Visitors in May

We've had lots of visitors lately. I've written about our April visitors so now to our May visitors. 

Casey and Andrew visited for the footy. They're West Coast and Bombers fans respectively as are Paul and I. Since our teams have both been playing much better this year, it was set to be a corker of a match. Unfortunately that also meant that seats were hard to come by, so we were up on the third deck. Great view from up there though!

 

The Eagles fans. 

I look shocking, sorry. In my defence it was raining so my hair is wet, not greasy!!!

Fraternising with the enemy ;)

Lawrence, one of Paul's work mates from Adelaide also visited last month and we took him wine tasting in the Yarra.

Domaine Chandon

Boat O'Craigo

Train Trak

Sticks

(where I didn't take a photo)

Yering Station

We had a great time with both sets of visitors. It's always fun to have people staying as we get to be tourists again. But it is also nice to have quiet time!!

Mixed Feelings Over Fev

While I think this story is hilarious, I think it's also quite sad at the same time.

I'm not a fan of Fev, so I think it's really very amusing that Carlton are at the point where they'd pay a club to take him. I also think that in some ways he deserves it. He's acted like a drunken dickhead far too many times, and if he's had the appropriate warnings, then fair enough that he should be dumped.

However, it does remind me of the whole Ben saga. I do think that footy teams have a duty of care to their players. He obviously has an issue and I do think that in some ways Carlton is responsible. If it wasn't for them, his drunken behaviour wouldn't have become big news and he possibly wouldn't even have the problem in the first place. Instead of dumping him, perhaps they needed to look at stricter conditions on his employment contract, compulsory AA meetings or something along those lines. Don't just leave him high and dry when he needs the most help and support.

So let me know what you think...

Grand Final Cupcakes

Here are my Grand Final cupcakes. They were a standard vanilla buttercake with vanilla butter cream icing. The Geelong ones turned our tongues blue. :) But there was not enough black in the St Kilda ones to make our tongues black. Paul's tongue was a revolting mass of colours on Friday night after he'd licked all of the bowls and my hands were pretty special. Glad I wore my apron!! Haha!

An Epic Battle and other footy cliches

Saturday's Grand Final was AWESOME! Such a fantastic game of footy. It helps that I wanted Geelong to win, but I wouldn't have been upset had St Kilda won.

We played our usual sweeps/drinking game. I was a lot more sober than I should have been at the end of the day since I had Joel Corey and Brendon Goddard who won me the pool. I guess they must really blend in.

We had lots of great food and I ended up eating way too much! There were home made party pies and sausage rolls, seven layer dip, guacamole, antipasto, beer nuts and loads of chips. There were also my grand final cupcakes - pictures to come later.

Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the day at this stage, but will hopefully be getting some from Ali and Carter. I'm sure Tash will put hers on Facebook at some point.

Why I Love Spring

Spring is the best time of year for me for many reasons. The weather is one. It finally starts to get warmer after a cold, wet winter.

Another reason of course is that my birthday is in Spring. I've decided that I'm no longer 23, so I think I'll be turning 26 this year. I think 26 sounds mature, but still young. I think I thought that about 23 when I decided to turn 23 again so many times, but now that I'm older, 26 sounds young. Haha! At least it's more plausible. I'm no longer offered info for student elections, so they obviously think I'm too old to be a student. Or perhaps I'm too clean. Hehehe!

The most important reason that Spring is totally awesome is because footy finals fever hits. Now that I'm in the footy capital, I can celebrate without shame.

I made a trial batch of Grand Final Cupcakes on Tuesday night. They were good, but I have to perfect the cupcake to icing ratio. The cupcakes didn't rise enough in the patty pans so there was too much butter cream icing. I think I'll make 10 cupcakes instead of 12 on Friday night.

I'm also making my own party pies and sausage rolls for Grand Final Day.

Of course it's fun to see the crazy supporters come out of the woodwork. Last night as I left work, one of the academics was putting lipstick kisses on her Saints poster. I think she's planning on decorating the hallways in black, red and white balloons and streamers on Friday. I'll have to take a photo.

One of the reason that Spring is not so awesome is the show. :( I got on the train yesterday to find it littered with chocolate and lolly wrappers from the bogan children and their bogan parents. How fricking difficult is it to put the wrappers back in the showbag from whence they came?! Thank goodness I haven't encountered chocolate vomit yet!

Megsie's Visit Part 3: Footy

Sunday was meant to be a day for relaxing. I'd set aside some time in our busy schedule for us to have some relaxation time in the morning. Unfortunately our relaxation ran over time, so we had to walk to the football rather quickly. Poor Megsie only has little legs, so she was at a half run for most of the journey.

It was a close game, but in the end, Essendon just lost to Richmond. I enjoyed the match, but I get the feeling that Megs and Paulie weren't as happy as I was.

When Megs goes to Essendon matches, she likes to borrow Paulie's membership gear so she looks like an Essendon supporter. I prefer not to.

The Curse Continues

I have not yet been to a football match that West Coast have won. In fact there have only been 2 games that I have been to, where the team I've been supporting has won.

This weekend was no different. Paul and I went to see Melbourne vs West Coast on Saturday at the MCG. Melbourne won by 20 points. The game wasn't actually that bad. There were some good moments throughout the game. However West Coast seemed unable to deliver the ball cleanly into their forward 50. I guess we've just got to give the young players time to finess their skills, accuracy and consistency. It had better bloody happen when I'm in Melbourne and can get along to the matches though!

The lowlights of the game were bogan supporters. One was a bit of a wanker and decided to have a real go at the umpire. I'm not sure what game he was watching because I didn't think the umpire made a particularly bad call and judging by the lack of boos, neither did the rest of the crowd. It was rather entertaining though and the security guard trying to get him to settle down was even more entertaining.

The next was a larger group of young male bogans. They yelled offensive comments to players and umpires alike. None of which were particularly relevant to the game. I do believe at one stage, the boundary umpire's major flaw was that he was bald. I'm not quite sure how that impacted on his umpiring abilities, but obviously quite significantly if they felt the need to point it out to him. I just don't understand this need to entertain oneself by insulting others. It was totally unnecessary - especially as there were lots of young kids around them. I'm surprised that security didn't tell them to quieten down a little.

The best part of the game was that it was a Melbourne home game, so due to their lack of members, we got front row seats in the members section without even booking in advance. Yay! We had the perfect possie for photography. Unfortunately I was too wrapped up in the game to take many pics, but the ones I did take are here.