Last day at work for the year - food, flash mob, present, Anna and Bob Evans

Today was my last day of work for the year! I am spending time with my family from tomorrow.

It was a fantastic day at work - I love my colleagues and the work I do. I don't blog about my 9 to 5 job at all, but today warrants a blog!

I work as an events planner/writer to enhance the social fabric and corporate engagement within my organisation. It is often a lot of fun and I work directly with and meet a wide range of great people. I think it's such a rewarding job. I have made wonderful friends, including some who I only talk to on the phone and have either not met or have only met once or twice. That's the beauty of working in such a large organisation.

The day started off with special end of year breakfast out at a cafe where I was treated to a yummy breakfast of field mushrooms, goats cheese and guacamole on sourdough with a side of salmon, and juice. This picture does not do it justice. The pink filter is on? My breakfast was soooo good!

Then at around 10.30 am, my immediate colleagues and I commenced our 'grazing day' - where we grazed on yummy food all day. It was so wonderful. We'd planned this day for several weeks, calendarising and discussing menus. People baked and brought delicious foods - nuts, cheese, pannetone, carrot cake, bread, dips, brownies, cookies and cheesecake. Heavenly!

Brownies - thanks S! So rich!

Cheese!

This cheesecake was the best I've ever had.Thanks C!

I baked two things - custard and berry tartlets...

...puff pastry cases baked for 10 minutes, topped with French vanilla custard and frozen berries cooked in a little water and sugar...

And asparagus and brie tart - a great way to use up my leftovers before the holiday...

...seven free range eggs (the colour of the yolks was amazing) beaten into a custard with King Island cream...

...some fresh chives and mint, salt and pepper, the last of the tasty cheese, and two bunches of blanched baby asparagus all poured into a shortcrust pasty lined dish and topped with sliced brie. Yum!!

We ate all day. Seriously. Such fun.

At lunch (when we DIDN'T eat) my colleague M and I saw this performance at Melbourne Central.

75 singers, a conductor, microphones and speakers, and a huge crowd around every balcony.

A flash mob choir - the Skin Opera. It sounded amazing - unexpectedly because of the vastness of the shopping centre. It was pretty special to see and hear!

We bumped into the lovely Anna from the Cock Tales podcast - I had never met Anna but she recognised me because I am good friends with her podcast co-host Scott (as featured on previous blog entries such as this one). We hugged and chatted for a while, and decided we need to have a drink together.

I also received something wonderful in my mail box - hand delivered tonight!

A seriously beautifully wrapped and packed Vogue Forums Kris Kringle gift from Esz at Kitty's Drawings. Sorry for the blurry photos.

Inside there was a Portmans silk scarf, some lollies, fabric brooches and a necklace from my favourite Etsy seller, Wiyomu.

Wow! I am so lucky - this was a fabulous gift - I am very thankful, and I wish you a happy Christmas, Esz.

When I returned home, I received a heads up that this video is now on YouTube

Thank you Peterdaicosisgod for recording and uploading it! It brings back great memories of my favourite gig of 2010.

And finally in other great news I received an email at work to say I've won an award, to be presented in January 2011. I am honoured.

Today was a wonderful day to end my working year. :)

I hope you all have/had great last days at work before the Christmas break, and that if you are working over the Christmas period, that your days are good. A special shout out to the emergency service workers and charity workers who forgo Christmas day celebrations with their families to help others.

PS: thank you to everyone for being so supportive and encouraging about my previous blog entry about sex. It certainly took some deep breaths and courage to write and publish! I am glad some of you can relate, and that it's provided a new perspective for others. Your comments have made me think a lot too.

PPS: this blog just turned over 100,000 visitors in just over a year. Well 11 months as I only started the stat counter in January. Thank YOU!!

Bob Evans at The Tote - another YouTube video

Here is another YouTube video of me on stage with Bob Evans at The Tote.

Thanks to Sarah for the video, and for these pictures:

She did take more, but there really isn't a flattering angle of me anywhere. I didn't expect there to be after my speaker dive stage entrance!

You can read my review of the gig, and see more pictures here.

Bob Evans at The Tote

Bob Evans
The Tote, Collingwood
19 November 2010

As if my week couldn't get any better! I went to see Bob Evans at The Tote last night. It was a small charity gig, supporting West Side Roller Derby and the Sacred Heart Mission. It was fantastic!!

