The last few days have been busy, busy, busy. We had given the kids over to my folks on Tuesday morning and had fully 24 hours to be a young couple in love again. On Tuesday night I went with Mrs M and sister-in-law for a massive piece of schnitzel in King's Cross. King's Cross is Sydney's red light district, but it also contains some of its most expensive property and trendiest restuarants. Such are the contradictions of Sydney. We were served by a flamboyantly gay waiter wearing leiderhossen, not that there's anything wrong with that. Then we headed into the city to see Disney's The Lion King Stage Spectacular. It was great, except the singing, which was varied, and the acting, which was patchy. But the staging was so phenomenal that it more than made up for any deficiencies in other areas. The music was good and mostly the same as the movie. Most importantly the merchandising opportunities were huge and fully exploited by Disney. There was not a full wallet left in the house.

To celebrate the impending New Year's Eve celebrations I played golf Wednesday morning with father-in-law. They usually play with Bob Hawke, a former Prime Minister. I had a lot to live up to. So I made up a few stories about my days rigging elections in the Labor Party and all was OK. As is usual in golf, by the 12th hole I had decided it was a stupid game and I was giving it up for good. By the 15th I was planning my assualt on the US PGA and contemplating my interview on the Golf Channel: "Well, John, it all started with my par at the 14th at Bonnie Doon. It was a hot and windy day, that day. I realised that while 30 is old to start as a pro, it would be cruel to deny the world my talent." Of course by the 18th it was back to good riddance to the stupid game.

We celebrated New Year's Eve in style. We headed around to friends for a family festival. There were 10 adults and 11 kids, the eldest of whom is not yet 5 (the kids that is). The usual chaotic running, dinner, tears, laughters, dress-ups and bike riding resulted. We adults managed a reasonably civilised dinner before we slowly but surely started putting various kids to bed. By 9pm it was fireworks time. PB was already in bed but JC stayed up for them. They were appropriately dazzling and JC even let a couple of "wows" slip out. Since then she's been asking for more fireworks so they must of been OK. Then we put JC to bed, had a bite of ice cream and by 10:30pm were in bed ourselves. What a great way to celebrate - an early night.