OK, not that it takes me a long time to get around to doing things, but I suppose that now I'm a week on from the events, I'd best finish my story about the trip to Perth ! That'll learn me to keep up with this thing – the weekend just gone was pretty damn busy too, but I can't put that stuff in yet… don't want to get ahead of myself (which means I'd have to look at my own arse – not all that much fun).
Incidentally, the thought occurred to me over the weekend that my web journal thingo – unlike many of those of my contemporaries – doesn't contain much in the way of philosophy or insights. After musing on it for a moment, I decided that I'm just too damn busy for that sort of caper at the minute.
Right, now – back to WA. I was up to the Sunday bit. I awoke to a phonecall from my landlord, who had evidently just learned of the rent-conundrum… which it turns out I haven't mentioned yet. Will get to it. ANYWAY, once again I hopped in the car with the gorgeous Kristen and the gorgeous Morgan, and set off for the Swan Valley. I'm sure we've got plenty of places in Adelaide which are comparable, but I just really love the area surrounding Perth. And Perth itself. Let's face it, I just love the place. But one digresses.
We travelled to the Swan Valley to drop in on a few places and generally be touristy. The first cab off the rank was our lunch spot – the Duckstein Brewery. Particularly charming spot, I thought ! Plenty of German food – I can't vouch for its authenticity, but it was damn tasty – and a number of different beers that they produce on site. I think my favourite was the Kristallweizen, followed by the Hefeweizen. The weird thing about Duckstein though was that they had this music playing out in the beer garden, and set up to look like a “band” they had these weird animatronic chefs. I swear, those guys were enough to screw any 4 year old up for life. The middle one gyrated eerily, staring off into space with a rictus grin. The one on the right waved a pair of sticks mysteriously over a drum and stared at the ground, and I think the one on the right was possibly dead.
Upon leaving Duckstein I also took the opportunity to photograph a bus stop, which a few people have asked me about since.
I just thought it was an excellent example of neo-Flintsonian architecture. Shame there's such a big shadow on the photo. Oh well, what can ya do eh ?
After leaving Duckstein we dropped in to Sandalford winery for a spot of tasting, we stopped at the Margaret River Chocolate Factory for some choccies and icecream (which I managed to drop all over the table – can't take me anywhere, dammit), and then just for something different we thought it was time for a beer, so we headed off to a place known only to me as The Lizzy.
I truly have no idea about The Lizzy, because I wasn't really listening, but all the convincing I required involved the mention of beer brewed on premises, and so off we went. I think it was in Armidale, and they had a bunch of beer there. Mmm. Nice spot though.
After that, we hopped back down to Cottesloe Beach to watch the sunset, and even though I'm from a place where the sun sets over the ocean, I've got to say, this was beautiful. My attempts to capture it in a photograph were somewhat disadvantaged by the fact I've got no idea how to drive my camera properly, and also there were all these big ships moving back and forth. Pretty easy to ignore at the time, but they sort of destroy the serenity of a photo. 
Our time was drawing to a close, and we were getting peckish. We'd elected to go for a nice healthy dinner of fish and chips, but the line up at the Cottesloe Hotel was reaching epic proportion, so we decided to head on back to Freo ! Probably just as well really, because we narrowly avoided getting a parking ticket. So yes, back down to Freo to get fish & chips at Cicerillos. (I was intrigued to discover they had a web site, because it's not a thing many fish and chip shops would have… anyway on this site it claims that they've created a “Noah's Ark” with over 50 species of marine life. Now if I recall my Bible stories correctly, I'm pretty sure marine life was about the only thing they DIDN'T have on Noah's Ark. But that's just nitpicking…). As always the food was sensational, and at the risk of repeating myself, the company was excellent too. One thing that I had never noticed was that there's a picture of Mr Spin inside – was a bit tricky to get a shot, because the photo's not located too far from the mensroom door (ooooh, prestigious !!).
Anyway, after several awkward moments with exiting mensroom patrons, I got a photo.
OK, what the hell did we do next ? I think we were all beered out, and headed back to catch an early one in preparation for the rather obscene 4am start.
So yes – in summary, I had a bloody lovely weekend in Perth. It remains one of my favourite Australian cities, and I can't wait to get back there again although who knows when that'll be. And of course it was really REALLY cool to catch up with Morgs and Kris again. I love you guys.
Now I don't think I missed anything (else) out of my story, so let's assume it's complete. This means that tomorrow I can start describing what happened on the weekend just gone. Shouldn't take as long, cos there were only really 2 days. Saturday technically doesn't count, because I spent the whole time lying in bed groaning and cursing my ability to drink Herculean amounts of booze. But that, my friends, is another story…!
Ah bollocks, the rent conundrum. It's not that interesting – just another example of the type of complication that my life attracts constantly. OK, what happened was rent was due on the Friday, and I'd transferred money over from my savings account to give to Mike to pay it. Come Friday, it hadn't arrived, so I organised with Brother Timothy to borrow some money in the interim. He was supposed to bring it to my house when he picked me up to go to the airport, and that way I could give it to Mike. Upon arriving at my house however, it turned out he hadn't been to an ATM yet, so the plan ended up as Tim getting me some cash at the airport, and then dropping the rest of the rent money to Mike on the way back. So far, so good.
Upon landing in Perth, I turned my phone back on and found a message from Tim, stating that Mike wasn't there we he got there, but it was all ok, because he'd dropped the rent money in the letter box. HOWEVER, I could suddently hear the sound of the Fuckup Fairy, beating her little wings, as it dawned on me that the key for the letter box was in fact on my keyring, in my bag, in Perth Airport. Yee haa.
So that was that, anyway.