Well hellllooooo Mr Blue Sky. Thank you for joining us.

Finally, FINALLY, the sun has flung open it's proverbial trenchcoat to reveal big, shiny summer days. The past three days in Sydney can only be described as 'scorchers' and to place the scarlet cherry on the delicious, iced cupcake of life, at last I actually got some work. Hooray!

Thursday was a true roaster and my first of two exhilerating days doing after-school care. Thrilling as it was, I don't feel it warrants a blog written about it. Suffice to say it was work in a school and that's all I really care about.

Friday (yesterday) was so unbelievably hot I thought my shoes were goig to melt to the pavement. Not a sniff of a cloud in sight. After I'd finished work at 6, we moseyed on down to Circular Quay to 'paint the town red' at the Markets by Moonlight by the rocks (there wasn't much painting going on, as they close at 10 but we had a lovely time anyway and it felt 'wild' to be toteing around the city centre at night. (The bright lights! The pubs! The clubs! Actually we didn't see any of that. We were home by 10.45pm)). Howie bought me a delightful little necklace depicting a tiny little koala scoffing a bit of greenery, which was lovely. He then proceeded to eat a nutella crepe in record-breaking time so I followed suit by munching on a choclate-dipped strawberry 'kebab'. Slurp - it was scrumptious.

Today was another gloriously sunny day so we strode forth to the Quay and were all aboard the Manly Ferry by lunchtime. We got a pretty glorious view across the harbour as we chugged out to sea and we managed to get a place at the front on the deck. However, we weren't quite prepared for how choppy it gets when you get to the head where the ocean awaits: standing at the front, we got the brunt of the splashback from the waves and by the time we got into Manly we were drenched. Fear not though, because Manly was a great place to dry off and 'chill out' (as Howie would put it). We walked along the main beach for a bit, then followed Heather's wise advice by walking down to Shelly Beach. It's a tiny cove round the bay from Manly, so you get a view of the beach and protected from the surf. We spent most of the afternoon here to be fair - the sun was scorching and we both got a little red. We also had the privilage of watching a wedding that took place on the beach just before sunset. Linda and Danny, we wish you all the best.

Now, at Manly, there is a Ben and Jerry's shop. We couldn't resist. After much deliberation, we highly recommend the 'Brownie Indulgence' type thing - a moist, warm chocolate brownie with a scoop of choc-chip cookie dough ice cream, whipped cream, covered in hot fudge sauce and crushed oreos. Y.U.M.

A scrummy thai red curry cooked by Jen's fair hand waited for us at home. All in all, an excellent, high-achieving Sydney day.