Halloween came and went and there were no trick or treaters on our road. At least, none banged loudly enough on either of our doors (not that we can hear anyone banging on the front door). If they had banged on the door, we were almost certainly asleep because October the 31st was an early night.

It all started on our trip to Surfer's Paradise (you remember those tales of drunken water slides etc..) when we went to Dracula's Cabaret restaurant. Now, while we knew it would be a tall order to get a ghost train to bring people through the hallway to the living room, we thought we'd at least dress up like vampires and play haunting music loud in dark candle-lit rooms while drinking copious volumes of dark red cocktails.

The girls, after at least one shandy on a previous occasion, had decided that it would be great to dress up in the underwear and be 'Vamps' complete with fishnet stockings and fake eyelashes. That left BJ and I to decide on our costumes. BJ chose his early and wouldn't tell any of us what he was wearing, although as it turns out, my guess that he'd be dressing as a woman was spot on. I just didn't guess it would be a nun, complete with stockings, underwear stuffed with fake breasts and large gold medallion emblazoned with the words 'Big Time Cash'. St. Mary's in Frimley comes to mind. Always thought those nuns were wearing nice shoes under their robes.

So after a lot o ftime considering costumes, I realised that all these 'women' around the party needed a shepherd of sorts. With incredible self-congratulation, i created the word Vampimp. I knew there had to be a purple silk shirt and big shiny ringts involved and so when one of the radiology department secretaries told me she owned a fancy dress shop, it all came together nicely.

The house got dressed up too, with Steve Irwin and Peter Brock gravestones at the front door, lots of spider webs and glow in the dark skeletons. It was entirely candle lit and somehow we avoided getting any firemen into the party. Lots of other doctors and nurses turned up, including one rather senior and, shall we say more mature, nurse. Up until then, she had been something of a battleaxe and rather confrontational. Having plied her with daquiris and recorded general misbehaviour on film, she has mellowed considerably and is now nothing short of helpful at work. A few people around the globe got an early glimpse of the party when i had the webcam on for half an hour or so, but after the entire Nexus office's giggling interrupted the music that was also playing through the computer, I had to turn it off.

Work the next few days was interesting. Those that came to the party kept surreptitiously saying that they wanted invitations if there was to be another one, and those that didn't come also saying they wanted invitations to the next one but had no idea why. No photos emerged until a full 7days later due to the need for heavy editing. A select few are now on the site. Sadly no shots of the aforementioned senior nurse are suitable for public viewing. Shame.

 

On top of that, real life has continued. We've done lots of surfing. Or rather, we've gone out repeatedly with Scott and BJ and they've surfed while i've floundered. Everyone seems to suggest that a couple of months of surfing twice a week and i'll be up in no time. Not sure they accounted for my ineptitude though because i still suck at it. I have learnt a few lessons though.

1. The more you go out, the more brave you get.

2. The more brave you get, the bigger the waves you go for.

3. The bigger waves take you under for longer.

4. The bigger waves are more likely to damage you, and in my case, render you infertile.

5. The more damaged you get, the more determined you become.

6. The more determined you get, the more sunburnt you end up.

 

And so you can see its not an easy cycle and probably doesn't sound like fun at all, but for some reason she just keeps dragging me out an I follow. Probably something to do with the fact that buying two surfboards as soon as we got here cost more than i sold my car for before we left. At least our surfboards will go on for years i suppose.

The unthinkable also happened. Fraser booked a flight to come out. He reckons he'll be here Sunday 12th November. We're still at the 'believe-it-when-we-see-him-sitting-on-the-deck-drinking-red-wine-as-the-sun-goes-down' stage, but hope is high. We have five days off work when he gets here, so some damage will no doubt be done, but its about time we had someone other than crazy Kiwis to share a bottle of hugely expensive wine with. Lucy also promises to be out here for three weeks in January, but i think i trust her a little more.

 

Anyhoo, just seen my first actual living man's brain. Drink driving. Not a good idea but it seems to be a favourite Ozzy past time.