Weekend away

We had a nice weekend away in Sydney this weekend. We left Billy with his aunt & uncle who don't get to see much of him - they looked exhausted by the time we picked him up 24 hours later :)

We headed in to Sydney, booked in to the hotel at Kings Cross and then caught the train into the CBD. Meandered down to Circular Quay via a great little pie shop (Jesters) we found last time we were in the city. It was absolutely freezing - a cold wind and the sun was only out sometimes, but it was nice if you could get out of the wind and have the sun at the same time :) We had time to kill before the matinee performance of Othello so sat outside the Opera House and tried to keep warm until they opened up the Drama Theatre. Othello was quite good - it was the first time Bell Shakespeare has done it, but much to my disappointment, Marcus Graham (who was supposed to play Iago) was off sick. Rather than cancel, they went ahead with the understudy, Mitchell Butel, who did a surprisingly good job for someone who had 1 hours notice :) It was quite amusing though - he carried the book of the play with him the whole time but only had to refer to it fleetingly - mainly to trigger his memory. The audience did get a chuckle at him straining to see the book while being "strangled" though :) It would've been a lot more enjoyable if it wasn't for the old woman sitting in front of me in the 1st row who spent the first 10 minutes coughing her lungs out (to the extent that one of the actors threw her a throat lozenge lol), then the rest of the time talking or complaining that Mitchell should've known the lines.. Grrrr! Possibly because we were sitting so close to the front and straining to look up, but I found the guy who played Othello moved rather strangely and deliberately and it was rather offputting - I felt he was moving like a Thuderbird lol. All in all, not one of their best, but not one of their worst either - they have a LONG way to go to surpass the sheer dreadfulness of King Lear a few years ago when half the audience walked out!!

We had tea at a little Czech restaurant in Kings Cross (Prague restaurant) - beautiful food, monster plate sizes and a wonderful atmosphere. I'd say we'll go back to that one for sure!

A bit of a sleep in this morning (8:30) then off to pick Billy up from Brad & Riss. I'm sure they collapsed exhausted on the lounge after we left!

It was a nice relaxing weekend, and in good timing too. I've had a very full-on month or so with work, and was getting quite frustrated with a couple of clients. Hopefully I can approach them with a better attitude now!