Project 289 - Day 123 : Yum Cha 1 : Dumplings with Ellen & Tracy

Project 289 - Day 122 : St Peters Parade

Every morning, an eclectic group of commuters move with great speed and purpose up to St Peters station, racing to catch the next in Cityrail's long line of trains that may or may not turn up on time. 

Every weekday evening, the same commuters walk back down the same hill, one after another, back to the apartment blocks that crowd the streets of Erskineville and Alexandria.

This delightful rite, which would no doubt keep an army of social anthropologists in orgasms of delight for decades as they decoded it's significance ("Um, I owe VISA and Mastercard lots of money?"), is affectionately known by those who participate in it as the "St Peters Parade", and tonight I captured the Parade in all it's glory, all blurry, colourful and full-on, as I walkws, without stopping.....

Project 289 - Day 121 (Thursday 16 July 2009) : I am the King of the Medical Clinics!

Project 289 - Day 120 : In Bed All Day with Ellen, Whoopi and Barbara...

No I haven't turned straight! Although what gay man worth his Dolce and Gabbana wouldn't want to spend quality time with the delightful Ellen DeGeneres, Whoopis Goldberg or Barbara Walters?

Yes I became a slave to day time TV although I didn't watch those execrable infomercial shows in during the morning which frankly are like watching one very badly produced commercial, and feature products I have no desire to buy at all....

The usual culprits featured today - stiff sore back (stiffer than yesterday alas), Zoltaren, Deep Heat, lots of bed rest, heat packs and my back exercises..... I think I am beginning to reach the point where work is looking mighty attractive....I must be sick!!!

Project 289 - Day 119 (Tuesday 14 July 2009) : More Zoltaren That You Can't Poke a Stick At (Thanks to Your Sore Back)

Tonight was French National Day and in honour of the French storming the Bastille, I ate some petits fours. I meant to eat a croissant too but forgot.....

.... that's largely because I spent my day trying to get comfortable. So the day, in thrilling fashion, consisted largely of me applying heat packs, Deep Heat to my own back (fun when you have limited movement - thank god no one was around with a video camera otherwise I'd have been on YouTube in a flash!), lying in bed, and going to the physio again (a journey in itself thanks to the drive in a non-ergonomic car seat)...

The day was finished in the loveliest way possible by dear beloved man coming over and cooking me a delicious stir fry from scratch (he's so clever!) and applying the Deep Heat again while we watched the first episode of the new Torchwood series, "Children of Earth"....

Project 289 - Day 118 (Monday 13 July 2009) : Paging Nurse Beautiful Guy

Yesterday if you recall I threw my back into less than pleasurable spasms (that's assuming there are pleasurable ones!) when I tried to dry my left foot with a towel (just for the record I had successfully dried the rest of my body before that!)....

... I thought I was OK going to bed, with just a small amount of pain as I turned in bed. But as the night wore on, my back got tighter and tighter, and more and more sore, and every movement became a massive effort, resulting at one stage in a cry of pain that amazingly did not wake my house mate. So my plans to go to work, and tough it out (yep I am the original He-Man! But without the toy action figure) went out the window (not thrown by me as that would have hurt too much!) and I spent the day seeing the doctor (and acquiring a script for heavy duty Zoltaren, a pain killer, that became a very good friend indeed; alas I haven't become addicted to it which completely crushes any idea of a 'Andrew Beats Pain Killer Addiction' telemovie! Damn it!) and my friend, Justin's physio who did all sorts of warming and oil-related things to my back which was so soothing.

Then that night my darling man came around, cooked me a delicious pasta dinner (refusing to let me help, which was so hard to observe as I am so used to looking after others) and then put some Deep Heat on me before leaving me with a hot pack to warm my pack as I drifted off to sleep....

Project 289 - Day 117 : Tragedy! When You Around and Your Greek Pants Fall Down, Its a Tragedy.....

Today I saw "Phedre" at the Dendy Opera Quays, which is a play written by a Frenchman in 1677 full of ancient Greeks infighting, committing real or imagined incest, and indulging in an orgy of violence and death.... just another day at the Oedipal office for the ancient Greeks really. It's a wonder they had the time to create civilisation as we know it with all that going on.....

