First of all Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Build up to Christmas was great, work was busy, but good fun and Manly got all festive with a Christmas Eve children's service in the church on the Corso complete with 3 kings on camels! Made the most of my day off in the build up to Christmas with a fab night out with Beth, a friend from law school who now lives in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, her boyfriend, James, who is from Canberra didn't make the flight on Wednesday because of a deal that was signing on Christmas Eve so it was just us girls - must say that it didn't make me miss private practice corporate law!!! Beth was staying in Rushcutters Bay which was great from my perspective as it's where the CYCA is located and so where a lot of the boats competing in the Sydney Hobart yacht race were moored. We had a lovely meal and a bottle of wine at Gazebo wine garden, followed by a rather comedy time in Kings Cross from where we escaped to Oxford Street and found ourselves in a gay bar. Well they do say that Sydney is the gay capital of Australia!!! Ended up staying with Beth so we had a good recovery brunch at Bills in Surry Hills and a spot of shopping on Oxford Street (aounds just like London doesn't it?) before I headed to the Opera House to meet Paul a sailing buddy for a few beers in the Opera Bar looking out onto the Harbour and the Bridge.

After finishing my last shift at the Manly Wharf Hotel on Christmas Eve around 12.30am I headed to the Manly institution that is the Boatshed for a few festive drinks with the guys from work - there was a great live band and a few Santa Clauses and elves in amongst the revellers!

Christmas Day was great - started the day with a Skype call (outside) to the Oxleys who had the usual crew over for Christmas Eve celebrations. It was wonderful seeing them all and hearing all their news. Also managed to catch up with Thalia and Dad. I then finished off preparing a load of food before heading out for a big picnic on the grass by the beach with Carl, Carla and Suvi. Aishling my housemate also joined us for a bit. We then spent the rest of the day on Shelly Beach, swimming, sunbathing and sleeping off the food and enjoying the beautiful day. Carl left us around 5pm to fly off to New Zealand for a week and Carla, Suvi and I joined a few others watching the sunset over the harbour. It was such a different day to the "normal" English Christmas and one major difference was the number of people that I saw - everyone was out and about enjoying the weather!

Every Boxing Day is the start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race and even for those not into sailing, watching the start is a very popular way to spend Boxing Day! I got together with some friends and walked up to North Head where we had a great view of the start line and the boats coming out of the Heads. It was pretty challenging to identify any boats other than Wild Oats without binoculars though! We then headed back to mine for a BBQ with Aisling and a bunch of her friends.

The day after Boxing Day Bex and James arrived in Sydney from London! Kiyomi picked them up from the airport and picked me up and then we headed back to Kiyomi and Heath's place in Seven Hills for a Christmas lunch (Kiyomi and Heath manning the BBQ did us proud). They have a fabulous house and it was good to meet Camus and Bambu (their 2 rottweilers) after hearing so much about them. The following day we headed up to the Northern Beaches to do the obligitory stop at Palm Beach where they film the beach scenes for Home & Away! Unfortunately we didn't run into Alf but Heath and I braved the water (which was feeling fairly warm for what wasn't exactly a hot day!) The following day we met up in the city and got the ferry over to Taronga Zoo. Such a fabulous location for a zoo! It being a really hot day and school holidays it was really busy but we still got to see everything we wanted and then headed back to the city for dinner and some drinks to cool us down! On 30th I spent the day on Little Manly beach with Steve and Alison and Steve's mum who had come over to visit and then went out for some pre-new years eve drinks with Paul at the Glenmore's roof top bar overlooking the harbour - after missing the ferry and being severely beaten at pool (despite him playing left handed) it turned into rather a big night! Needless to say I spent most of New Years Eve day asleep (although I did manage a great swim off Delwood Beach (the little beach in front of my apartment). I was slightly nervous about swimming after I had heard the shark sirens the previous day on the main Manly beach when a school of 6 sharks had been spotted off Manly Point!!!

New Years Eve was fabulous - Kiyomi, Heath, Bex, James, Carly, Carla, Suvi and I went for dinner in Bondi Junction and then wandered over the road to a building that Heath had access to - on the roof (about 18 stories high) we had a birds eye view over the entire city. We could see the lasers on Bondi beach for the Space New Years Eve night with David Guetta and more importantly the incredible Sydney Harbour fireworks. The only slight downside was that it was a bit too windy and cold to swim in the rooftop pool! After the fireworks display Carla, Suvi and I headed down to Darling Harbour for an afterparty on a boat around Sydney harbour. My friends Sam, Maarten and Annabel also met us there. The boat party was so much fun and it was wonderful to see the dawn of the new year. The boat eventually docked back around 7am and then it was a ferry ride back to Manly and a few hours in bed before I was convinced that the best way to spend New Years Day would be in the beer garden of the Oaks in Neutral Bay with Paul, his sister Rebecca and a bunch of their friends... Ended up being a really fun afternoon/evening - obviously got more stamina than I thought!

Saw Bex, James, Kiyomi and Heath again for dinner last night. Bex and James are heading up to Queensland now and then Bex is joining me in Melbourne when James heads back to London. Strange to think that the next time I see James might be at his wedding!

Looking forward to what the rest of 2011 might have to offer - think that I might do a skydive today and I'm going to the 2nd day of the 5th Ashes test tomorrow - it may all be over, but it should be a fun day out!