Lions and tigers and lemurs, oh my!

The burrito was pretty average. Unlike everywhere else I’ve bought burritos, you don’t order subway style - I just said “spicy chicken burrito please” and got handed a receipt with a number, as if I was in Argos. 45 seconds later, here’s my pretty average burrito. Ah well. I ate it wandering the streets towards Ultimo, a district of Sydney clearly named either after washing powder or a rubbish super hero. I only skirted it, as I was heading to Chippendale, a district of Sydney clearly named after a male stripper. In reality it was a district just south of the backpacker-student-hobo-bad architecture area which borders Chinatown. Even though the weather was rotten and I was inadvisably in a coat and hat, I was walking a good 3.5km in search of Guinness.

The internet - which had previously NEVER EVER LET ME DOWN EVER - told me a good pint of Guinness was to be found at the Duck Inn in Chippendale. It’s nowhere near any tourists would ever go. I was double wet when I got there, from both sweat and rain. Walked in, perched at the bar, and asked for a Guinness. Which of course they didn’t serve. This reminded me of my last trip to Oz, not because of an Australian experience but because on the same holiday me and Ellie walked a few km through awful parts of a Thai beach resort to the only Guinness vendor on Koh Chang Island only to arrive and be told the Guinness was off. DAMN IT.

I had a dark ale, and walked back to the CBD. Kevin had told me days previously that PJ O’Brien’s in the centre was a guaranteed Guinness hole, and 3km later so it proved.

That was a shit pint of Guinness. And a second shit pint of Guinness. But at least the surroundings had improved, and darts was on TV. There were 3 sets visible from the bar, all showing the same channel, yet one of them was around 2 seconds out of sync with the others. How can that possibly happen?

While in PJ O’Brien’s I got a phone call, caller ID withheld. I refuse to answer calls like that normally, but since it was only 5am in the UK I figured it might be something worth answering, about my journey home. “Mr Foreman, I’m calling about your chauffeur service on Sunday…”. Clearly I was on the home stretch now.

In October there’d been either 99 or 102 runners - parkrun.com.au and Facebook were a bit unclear. But the weather was grotesque (of course, it didn’t rain during the run itself, such is parkrun’s meteorological power) so we drove and there ended up being just 34 runners. Reps from the council and an MP/minister for health were there for a bit of a speech, I was proudly in my 50 shirt and expecting to come last because all Australians are athletes and because Australia isn’t flat. It was 3 laps of the reserve, flat apart from a short and brutal hill at one end. On the last lap I told the steward there that I wasn’t being rude, but fuck me I was glad I’d not see him again.

The winner was this guy of Japanese heritage, who ran incredibly fast - like, 15:xx or summat - and Kevin came 5th at 19:16 or so. I’d run the very last bit of his last lap alongside, we split as I said “see you in 10 minutes” and sure enough I finished in 29:16. Considering I’d done no real exercise for 2 weeks, and the heat and humidity and course were all horrid, I was pretty chuffed - sub 30:00 is always my benchmark. And, actually, when I checked, it was my fastest time of any parkrun event that I’ve only done once. So, pretty cool. But Christ, I was wetter through sweating in the humidity than at any rainy run…

The Japanese guy had done two more laps by the time I left. STOP. I thought maybe he had an earpiece and it was some running version of Speed - “keep running or we blow your kids up” or whatever.

Home, shower and out - Saturday is gymnastics for Alex and swimming for both girls, though Alex’s cold meant she couldn’t do that part. So me and Kevin took Harry to the pool, where her half hour lesson was an enormous amount of fun for her even as she let loose the floods of tears during the crocodile song. She loved the instruction - jump! jump! jump! - but just not the song. Strange lass.

Home via a midday stop at a bakery somewhat posher than Gregg’s, a popular place in Dee Why where I had a Mexican pie, having not had my fill of Mexican food on Friday with the lunch burrito and evening fajitas. Harry ordered sushi, which didn’t really work, but there was sushi left for her at home - Alex agreed to share, and by doing so had space and agreement for a slice of lamington. Noms all round.

Home, or kebab? Have a fucking guess. We walked to the kebab house, via a considerably worse pub and Guinness in Cremorne. Oh, I get it, so now everywhere sells Guinness. The kebab was decent, and we walked all the way back. That was a fair amount of km in the legs for the day tbh. Back home, we snacked like the post booze post kebab fools we were, lots of ice cream, and I watched Die Hard 4.0 while Kevin snoozed on the sofa. My god, what a shit film that is. I’d weighed myself on Thursday and was super happy to discover I’d not put on a single kg, but that might have changed by now. I am definitely a fat cat if not a fat fuck.