365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 332 (Sunday 28 November 2010) : Old Friends, New Birds and All of it On The Rocks!

A lovely lazy Sunday of wandering about The Rocks after a relaxed brunch at The Book Kitchen, Surry Hills catching up with an old friend of my gorgeous guy, Brian (along with Fahmi, John P, Stephen M and my friend Jason from BrisVegas), and doing the sorts of things tourists like to do. A lovely way to explore the city and as an added bonus I got to spend the whole day with my guy.

Fabulously yum omelette!!

Say BRUNCH!

Jason hamming it up with my guy on George Street, The Rocks

George Street in The Rocks looking towards the Bridge

A Christmas Tree made from recycled bicycles, just near the Museum of Contemporary Art on George St

Amazingly tame parrots feeding on native plants at Circular Quay

Steve & Brian (visiting from Ireland)

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 333 : The Birthday Goes On and On.....

The day after all the festivities have dimmed down to a dull wattage are never fun for rampant extroverts like myself, but today was made much easier by the fact that I met my lovely colleague Sandra on the bus to work and she had a birthday gift for me - a Maxwell Williams Fondue Set which will be so much to heat chocolate up in, and get all retro with! What a lovely thing for Sandra to do, especially on a Monday morning when I'd gone to work early and was feeling less than thrilled to be on my way to Cubicle Hell.

The other lovely touch was the final dinner that my beautiful guy & I had with my wonderful friend, Jason, at the local gastro pub, The Botany View. The food, as awesome as always, was beyond delicious - I had coconut crumbed bugs on top of rocket salad, avocado and pea gnocchi, Jason had the corned beef with honey mustard, and my guy had a Greek style chicken - and we had a lot of fun having one last chat before taking Jason to the airport. It was sad to say goodbye because he is such a good friend, but I am glad we got to say goodbye in such a lovely, one last birthday hurrah way.

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 331 (Saturday 27 November 2010) : Time to Eat, Swim, Buy Art ...and PAR-TAY!!

Another big day in the cavalcade of fun that is my birthday!

Jason was up bright and sparkling early eating breakfast far too early on a weekend day but my guy and I got up much later and had a leisurely breakfast on the balcony before we set off about 10.30 for Paddington markets, which feature lots of original unique artists, including the man who painted one of the paintings in my room, and to which I haven't been in ages! As usual, Oxford Street was crazy, mad busy, but we found a parking spot in the back streets, walked up to Oxford Street and started shopping! I wasn't going to buy anything - no honestly! Really! Well maybe a little part of me wanted to... - but I saw a small 3D piece of artwork by the same artists who had done my painting and after passing by the stall three times, I grabbed it. I hope he becomes famous one day and justifies my love of his art! Even if he doesn't, it's quirky, colourful and fun and I love it.

After all that walking around on what was a reasonably cool day thnakfully, we sat down for lunch at Anastacia's cafe which while not awful, was not exactly great either. I had the most average chicken caesar salad of my life, and lamented that not all cafes are as good as the majority of the ones in Newtown.

But that was small stumble on a fabulous day. After a lazy afternoon chilling, during which my poor tired guy raced up to the restaurant with my best friend Warren to decorate the place with all manner of fun helium balloons, Fahmi, Jason & I headed up to the Marlborough Hotel for pre-dinner drinks on the top floor, which was deserted when we got there at 6pm. We found a funky open booth in the back near the bar, everyone started buying me cocktails with fabulous names like Easy Lay (peach and raspberry), and Tiki something, giving me wonderful presents (Warren gave me a Smurfs t-shirt with trailer park trash smurfs on it which was SO funny!), and talking up a storm, and before I knew it, time had flown and it was time to go to the restaurant just down the street.

We had taken a gamble on booking a new untried place on King Street called Sherpa's Kitchen, which turned out to be phenomenonally great! The service was warm and friendly, nothing was too much trouble, the private dining room out the back was superb and the food beyond delicious with lots of it! I kept drinking far too much - an entire bottle of white wine no less! - I had the most wonderful time catching up with 23 great friends, many of whom I don't see anywhere near as regularly as I would like to. My gorgeous guy had sourced two very yummy cakes - one cheesecake and one chocolate cake - which we had with Himalyan ice cream, after I had blown out a LOT of candles and giving a heartfelt speech where I thanked Warren and Stephen for doing so much work getting the party organised, and thanked my friends for making my life so rich and special. I am a very blessed man, and tonight confirmed that in spades.

