the proposal

nervous. i was nervous! i knew what i wanted, i was 99% sure piero would say yes, but i was nervous. so nervous. 

i knew that when i asked, i wanted to ask piero overseas. as our relationship had taken in continents and countless countries, it felt fitting that the proposal should happen overseas. but where??? 

we were heading to the uk for a gav & mish’s wedding. london was a place of meaning for both of us but we would only be passing through and it would be a whirlwind of catching up with friends. gav & mish’s wedding was in newcastle, and while there was something poetic for me to propose in my city of birth, proposing at someone else’s wedding didn’t really seem like the done thing! we were heading to sardinia to visit piero’s family but i didn’t know if we would have any alone time there.  that left our one week in greece!

first stop was athens. it’s a beautiful city but it just didn’t feel like the right place to propose.

next stop was the party island of mykonos. in hindsight, it would have been a fab place to propose as we had so much fun, had lots of romantic moments and loved the place but i didn’t want to spend the rest of my life explaining that our proposal was planned and beautiful and not some drunken, party infused act.

with all those options out, that left santorini – not a bad option to have! i knew it would be beautiful, but nothing prepared me for just how beautiful it was! that island is simply stunning! crystal blue waters, white-washed cliff-top towns and the most breathtaking sunset in the world. 

on the day i had chosen, i had booked a restaurant overlooking the caldera. i would do it there ... nerves set it in! 

where should i hide the ring? should i propose at the restaurant in front of others or go somewhere private? should i order champagne or should i keep it more natural??? 

the momentousness of that moment dawns on you as it approaches. it’s you. it’s him. it’s both of you stripped to your emotions. it’s the rest of your life. asking that question is huge. but at the same time, it’s so natural. it’s all about the future, but it’s such a living-in-the-moment moment.

after dinner, we went for a walk and found a place on the cliff-top town deserted of people. the full moon twinkled overhead, reflected in the sea below. the time was now. 

proposing is such a personal thing you share with your partner. given this is a public blog, i don’t want to go into detail with what i said and how it panned out, but what i will say is the most important thing: he said yes! 

a new world opened up. 

minutes before i proposed

the restaurant we ate at

the view from the restaurant

piero just after he said 'yes'

europe calling!

our dear friends, mish & gav's wedding in the uk in august 2010 gave us the perfect opportunity to spend two fabulous weeks in europe! 

greco loving
i can’t believe that i never went to greece when i lived in europe. it’s an amazing place: history, food, wine, the islands and sexy locals. 

first stop was the party island of mykonos! we knew it would be fun, but weren’t prepared for just how beautiful it was. when the ferry pulled up, one of my besties, jaimee, was there to greet us after flying in from london a couple of hours earlier. over the next few days we lazed it up on the beaches, danced till our feet hurt in mykonos town and created the most amazing tv concept known to humanity – stay tuned! 

a little bit of mykonos magic

jaimee & piero and the view from our apartment

jaimee headed back to london and piero and i ferried it to santorini. the island was stunning! people tell you it’s beautiful, but it’s one of those rare places that exceeds your built-up expectations. we had a fabulous two nights watching the sunset, exploring the white washed villages, swimming in the med, walking on the volcano and... getting engaged!!! for more deets, see: the proposal. 

minutes later, we were engaged!

the view of the caldera (and a lazzzzzzzyyyyy dog!)

following an unforgettable two days in santorini we headed to athens and my god, it was fantastic! we had an amazing hotel with a restaurant and a funky roof top pool with stunning views of the acropolis! this was europe as it should be (bar the pending economic doom). 

while in town we explored the acropolis – simply breathtaking seeing it up close and finding out more about athen’s history – and enjoyed the food and wine on offer. while at the acropolis museum, I read a great line that has stayed with about why post-golden-age-athen's invaders didn't destroy the city: the brilliance of its past guarenteed its future. am sure that probably doesn't mean much to may of you, but for some reason, it has stayed with me. 

aaaaahhhh, i adore this view! this was the bar next to the rooftop pool of our athen's hotel.

ancient athens on a beautiful day

greece was, simply, an amazing week.

rule britannia 
next stop was that little island where we met: the uk! i have two great loves in my life: piero & london. heading back to the motherland is always an exciting experience. 