I went with my friend Phin, and met two lovely girls Carmen and Sarah there - they are fans of Bob Evans, Josh Pyke and Kav Temperley from The Basement Birds, and have been reading my blog for a few months. It was nice to meet them in real life. I also made a new friend, Sinead, who flew all the way from Perth to see the show - that's dedication!!

I have never been to The Tote before - earlier this year it was on the verge of closing forever to it being deemed 'high risk' and consequently being charged high liquor licensing fees. Fortunately it reopened, allowing the iconic venue to continue to hold bands. I love The Tote - it's intimate, and very rock and roll - walls coated with old band posters, and filled with music lovers.

The show opened with a quirky band called Oh Deanna. The band is a four piece, fronted by a cute girl in a cute dress singing equally cute lyrics. Their music reminded me a bit of The Mouldy Peaches. I thought she sang with spunk - it was delightful.

Next band up was Jimmy Tait - another four piece fronted by a girl in a nice dress. To be honest, their music did not have an impact on me - maybe I need to listen to their music on CD?

Bob Evans came on last - he played solo and acoustically - it was simply wonderful. Bob Evans (Kevin Mitchell) is the absolute nicest Australian musician ever. So funny, so lovely and so obliging.

He didn't stick to a setlist, instead writing down a list of songs of is he can play, and some covers, and played what he and the crowd wanted.

He joked he had a 90 minute set which would comprise 45 minutes of music, and 45 minutes of banter. I've always enjoyed his stage banter, and last night's banter did not disappoint. Granted, most of it consisted of the crowd yelling out songs they wanted him to play, and him saying he didn't know how (Crowded House, ACDC, Jimi Hendrix, some of his own stuff...). I was reminded of how many songs of his I love. It seems like every song of his is my favourite!

His set opened with an old favourite (of mine), Nowhere Without You. Other songs played were Stevie's Song, Friend, Sadness and Whisky, Darlin' Won't You Come, Pasha Bulker, We're a Mess, The Great Unknown, Rocks in my Head (according to him, 'a fucking depressing song', associated with gin), Brother O Brother, (my favourite) Hand Me Downs, Power of Speech (he stumbled through the words, laughed a lot and ended it prematurely, citing 'when requests go wrong' - so funny), Don't You think and Someone So Much. He was not confident recalling the words to Everything Goes, so for a second, I held up the lyrics in front of him, though he couldn't see them.

I love the way he plays the harmonica. Here is his harmonica holding bay.

He also played a few covers. Lily Allen's Not Fair - again - LOVE THIS, Lucinda Williams' Lost It (beautiful lyrics: 'I I give you my heart will you promise not to break it?').

There was this funny encore moment where he asked whether he should go off stage for five minutes, and come back for the encore. He decided not to do the five minute break, and build suspense for the encore by standing on the side of the stage, in clear view, the crowd chanting for more, and him winding his arm and the crowd's excitement. Here's Bob on pre-encore break

He returned to the middle of the stage, saying that he'll miss his (fake) flight to New York for this encore. So funny!

During the encore, he played one of my other favourite covers, See Through Dress by Red Jezebel.

He had lyrics printed out again, and this time invited me up on stage to hold the lyrics for him. Oh. My. God. So I am not the most agile of people when I my skin is sore/when I wear skinny jeans. And last night, I was cursed with the two situations. Sore skin and skinny jeans. So I found it very difficult to get up on stage. I ended up hoisting myself up over the speaker, which angled downwards, sliding face down the speaker, landing on the power pack on the floor of the stage. Graceful, and classy. And painful! Bob Evans made a comment that I looked beautiful making my stage entrance! Photos of my grand arrival maybe to come.

So then I stood up there awkwardly, holding the lyrics in front of him, singing along. Part of it was recorded on my camera, and Sarah also recorded the full thing on her iPhone. I sang 'you thought I'd be fine but I'm a crazy old fuck' with him into the microphone.

Wow!!! It was so exciting, and I can't quite believe it happened!

(Excuse my jiggly tummy and undone button - I think the button was due to the speaker dive!)

Thanks to Sinead and the lovely guy for taking photos and video, and also to the guy for getting me the song list and lyrics. Sarah also took photos and video - can't wait to see them. Thank you!

These are the See Through Dress lyrics:

And the song list he signed:

He was obliging enough to pose for a couple of photos with me, and with friends. Such an awesome guy!

It was such an amazing night! I am on a high :)