Cocktail

We've had a babysitter now for two nights running; the dozy babysitter on Saturday and the sensible one on Sunday. The thing is, the dozy babysitter's much cheaper than the other one but she's so dozy that I never feel confident going further away than the eastern suburbs, which is how we came to be in Coogee on Saturday. And look, I'm sure she's fine, you know, but she also has a part time job serving on a checkout and I swear she doesn't recognise me when I see her there, which doesn't exactly inspire me with confidence.

Anyway, two babysitters in two days may seem frivolous, but when you consider I haven't been out at night since the beginning of November, you see our predicament stuck in the flat in the most beautiful city in the world. Not that we haven't wanted to go out, just that we've been either too exhausted to get round to organising it or else Darren's been going out with people from work on his night off or he's been tied to some on-call shift with the chopperdocs. Either way, it's always me staying at home.

The thing is, some people take their kids out with them at night, and I know this because I see them rugged up in blankets being pushed around Circular Quay at 11pm, though the kids don't exactly look happy about it. Kate and her husband let their kids stay up well past ten o'clock, but their kids wake up later in the morning as a result (like 10am) whereas Ella's on some sort of James Bond nano-clock that goes off at roughly the same time no matter what time she went to bed. And spending the following day with an unpleasantly grumpy and argumentative toddler somehow doesn't seem worth the luxury of going out the night before.

Anyway, with the sensible babysitter safely installed back home, we made a run for the city and had drinks at the Fortune of War on George Street, which contests the title of Sydney's Oldest Pub (and hence, Australia's oldest pub) because the landlord of that pub has been squabbling over the matter of who got the first license with the landlord of the Lord Nelson for decades now. I don't think the matter's been resolved; the Lord Nelson claims it's older by eight days, but anyway, the Fortune of War looks like the inside of the old victorian pubs in Manchester's northern quarter (and if you've never been there, you should).

Afterwards we headed to the Opera Bar, where I had a moonlight ride cocktail courtesy of my friend Natalie, who sent me a $20 cocktail voucher (read, $20 note) for my birthday, which either the customs people nicked from the parcel or else I totally failed to spot. Anyway, we took $20 from the ATM to make up for it, which covered the cost nicely, so here it is (as promised).

And then we had a walk around looking at the preparations for NYE, which include this light show in front of the opera house and these swanky yachts parked up right in front of the Park Hyatt hotel just waiting for it all to begin. The theme this year is The Time of Our Lives and the big secret is the circular thing on the side of the bridge, which everyone's speculating about but I think surely has to be a clock.

And in true Aussie style, there are rules and regulations all over the place, this being the most rule-obsessed place I've ever visited. So my step-brother's flat and the street he lives on are subject to a ridiculous number of rules for NYE, like no cars can come and go after 4pm and no pedestrians after 7pm. No alcohol can be brought in after midday and the building itself has hired a security firm to ensure each flat has no more than ten guests (with no more than two on the balcony at any one time), so if your name's not on the list, you're (quite literally) not getting in.

Oh yeah, and the chopperdocs have broken a promise not to put Darren on call, so he's on call for the international arm of the company until half seven the following morning. Rules about rules, though not when it comes to keeping your promises.