city hall, where i used to work, and the shard, which was being built while i was in london

the olympic rings on tower bridge

as it was the olympics, the airport was teeming with people but the airport was incredibly efficient (god i love britain, it turns it on when it really – and only when it really - has to). we touched down in newcastle and headed to the pre-party for mish & gav’s wedding. it was a fabulous night catching up with mates and watching the funniest surprise mock-bollywood dance sequence by some of mish & gav’s family and friends. 
the next day we explored newcastle before heading to morpeth to catch up with my family who live there. it’s always fantastic seeing the hunters, they’re such a close family who always make laugh.

and then it was time for the wedding! and what a wedding it was! for more info, see: to gav & mish.

mish & gav dancing the dance of life

sardinian sunshine 
following newcastle, we headed to sardinia (via one night in london where we checked out jaimee & damo’s new pad and caught up with the aussie girls!) to catch up with piero’s family. as always, my time in italy can be best summarised by one word: food! 

my favourite experience in sardinia was when piero, his brother andrea, brother-in-law davide and myself went out on a boat on the med for the afternoon. swimming in the mediterranean is fabulous – it’s warm, the water is so clear you can see the bottom and, unlike, oz, it’s hard to get burnt. 

a beautiful day, on the beautiful isle of sardinia

journey back to where it began
our final stop was a weekend in london. for friday night, we explored the surprisingly-fantastic cafe-hub in hackney and caught up with my old work chums at victoria park, watching the olympics on the big screen. we crashed at our friend’s, marta & dave, isle of dog's apartment and enjoyed a good ol' chin wag. 

dave, marta, piero & me hanging out in their flat

the next day, we d-r-l-ed it to tower hill and took in the sites of an unbelievably sunny london – walked across tower bridge, through potters fields and down my favourite street in the world, bermondsey high st. we caught up with nat at one of my fav pubs in the world, the woolpack, before heading to jaimee and damo’s in balham for an afternoon of lazy drinking in their back garden. 

piero outside the woolpack

in the evening, we headed to a pop-up bar on the southbank (during the olympics in london, it was all about the pop-up bar) and met the aussie girls, luc, keith & kris. for dinner, we headed to soho – loved the new w hotel near piccadilly – before jumping into a cab and heading to our old favourite, the two brewers club in clapham (it wouldn’t be a weekend in london if we didn’t head there). 

the gang at jaimee & damo's

and finally, on sunday, we continued our (never-ending) farewell-from-london tradition and met our mates for drinks at the volunteer, our old local when we lived at marylebone. 

while swung by the flat of dreams (sans mish & gav who were on their honeymoon) to drop off and pick up a couple of things. it was weird being back there – all so familiar but unfamiliar. i found myself taking a snap from the living room window of the fish n chips shop opposite, it’s not a beautiful view or anything, it’s just a very ‘my london’ view.

and with that, we were on the heathrow express, ready to return down under.  

let’s play catch up

i may not have blogged but the last 6 months have been busy! here’s a little snapshot...

travel

for christmas, piero, emily and i drove up to brisbane to spend it with our families. my brother and his family also headed to brisbane so the highlight was, as it seems to always be at family events these days, seeing my adorable ever-growing, nephew jack.

on the way back to sydney, we stayed at the gold coast and caught up with old friends jayde and peter and his wife thimitra – it felt like schoolies all over again (just no wheez this time!). 

paul visited from the uk and we headed to melbourne  to visit jayde, simon, pauline and kelly and check out the australian open. we returned to our fav madame sousou, lushed it up at the hellenic repulbic and gave birth to the famous-five-like-but-even-more-daring bfff-club.

a little bit of kareoke with paul, piero, kelly and jayde

rod laver arena

piero had always wanted to go to tassie so in feb we headed to the apple isle for a fantastic holiday. tasmania is gorgeous and has some of the best food and wine in australia. we flew in hobart,  checked out the salamanca markets and mona (eat your heart out europe, this is the most amazing gallery ever); drove to port arthur (the sheer beauty of this place slaps up against his horrific past); stayed overnight at freycinet national park (wineglass bay was well worth the hike!); guzzled it up in the wine region tamar valley (i think it was here i finally convinced piero that chardonnay was the new sauvignon blanc); and then ended it in launceston where we stayed in a converted hospital, visited cataract gorge and dreamed of mishail at black cowbistro. 

on route to mona

a bit of wineglass bay action

hanging with a naughty nun at the launceston wine festival

for easter, we joined good friends cynth & gez in the mclaren vale – a wine region outside of adelaide. my god, it was fabulous fun. we basically ate like pigs and drunk like drunks. highlights were the lloyds (the food was amazing) samuel’s gorge where we stumbled across a wine-season-launch and lunch at tapestry winery overlooking their vineyards.

