Nearly Christmas!!!

Firstly, I would like to thank my Grandad very much for the money you have very kindly given me, its a very generous amount and I will be sure to put it to good use - and I don’t mean on going out (well, not all of it!!!!). I send my love to Nan to.

I recently brought myself a laptop out here which means that i can now access the internet from my apartment whenever I want - its pretty cool as its handy to keep in touch and the ever persistent mother. I can also get online at work to by connection to a wireless network so it’s a pretty sweet deal.
Talking of work, I love it still - I made my first $50+ tips the other day and I’ve also enquired about getting a sponsorship there.
A sponsor ship will enable me to get an extended visa and also put me on course to becoming a manager, or at least an assistant, of a pub - pretty sweet, no? The only drawback is that apparently it cost's a hell of a lot of money and that this would come out of Nick - the pubs owners - pocket, I’ll have to work hard, prove my worth and try to impress him, as well as Adrian, the current manager of the place. The good thing is though that, whilst out with Adrian last night after work having a few swift ones, he told me that I’m doing really well at the pub and that the other staff members really like me - I mean, ya know, its always nice to hear!
Speaking of last night, Nick was obviously in a good mood and arranged to have a we tab set up so we could go out and get a few drinks - we'd get a round, get a receipt, and he'd sub Adrian with it in the morning - there was only four of us, Adrian, (Assistant manager) John, (one of the barmaids) Teagan and Myself, even so, we did quite well and took full advantage of the situation, wasn’t sure on the overall bill but i know we didn’t put ourselves to shame!!
We started by going to StarCity - a casino about a minute walk from the pub which has numerous bars/clubs/and other things open, some 24/7, first stop was Paddy Maguire’s, and Irish pub that serves good old English Pints as well as Scooners, as it was on the tab, pints it had to be!!! A few pints of Cider and a couple of Jagerbombs later (Red Bull ((energy drink)) is poured into a glass and a shot of Jagermeister is then dropped into it were you proceed to skull the whole drink in one go - a little explanation for the lovely people amongst us born before the 80's!!) and we were well on our way - bearing in mind we don't usually finish work till 1/1.30am this was now clocking onto about 4am and we decided to move onto the P.B.H (Pyrmont Bridge Hotel - a 24 hour, rough as f@!£, establishment which is, without fail, always rammed on a Friday/Saturday night/morning/afternoon and is somewhere i hope to show the wide-eyed Eldred, Jake, Matt and (possibly) Mum when they come over in April)

Oh, but before this happened, back at Paddy’s I notched up a game of pool that Ronny O'Sullivan would be proud of if he played pool that is.......anyway, we were playing doubles, Teagan broke and didn’t pot anything, it was my shot and I cleaned up, pulling off some ridiculous shots that you can see, picture going in in your head but in reality it’s more a hit-and-ah-well-it-missed situation, all was going well until we got to the black, the remaining seven balls for the other team had made it almost a snooker so that the only possible shot was to re-bound it off two cushions and hope that it went in the middle pocket, well what do you know, i hit it, nailed it sweet as, it rolled, it rebounded once, it rebounded twice, was inching closer and closer to the pocket, but oh no, what’s this, its ever so slightly off course, everyone’s watching, mouth open as unexpectedly the motions on the pool table go into slow motion, you know, like in the movies, a deadly silence had settled around the table, so deadly that i'm sure someone let out a little scream across the room, the ball was nearly there, but, shit, it was TO off course and it right angle were the cushion meets pocket and bounced away - letting out a little but clearly heard due to the silence giggle in my direction - I was crushed, my dreams had been dashed by a slightly bent, heavily beer stained pool table, I didn’t know what to do besides sit down and have a big 'grrr'-injected gulp of my Bulmer’s.

