The shark jumped onto my surf board. Obviously I screamed a little bit. I feared for my life.

Ok, I lied – the shark didn’t jump onto my surf board. But I was having my long awaited surf lesson (Christmas present from my mum) two days prior to the jumping shark incident, in the same spot, at Bondi Beach so when I heard about the jumping shark attack I did wonder whether it would be wise to continue with the surf lessons. I decided yes it obviously would. Because every mother wants to pay for their daughter to get eaten by sharks. Thoroughly enjoyed my lesson by the way – I’m defo on route to becoming a pro.

It’s not only sharks you have to be wary of out here. I now shake my shoes before I wear them. Just in case a funnel web or a redback spider has decided to reside there. I’ve heard horror stories about them taking cover in people’s shoes, so the shakage is essential. Ok, maybe this is more the outback than Sydney but it’s practise for future travels, so I’ll continue to shake them anyway, especially when they live outside (my shoes that is – because they stink). I don’t mind spiders but I do mind living with cockroaches. And I didn’t enjoy it when one fell off the fridge. And we constantly walk around disinfecting anything with legs. Including our Vietnamese flat mates (they don’t jump off the fridge though).

So other than being hunted by sharks and disinfecting cockroaches what have we been up to? Well I took Uncle Marls advice and left the call centre. Sales are just not for me. I was crap. I was about as good at sales as Lyvette is at standing still when anything with wings comes within a 3 miles radius. And I found myself becoming a miserable mess spending my days procrastinating about how many ways I could throw myself off the building. There are a lot. And when my last call ended with a man threatening to slit my neck and tie me upside down so the blood slowly drained from my body, resulting in a slow and painful death, I actually contemplated letting him do it. Just to spice things up a bit. But then I remembered my mission was not over, I still had cockroaches to slay*

*We are thinking of setting up our own cockroach killing company. Because we’re professional cockroach haters. And proud of it.

Anyway I now have another day job which is much better and luckily for the company I don’t actually have to sell anything. I also started working some evenings in an Indian restaurant. And I love it, except my Indian mother and father try to constantly feed me (they are now my adopted family). But I get to drink chai which excites me. And I’ve eaten the best curry since I left India. I’m now teaching them all how to speak Mancunian.

“What else have you been up to?” I hear you scream. Well…

• We experienced euphoria when the lady at the clothes store offered us free coat hangers. Coat hangers? So we can hang up our clothes? For free?! (A travellers delight) It was a dream come true and we spent the weekend skipping around hugging our coat hangers truly happy that we could hang our one pair of crotchless Indian trousers and sarong on the lightshade.
• Lyvette’s friend Bobbin paid a visit and he thoroughly enjoyed his first experience of downgrading from the usual 5* hotels to the best hostel in Sydney. Who wouldn’t. He would have enjoyed Sydney even more if we’d have allowed him to cuddle our coat hangers. Fact.
• We gate crashed a Christmas party in a train station. Lyvette became resident DJ and we spent the night drinking free beer and dancing to RnB with 30 black men.
• We got a Christmas parcel from Caz and Sare (my mum and sister ). I was so excited I disinfected the cockroach that had just fell on my head twice. When we opened the parcel to find festive reindeer and santa  glasses, Galaxy chocolate, marshmellows and YORKSHIRE TEA BAGS it was all too much. We hugged our free coat hangers in delight.
• I thought it was a great idea to go to a club with a pool on Christmas Eve, and get in said pool wearing white underwear. What a fantastic idea. Said no one ever.

• I ventured on a boat trip with Rosie (my triathlete friend from uni) and Hollie (we gave her a mention in the Singapore F1 blog) and the crew which consisted of roaming around the harbour beaches drinking wine, avoiding sharks and Hollie managed to last the day without us finding her on a beach somewhere with her legs in the air.
• We did the Christmas BBQ and beach thing. It was great.
• We watched the NYE fireworks which were pretty amazing. Then I fell off the chair and Lyvette hit her head before we both fell asleep on the train ride home. The train ride that consisted of a whole two stops. We nearly didn’t make it. Lyvette was so tired she couldn’t make it to bed and later woke up in my backpack with her face in my dirty washing bag. I woke up cuddling the coat hangers and disinfectant with one arm and my Yorkshire tea bags in the other.
• New Years Day we awoke to the Indonesian guy in the room next door having a break down. At least that’s what we think it was. I don’t know what else you’d call it when someone sits on the balcony for 7 hours straight clutching an empty bottle of beer and singing John Legend, Sam Smith and Adele at the top of their voice. At one point we wondered if his breakdown would ever stop. He needed to shut the f**k up – no one needs an emotional pretend John Legend in their flat. He needed help cleansing his emotions. So we disinfected him.
• I went stand up paddle boarding with my friend from work, Elly. She burnt her bum so bad it made her vomit.
• Then I was doing jump squats in the gym and I split my pants. Obviously I carried on. I had a session to complete and a saggy ass to tone.

And I think that’s about it. Oh, and I now speak Indian. I’m fluent actually. We’re hopefully going to start travelling again soon but in the meantime Lyvette is busy shaking the cockroach off her reindeer glasses whilst hugging her coat hangers and I’m contemplating which disinfectant to buy next whilst practising surfing techniques on the table.  And yes, we will continue to shake our shoes before we wear them…

P.s. if you don’t believe me about the jumping shark you can read about it here.