we stayed at port nourlunga and this is what we woke up to every morning

is it ever 10am yet?

they were shooting some models outside samuel's gorge 

a fitting wine tour company

and most recently, we spent a night at the stunning blue mountains and checked out the three sisters, took the slightly-scary-totally-amazing-world’s-steepest funicular railway up the cliff and swung past the janolin caves. i hadn’t been to the blue mountains since i was a kid so it was a bit of a walk down memory lane.

visitors

we have a new place and have been dead keen to show it off to our friends. fortunately, we haven’t been short on people taking up the offer!

paul from the uk arrived first, he stayed with us twice on his oz trip – firstly at the roundabout and then at the new abode. paul was a fantastic guest who allowed me to show off our new city: bondi beach, darlinghurst and messina gelato.

jason, piero and paul at messina gelato

my brissie friend michael - our most frequent quest - swung by sydney for australia day. what should have been a few quiet drinks at the green park before coming home turned into one our most memorable nights. 

michael hiding behind from piero from this dude who kept following him at the bar

luciano arrived shortly after for a fantastic couple of weeks timed with the mardi gras. we threw a mardi gras party on our balcony, watched the parade, partied at the sweat-pit-of-an-after-party which featured kylie, and then recovered on bondi beach... bliss! luc stay ended with a booze-up-cum-dance-sesh in the rain at the beresford hotel – it truly was like old times in london.

the hen on a journey. first night at the st.george open air cinema 

balcony party with luc working in hard in the background over the bbq

a classy end to the post-parade party: one luc, two drag queens and three wheelie bins

taken outside our flat just after we'd scoffed our gelati

while luc was in town, steve came down from brissie with his fiancé vicky! it was great spending time with steve again – we met in grade 1- and getting to know his g/f. i’m already looking forward to their wedding up north!

luc, piero, cynth, vicky and steve at bondi italian

my brother, loan and jack then turned up next and stayed with us for a few days. it’s so good having my brother and his family stay with us as they l-o-v-e sydney and their passion is infectious. we headed to rushcutters bay yacht club for lunch, wandered around the streets and enjoyed a messina gelato (or two).

andy, jack and me on the balcony while piero cooks

preparing dinner in our kitchen 

jack playing with his present in his favourite corner

after my bro’s family, i then flew mum down for mother’s day. mum was born in sydney, lived here for a bit as a child and then again after marrying dad so we tracked down the hospital where she was born (now a hotel), drove to the house she rented with dad and then tracked down her childhood home using the few memories she had as a clue. it was a fantastic journey that delved into her past. we also headed to manly for mother’s day lunch, completed a barista training course, discovered a chinese tea house, lunched it up at seafood markets and, of course, i introduced mum to the delights of messina.

after our barista training 

at the victoria dining rooms

at the chinese tea house

although they didn’t stay with us, michelle, ben and ted joined me for afternoon tea on our balcony when they were in sydney. mish and i studied together and uni so it was great catching up with all the brissie goss!

wood. trees. clarity.

the thing with blogging is that when you haven’t blogged in while (say 6 months or so...), it becomes a ‘thing’ on your ‘to do’ list. not a ‘must catch up with so-and-so’ thing but more like a ‘must wash the windows’ thing. suddenly, it’s a chore.

so it’s been six months, where to begin? i guess, the only thing i can say is that it’s been a challenging few months. there have been some wonderful moments (friends visiting, furnishing the new flat, a promotion at work) but there’s also been some trying work moments which i have let consume me, my consciousness and my mood. my monkey mind was so busy i couldn’t see the wood from the trees – i never understood that saying until i lived it. but that was then, and this is now.

clarity. it has been restored. i’ve come out of the last few months as a more focused  person and have entered an exploration stage of my life: questioning my career, my life direction and my goals. fortunately, i’ve had wonderful friends and family and an unbelievably understanding partner. so thanks to everyone for your wisdom and support and my apologies for being a bit of a crap friend, son, brother and partner over the last few months.

life is too short to not notice the beauty i see every morning i walk to work -

Hyde Park fountain

building blocks

when the first of my friends bought their own home in their early 20s, i was excited for them but i just didn’t get it. why would anyone want to buy a house and lock themselves down? life is to be lived! travel beckoned. adventures were to be had. my saturday mornings were to be spent nursing  hangovers not mowing a lawn.


ten(ish) years later, i do get it. a house is a physical representation of a life you’re building with someone. it’s a financial investment in your future. and frankly, it beats paying i-dare-not-even-contemplate-exactly-how-much-i’ve-shelled-out-in-my-lifetime rent.