Diary entries must have been like :

10.00 Philosophise on nature of being

11.00 Murder step sister who is sleeping with my son's best friend

12.00 Lunch

13.30 Calculate Pi to 1000 places

15.00 Bring curse onto my adulterous wife - death at sea by Neptune's hand or crushed by a thunderbolt from Zeus?

Just exhausting! ..... thing is the play was brilliant, starred Helen Mirren and the delectable Dominic Cooper ('Mamma Mia'), and is part of a strategy by the National Theatre in UK to film their plays and broadcast them around the world. Great to get some Kulcha.

Only downside was throwing out my back which occurred when I was drying myself off after a shower. I didn't really feel the effects till that evening (although sitting in the cinema proved uncomfortable) when I was lying in bed......

It began a very painful life.....thank goodness the play was really good....

Project 289 - Day 116 (Saturday 11 July 2009) : Hugs, Disney, and a Late Night Curry

This is Day 3 of the week My Body Became Freaking Ungrateful.

After mostly filling it with healthy foods, fairly bursting with nutrients, and vitamins and minerals (but not heavy metals like mercury which are, I'm reasonably sure, not good for you unless you want to mutate into a three armed, blind monster... not a career choice of mine), and making sure I got enough sleep, walked and swam, and slathered it in moisturisers and youth-sustaining cosmetics, what does my body do? How does it repay all that hard work to keep it....um...not dead?

It swells up a gel sac in my right heel to the point where walking is very painful (OK to be fair the swelling was the result of too tight very funky black leather shoes that I persisted in wearing too work for too long but still....); so painful in fact, that I have to cancel all my activities on Saturday bar lunch with beautiful guy and my friend Fahmi, and spent the day curled up on my bed.... alas no trips to Oxford Street to farewell my friend Jason as he leaves for a year in East Timor, or to see my beautiful guy's friend, Sam, as he leaves for Melbourne....

The one BIG compensating factor, and this is HUGE, is I got to spend the day curled up in bed WITh my beautiful guy eating yummy curries (see above), and watching family movies like "Princess Diairies 2".... yep hard living was had by, um, not us!!! So I guess I can at least thank my body for some unscheduled quiet couple time so maybe it doesn't hate as much as I thought.....

Project 289 - Day 115 : My Right Heel Demanded To be Taken Home....

....with or without the rest of my body.....

After my visit to the doctor yesterday, when I eschewed the vile sausage factory that is the US-like medical practice I was going to, and went to a real surgery instead where the doctors smile and greet you (!!), I discovered that the cause of all the pain in my right heel was an inflamed gel sac behind the achilles tendon. The doctor went to a lot of trouble to diagnose and work out treatments for me (see the picture), which I appreciated, since my achilles tendons, operated on at the age of 8 and never very strong, need lots of TLC to make sure they keep holding my legs up. 

I followed up the visit to the doctor, with an afternoon of sloth and indolence in my bed, and kept out of my shoes, and by this morning, my heel seemed much happier. It didn't last. Lots of walking to the train station, to the bus, through the campus etc and my heel was throbbing and demanding to rest again. I stuck it out till 1pm but then hobbled home to rest my foot and work out what I can and can't do this weekend, with my heel not in a good place, and very much calling the shots.

Yes, folks, my life, is currently being ruled by a ligament.... aren't I the lucky one?

Project 289 - Day 114 : All Zara, All the Time

Yes I am in grave danger of turning into the proud uncle who keeps showing pics of his gorgeously adorable niece at each and every opportunity......

.....wait a second....yep I have already turned into that annoying person and I am officially going to annoying the living hell out of all of you with photo and anecdote - she moves her hands so cutely! Did you see her squint her eyes then? What tiny hands! - of my lovely sweet cute niece. So since I have morphed into that person overnight, let me regale you with more shots of my niece with various family members.....

(1) Zara with her doting mum and dad

(2) Zara with my Dad

(3) Zara with my Mum

(4) Zara with my brother Steve

(5) Zara with my sister Rachel

(6) Zara and her great-grandmother (my Nanna)

That's it for now but you know there will be more photos! Of course there will be!!