Upon arriving at the P.B.H at about 4.15am we proceeded to get more drinks, and simply take in the 'where’s the next fight gunna appear' atmosphere that is set in the foundations of the building, weirdly enough it nearly happened, and probably would have if I didn’t have my laptop in my bag across my shoulders at the time, right at our feet and probably involving me. Basically there was this dude, so blind drunk that literally he seemed to be using all his will power to try and lift his two upper eye lids from where they had nestled on his lower two lids who was off his face, be it drink or something else, god only know as I'm sure he wouldn’t in the morning. He was stumbling all over the place, bouncing off chairs, walls, and people when he went stumbling into Adrian, sending beer alllllll over the place, now, if he apologised, happy days, he's a mess but he still has manners, we turn around and order another pre-paid drink but as it turned out he looked up and said with the apperance of a man who appeared to be sleep-talking something along the lines of 'awalja gbauaw goowa' to which Adrian was just like 'what the f.........', the fella obviously didn’t take to well to hearing actual English was (trying to) give allot of verbal to Adrian and then went and topped it off with a nice little push, so, I stepped in and said the ever so polite but clearly understandable 'what the f>!< d'you think your doing?' to which he started, surprisingly, getting really arsey with me - that particular incident ended with him being taken away by the bouncers but about half an hour later i saw him talking to Teagan which was giving her a 'I don’t like what you saying to me' expression on her face, I went over and caught her eye mouthing if everything was ok, she nodded but with no conviction so I decided to stay, it was a nice spot anyway, right by the dance floor occupied by some fine specimen of women, I wasn’t complaining, it wasn’t until I saw her expression get worse that I just walked up and put myself between him and her just trying to bloke his line of visualised sight, turns out his hand was hold of Teagan’s arm and wouldn’t let go, I prised it open, he stumbled, swore and decked it head first into the wall, if I wasn’t pissed off with the bloke it would have been some very funny shit but I was more bothered about getting a bouncer to kick him out permanently and making sure that my shining armour was in fact still shiny that I passed the opportunity, I may have a little chuckle to myself right now in fact......I did...............and it felt goooood.
Fast-forward to 6.30am and leaving time, were all pretty plastered, i make it to my apartment which is a comfortable stumbling distance away and proceed to get some sleep subconsciously aware that I had work in nice and a half hours and that i was pretty sure I'd wake up a tad bit drunk still....I didn’t wake up drunk which was good but woooooooow what a day to christen my first Australian hangover. I make it to work, proceed to feel sorry for myself, try to eat something and make ludicrous never intentional quotes such as I'm never drinking again, blag it so that I left early so that I can feel equally as bad just in another building, my apartment, a pot of Pringles and a couple of paracetamol later and I feel as fine as a fat kid does eating cake! Ain’t that right Matt?
Helena and i have also purchased tickets to go and see the final of the Australian Tennis Open which is on the 1st February and is played down in Melbourne. A friend from Helena's work and a friend from back home in Sweden called Kicki Roman is flying out and coming to see it with us - Helena assures me we will have free accommodation due to people either she or her sister knows so that’s a bonus. I've also a feeling that Helena and I may be splitting up and going our own separate ways after that little adventure, she's expressed a desire to move on wereas, as you already know, I'm quite happy were I am (for the time being), so, if that’s how it’s going to be, its gunna be an emotional final but for a couple of different reasons!! Tickets were $290 so, on top of that flights ($59 – it’s cheaper than by train) and food I'd say around $400 - pocket change to a working boy like myself clocking up av. 55 hours a week!!!!!!)
Also in February a girl from work, Emma and I are going to the 'Big O Festival' which is what appears to be a travelling music event. The headline act are an English group from Leeds called The Music who I am a massive big fan off and have been fortunate enough to see play live before and also feature (almost as heavily as the band themselves) in the recordings taken of their set at Reading Festival this year, supporting them are Scottish band The Fratellis, who I've also seen live and then four other bands/groups - Ben Lee, BlueJuice, Yves Klein Blue and then the Cassette Kids!!
I'm really looking forward to it and as the venue is about 20/30 minutes walk from my apartment it to is also within stumbling distance to make it home!!!!

Right, that’s a nice little essay you've just read and I hope I haven’t made you late to any appointments or meetings now that you've just woken up having nodded off mid-read!
Thank you again Grandad, you are very kind.
Hope everyone’s good!
Merry Christmas
Tom!

(Turns out this is just over two and a half pages in word, that aint bad going for moi!)