so piero and i are on the market for a flat. we’re both quite aligned with what we want: central, good view and no lawn to mow. neither of us want art deco (or as it should be known: crap architecture that sydneysiders tell themselves that they love because it’s slightly less offensive than some of the other monstrosities sprinkled throughout this city). and as we associate the word ‘screwdriver’  with vodka and o-j; we defo need something easy to maintain. 


like so many who have walked this journey before us, our saturday morning are now filled with viewings. fortunately, we’re looking over a small geographical area so it’s easy to walk from property to property. 


last weekend, we found one that we really liked. it’s not perfect, but it ticks a lot of our boxes. perhaps soon, i too will be entering the world of grown-ups.

looking forward through the past

running through regent’s park i suddenly stopped. the bt tower towered in the background. it’s never been a monument that i liked, but right there, right then, it seemed suddenly beautiful. an almost tangible link with my past and a city that defined me. it seemed very london. 


the day before, we had arrived at heathrow. it had been ten-months since we had left the british capital and we were excited about our three-week european jolly.  


i visited old haunts, neighbourhoods i loved, new restaurants and places i never quite made it to. for three weeks, i ate and drank myself around the capital and threw in a couple of side trips to york (to watch laura and barry get married) and sardinia (to visit’s piero’s family and eat even more!).


the highlight, as always, was just spending time with old friends. some people made a massive effort and for that i am incredibly grateful. with many, you can pick up where you left off. there’s a feeling that those bonds – no matter how geographically stretched they become – will always be strong. 


we had some truly beautiful moments with friends – a moments glance over a glass of wine; the real excitement you both feel when seeing each other again; and that conversational moment when you hit something deep and realise once again that your exposing yourself, sharing truly something personal and significant with someone who you implicitly trust and who you know who gets why it’s important. 


but the truth is; friendship dynamics do change. some bonds become weaker, the relationship between couples is in a different place from when you last saw them and the energy between groups of friend shifts. at first this can jar, but you have to adjust. 


perhaps the biggest change i noticed was that there was a stronger vibe of ‘we’re in our (early) 30s, some life decisions need to be made soonish’. this is healthy, of course, because the thing with london is that it can fill your life with so much adventure, noise and excitement, that you have to make sure that life’s other gifts don’t slip you by unless you will it.  


leaving london this time, i was sad to think it would be a while before i would see some people again, but i was looking forward to returning to sydney. ahead of me, I saw: a summer of sunshine, time with friends and family, and the building of my life with piero. 


london will always be london: fabulous, exciting, evolving, challenging and the permanent owner of a little bit of my heart.  

(... more pics to come!)

smelling the roses (and staring at the bridge)

piero lives in the present. i don’t.

i live in the tomorrow.

lots of ‘happiness’ gurus say living in the present is one of the best strategies to ensuring you are happy. and i think i agree.

living in the tomorrow has its advantages though. when you have 4 friends crashing at your place, you think about practical things like linen, towels and toilet paper. but even typing that sentence re-enforced the gurus theory: towels, linen and toilet paper don’t equal happiness.

at doyle’s fish and chips (watson bay), we had a magnificent view of sydney harbour,  the city skyline and the bridge. it was powerful. it was stunning. i was blessed to own it there and then. i could of sat and stared and it for ages but... part of me wanted to move on. to go and do the next thing. wanting to experience new things isn’t bad – it's a trait i rarely see in dull people – but not appreciating what you’ve got is.

fortunately, despite my internal discomfort of sitting and staring at the beauty for a long time, one of my dining companions asked to stay longer. they too enjoy experiencing the new, but they were wise enough to know the value of living in the present. 

where are the kangaroos?

our sydney friend jason promised us and our italian guests (maria pia and andrea) a tour of kangaroo valley, south of sydney. mentally i ticked the ‘show our foreign guests some wild kangaroos’ box.

it was then with some surprise i heard jason say: ‘oh, you wont see any kangaroos. cows. lots of cows. but not any kangaroos’. i felt like i had been missold.

i was wrong. kangaroo valley was magnificent! i was gobsmacked by just how beautiful this part of the country was. it was lush. it was green. it was beautiful in a way that reminded me of england.

having travelled to new places in australia since i’ve been back, i realised how much of my country i just don’t know. i think i just always assumed that australia looked like the south-east corner of queensland where i grew up.

come to think of it, i didn’t see many kangaroos growing up either.

the waterfalls

on the way to kangaroo valley