Attempted chilling out in these manic times...

Work, as I'm sure you can guess, has pretty much taken me over these days, and I'm living out a strange existence which consists of:

6am: wake up
7am: breakfast at the office
Work ass off
10pm: home, more work on laptop in bed
Midnight: pass out

Repeat without break.

So I fearfully allowed Matt to persuade me a while ago that booking a weekend away in the country for the middle of May might be a good idea. His rationale, which seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, was that I would be over the hump of getting most of my marketing materials out of the way, and that it would be before the craziness of the actual festival started -- the perfect time to recharge the batteries for the final onslaught.

This didn't seem like such sound logic as I packed my big rucksack and fled work on Friday afternoon, I can tell you! But once Alex, Adam and I hit the road, I felt immense relief, and excitement at the weekend ahead.

Stopping off in the Shire while on the road with Adam and Alex

Nine of us stayed in a place in Lake Conjola, about 4 hours drive south of Sydney (just down the road, in Australian terms). The house was well-equipped and had heaps of bedrooms, an enclosed log fire which made it nice and cosy, and a large deck, perfect for gathering round a table for a hearty meal.

Brunch on the deck

We each took it in turns to cook, and outdid ourselves at every turn. We feasted, drank copious amounts, laughed, watched DVDs with Matt's projector beaming the films onto the wall of the house, and frolicked about on the beach. It was a stunning place, remote enough to feel like we'd really fled the city, but not arduous or too basic to miss home comforts. I teamed up with Matt to make dinner on Saturday night -- he made some heavenly garlic prawns for entree, I did Leandra's famous sausage casserole for main, and Matt bookended the meal with some yummy white chocolate and almond cakey things. We were all stuffed but still managed to fit in more wine...

Singing while I'm cooking

I even got away on my own for a few hours, walked along the beach, read a bit of my book (a Doris Lessing recomended by Dan when he was here -- it's been ages since I read anything other than proofreading things for work!) and even went Kangaroo-watching at dusk!

Walking along the deserted beach in the morning

Spotted!

I had a wonderful weekend, managed to chill out, although I did check the BlackBerry every hour or so and did a few hours' work. Still, great timing for me as things are going to be mad now for the next six weeks.

I got back to Sydney to some pretty disastrous news. Our website has been hacked and a SQL injection has ruined everything. The whole thing has been destroyed, and despite our best efforts does not seem to be working yet, which is soul-destroying given how important the online component of my campaign is. I'm hugely upset but making sure i just ignore the emotions and get on with doing what is required to practically deal with things and leave the analysis until after the festival. But a sobering piece of news indeed.

I also sadly said goodbye to Siobhan this week. She is my intrepid aunt who has been travelling round Australia since February, and has now left for New Zealand, where she'll spend a couple of months before her South America jaunt. It's been lovely having her pop in and out of Sydney, and my only regret is that I've been getting gradually busier and busier as she keeps coming back! But I'm so glad for her, she's had a great time in Australia, and it's been wonderful sharing my life over here in such a big way with her. We had a final meal and some yummy cocktails last night and she's now already set foot in Auckland.

A final meal with Siobhan

So the next six weeks will be madness and I'll try to post mini-blogs with news and hopefully success and excitement. Don't expect much more communication out of me though, until I'm out the other side!

Sunset in Conjola

More Lake Conjola pics are here.

cx