tried to shuffle down Flinders Street and got caught in a crush of people all dancing on the spot, making it quite hard to mauver around. I managed to duck and weave my way out before the crowd collapsed as people shoved to get through. I got out the other end, but there was no Royce behind me.

I had lost him in a crowd of sweaty half-naked men and very pretty boys dressed as women.

It was almost an hour before I'd found him again, looking a little worse for wear and with a look that screamed 'we are out of here'! The Sydney Mardi Gras isn't for the faint hearted! There are only a couple of shots as we had to protect the camera - and ourselves - and we couldn't see a thing!

We took refuge in a Vietnamese restaurant down the road.