ventures into the sunlight

So these blissfully sweltering hot days haven't come to an end yet, and bearing public tranport in this heat was not exactly on the top of my list. However, it was all for a good cause - to visit our darling El after her surgery. We came, bearing about $40 in junk food and chocolates - with more on the way when Megz and Jackie finally arrived.

The forcast for the Western Suburbs was set to be 38 degrees or something like that - a day that I immediately did not like. But, with the air conditioning out of order at home, anywhere would have been better. Naturally though, the day didn't start off too well. I woke up, realising I was fully burnt from the outing with uni friends the day prior and spent quite a lot of time trying to reconcile myself with the fact that my skin tone was even more uneven than usual. I then missed the bus, which resulted me in having to trek it to the station. That I wouldn't have minded too much if it wasn't 9am and already over 25 degrees!

Well, I made it to the shopping centre in one piece, and before Chel, Mariel and Zari did. We loaded up on junk food and headed off to Elisah's. The trip was uneventful and fairly cool. I am sad to say that we may have been a touch too loud on the train, but in our defence it was fairly empty anyway.

At El's we caught up on each other's lives - for it was possibly the first time in a while since all of us were together - and then we hit the pool. As promised, I will not post any photos taken. And that was how we wasted countless hours, talking by the pool and stuffing our faces =]. Nothing of too much significance occurred during that time - unless you count Mariel's phone falling into the water, with Megz and Jackie standing by doing nothing but watch it slowly sink to the bottom.

Having filled our Vitamin D quota for the day (or the entire week in my case), we retreated inside into the airconditioning, where we ate some more and wasted a few more hours playing with El's dog Bella. She is the cutest little thing! So energetic and ever so adorable! Megz and Zari tried to teach her to lay down, roll over and shake hands - so some extent of success. I am very proud of them for their patience and skill.

When the time came for us to leave, we said our goodbyes saying that we shall see each other next week for the Christmas party. El's brother kindly dropped us off at Chel's house from where we were to make our own way home. While waiting for various rides home, buses and such, Mariel tried to come up with an excuse for why her phone was now out of order, and why she couldn't catch the train home. I can remember looking up from my Zune to see her punching her leg. WTF I can imagine you all thinking.

Her story kinda goes like this (I think): she was holding her phone and then she fell, hard on it and it dropped or something (hence the leg punching). I don't know if that even is the right story, you'd probably have to ask her yourself. But from this, Chel decided to come in and experiment with costume make up. I don't know whether or not it worked, but it was ever so amusing to watch her try.

Mariel's bruise from falling on her phone or something

When I finally arrived home, I discovered that I was red. Like, tomato red. Beet red. I was freaking burnt. And not just my arms and face and stuff, oh no - but my freaking scalp as well! It killed to comb my hair =[

So yes, that concludes this long winded post, bitching about the sun and the heat. But the day was a good day. I got to spend time with some of my closest friends, and do wast we do best. Eat and goof off while still having the time of our lives.

into the wild… sort of

Thursday last week Cass, Nat, Wendy & myself headed over to Lake Parramatta Reserve for a picnic - coz that's just how we roll. Cass had been wanting to go on one for a while, although the weather wasn't the most co-operative previously - but at last, hallelujah! The clouds parted and allowed the sun to fire its deathly UV rays on us mere earthlings. I have gone crazy you may say if you know me in real life, after all I dislike the sun very much. But if it makes my friends happy, I will venture out into the heat and burn =]

We were to meet at Blacktown to gather supplies and then make our way to our location - which none of us had any clue as to what it looked like or what facilities it had. I had opted to come early to obtain some supplies for my recycling of my cream Mickey Mouse tote bag into something more useful (the pockets were torn and the zippers were broken), but news of that will come later. It was only when we were running for our train that I had realised one obvious thing - we could have picked up supplies at Parramatta. My, oh my we weren't thinking properly were we?

During our wait for the 606 to take us to the Reserve, we spotted these awesome Christmas decorated buses, wrapped in tinsel and all that fun stuff =] Pretty groovy, eh?

So we hopped off the bus to find this dry, sparsely shaded field (pictured below) and heard the sounds of the Cumberland highway, and were all for never allowing Cass to pick locations again when we found a sign leading us downwards, underneath the highway and into something much closer to what we had in mind.

Not what we had in mind, see the dry grass?

Going under the Highway

Much better now isn't it?

It's very pretty in a raw, Australian summer kind of way

After lunch, we had quite a lot of time to kill until the next bus came, so we decided to go for a walk. Cass already had a destination in mind: a cave she spotted down the river, far, far away. The walk was quite uneventful, and most of it was documented in The Haus of Wendy. Cass did drop her sunnies down a big pile of rocks and onto the river bank so she jumped and climbed her way down and up to retrieve them - the most eventful part of our trek, other than the discovery of women's intimate apparel lying haphazardly on the rocks and the trail of Cockatoo feathers.

The view from above as Cass tried to locate her Ray Bans

This place seems to get a fair amount of action doesn't it?

At the end of the walk, we were tired. Me especially. That trek probably filled my quota for physical activity for the whole week!