Warren, my beautiful guy, I and Jason finishedoff the night at The Imperial, the iconic gay bar in Erskineville and home to Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, where the music was loud and fun, we drank way too much (three Smirnoff black vodkas), a handsome-ish desperate told us he was horny (an interesting approach to getting some fun for the night), and we stumbled home trying to be too loud. I am fairly certain we failed badly and we finally stumbled into bed (Jason, I must stress in his own temporary bed in the loungeroom, and Warren at his nearby apartment) around 2 a.m. for some much needed sleep.

365 Pink Feather Boas All in a Row - Day 330 (Friday 26 November 2010) - Birthday Movie Marathon Yeah!

One of the things my wonderful friend Jason and I love is seeing movies, and lots of them! Since he'd come down for my big birthday bash on Saturday night, we decided that my birthday weekend was crying out for one of our infrequent movie marathons - he lives in Brisbane making these events rare - and so I took the day off work, we selected the three movies and readied ourselves for a celluloid fest!

But before we did, we headed to South End, one of my favourite cafes in Erskineville with Fahmi and my lovely guy (Jason stayed the night at Fahmi's so my guy and I could enjoy our special birthday night out) for a yummy brunch; in my case of pea and haloumi pancakes and pineapple mint frappe. YUM!

Full as googs (they apparently overeat to an alarming degree) my beautiful guy dropped Fahmi, Jason & I off to Dendy Newtown on King Street and the flicker fiesta began in earnest at 9.30 a.m. with The American, an excellent slow burning drama starring George Clooney as a hit man on his last job who belatedly discovers, after a life time of emotionally isolating himself (his job didn't encourage warm and fuzzy socialising), the joys of love and intimacy with tragic results. It was one of those wonderful movies that you can immerse yourself in, so beautifully wrought was the dialogue, cinematography and acting.

We had 20 minutes between the end of that movie, and the start of the next one, Monsters, and so we dashed out to King Street, did some shopping in Fish Records, soaked up the busyness of the street, and then dove back into cinema land with a movie that isn't as obvious as it's title suggests. Instead of the usual monsters chasing down people with evil intent (I am no fan of those kinds of sci if / horror movies), Monsters tells the story of a NASA probe that breaks up over Mexico, spilling its contents into the biosphere. The creatures that emerge, rather like giant octopus, do not directly attack humans but merely react to their presence in their terriory. Interestingly the Mexicans don't have any choice but to stay put since they have no where else to go, but all the Westerners flee, and so it is that a young male journalist is asked to escort the boss's daughter back to safety in the USA. The movie, thus, is far more concerned with the growing bond between these two people, and their unusual road trip, than it is with the monsters who are background more than they are the central story. Beautifully crafted and well written and acted.

We dedided at that point that a reasonably substantial break was called for, and so we ate lunch at Sushi Train before walking home via all the furniture and second hand goods stores on the lower end of King Street before Jason and I crashed for a nap and some chill time. That meant that when my gorgeous guy turned up that night we were refreshed and ready for our next celluloid adventure, a quirky French movie called Copacabana, starring the incomparable Isabelle Hupert. She play s a quirky Bohemian woman who has spent her life doing as she pleases, with the result that when the movie opens she is broke, and shunned by her straight-laced daughter who doesn't invite her own mother to her wedding. Determined to prove her daughter's assessment of her wrong, she takes a job selling time share apartments in run down Ostende, Belgium, and to everyone's surprise does very well at it, while never quite shaking off her Bohemian sensibilities. It is one of those gorgeous character-based movies the French do so well, with lovely, but never, mawkish, heart and soul.

We followed our last excursion into cinematic escapism with a dinner of pizzas and wine at Cine (Fox Studios) before heading home and falling into a much needed dreamland!