Cliona & Dave have been here for the Christmas period, splitting their time between my place and Caoimhe & Dave’s. I’ve been showing then around and took them on the Bondi-Bronte walk (photos) last week with some sunbaking and swims at either end.

Jacqui headed up to Byron to be with her family for Christmas so we exchanged presents on Friday night. Her family got me a cool poker chip set which I had been eyeing up, so I’ll have to brush up on my poker skills now. She seemed pretty happy with the iPod Nano I got her too. Cliona & Dave took the two of us out for a delicious dinner as their Christmas present to us and then my family came up trumps with a fancy tripod & remote release cable for my camera. Now I can learn to do decent night shots and hopefully capture some lightning on camera.

Christmas morning saw myself, Cliona and Dave lounge around ringing the folks back home before heading off to Bondi for a Christmas sunbake, followed by a swim and some breakfast. Security was tight after the recent riots in Cronulla, with plenty of police around and bags being searched as you walked on to the sand. It was surprising but understandable, especially since they usually get 40,000 people on Bondi for Christmas Day. It wasn’t that busy when we were there but it was filling up fast, mainly with Irish wearing their county GAA jerseys!

After that it was off to Caoimhe & Dave’s for the official Christmas dinner (photos). We got stuck into the Pimms, lounged around the pool for a while then brought out the beer and nibbles. Once it had gotten dark we cranked up the barbie and had a veritable feast of meat and seafood. The only downside was that it was around 11 by the time we finished and everyone felt like the traditional Christmas nap! We managed to hang on for a bit longer, ringing the various families back home to wish them an official Happy Christmas.

Boxing Day in Australia, or St. Stephens’ Day if you’re Irish, means only two things; the start of the Sydney-Hobart yacht race and the Boxing Day cricket test. In our case, the Sydney-Hobart was what we were interested in. Caoimhe & Dave took us out on their boat, to join an estimated 3,000 other spectator boats watching the start of the race (photos). As you can imagine the harbour was packed. After we’d bounced around for about an hour, the gun went off and the yachts charged passed us. Wild Oats led the pack out of the Heads, closely followed by Alfa-Romeo, at which point we decided to make a break for Middle Cove, anchor and spend the afternoon swimming and sunbaking before cruising back into the city.

It’s been a pretty good Christmas this year ;-)