Andrew and Kathleen

I'm suffering from Law and Order withdrawal - can you believe it's been 70 hours since the last episode? Channel 10 need to space them out - instead of having two back to back episodes of SVU, just run them on consecutive nights. Pretty soon, we'll have Law and Order on every night of the week, and that'll be just fine, thanks.

Managed to pick up a cold from somewhere. Stocked up with Vicks and eucalyptus Soothers, which have stood me in good stead in the past. Unfortunately, there'll be two or three days ahead where I'll be feeling like crap; and we're flat chat at work, so there's absolutely no chance of taking a day off.

The worst bit is that Kathleen has it too, so we're miserable together.

The only consolation is that there's not the usual paranoia of "Don't give that cold to me!" now that we're both ill.

Last night we went to the Enmore Theatre in Newtown for Celebrity Theatresports. It was absolutely fantastic too. I'd be absolutely crap at it, of course - you have to be so quick-witted, able to come up with something interesting and humorous on the spot.

We seem to have misplaced our main set of house keys, the set that has the garage door and mailbox keys. We've torn the place upside down - no mean feat when you consider that there are only two places we ever put the keys when we come home.

We were so frustrated - because we've searched everywhere - that Kathleen even turned to a psychic. Apparently the keys are in the house, in the corner of a bag, but the catch is we won't find them for several months.

In the meantime, it'll cost us a couple of hundred to get the garage key and the front door lock replaced. Just in case.

Dinner at Juju's for Dickson's 31st birthday. It's the fourth time we've been there, and I think by now we can definitively say that the food is as fantastic as the service is wanting. And they were playing Shaolin Soccer, the second most pirated movie worldwide last year. Love that movie, but it's too distracting when you're trying to spend time with friends.

On Sunday, Kathleen puts her chefs hat on. I love it when she cooks soy sauce chicken - the sauce gets cooked separately, hours before the main, so the chicken can slowly marinate. The house takes on this amazing smell that makes my mouth water in anticipation.

A secret ingredient is a bag of spices that gets frozen between uses, and can last for months!

Just booked the wedding photographer! Excellent!

With the wedding coming up, we've had to start thinking long term (well, at least the next couple of years which when you're 26 *is* long-term) about our plans, our futures, our dreams and how we're going to actually pay for them.

We've budgeted a fair whack of money for the wedding in January, and here it is in the middle of May and I haven't drawn up so much as a weekly budget to work out just where all my pay is going. Up to now, I've been the type of person who saves what's left after the bills, instead of the person who conscientiously puts X% away. So that's going to change. Especially given that we need to be thinking housing immediately after the wedding.

The first step in our, OK, my, path to financial prudence was a visit to a financial planner who works for Kathleen's company. As Keanu Reeves once said, "Whoah."

Managed funds. Regular investment plans. Insurance. Actually, mostly insurance. Health insurance. Life insurance. Income protection insurance. Trauma insurance. A couple of bucks a day, apparently, and we can be insured up to our ears.

I believe all this is pretty important, and I don't for a second underestimate the necessity of getting everything sorted out, but the more reckless, impulsive side of me sees this sort of stuff as a straitjacket, the beginning of middle-age - from which there is no return to my obligation-free days.

Because deep down I can hear the words to Radiohead's Fitter Happier, perhaps the saddest song I've ever heard:

fitter happier more productive comfortable not drinking too much regular exercise at the gym will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in wall) favours for favours on sundays ring road supermarket no chance of escape concerned (but powerless)

The smokers may call us zealots and wowsers, but I personally don't see how you can justify using the beach as your own private ashtray. There's nothing worse than sitting down in the fresh air and having the inconsiderate boofhead next to you light up and breathe his or her shitty, smelly smoke all over you.

Sure, smokers have the right to smoke, but that doesn't mean we non-smokers have to put up with the byproducts. I've seen enough cigarette butts casually flicked away by their former owners to not feel personally offended by it.

First Manly, tomorrow, the rest of Sydney's beaches! Then the parks, then the outdoor restaurants, then the pubs. We will prevail.

Hooray! Matt and Kim got married!! It sounded pretty amazing too - a small ceremony on a beach in Queensland with their friends and family. We're going to the reception when they have it in Melbourne in a few weeks. It'll be great to catch up with them again.

Tomorrow's minimum temperature in Sydney, 13C, is one degree warmer than Hobart's maximum. Mmm, cold weather.

Is there anything more annoying than buying a weekly train ticket, forking out your hard-earned, and losing it by lunchtime? I had it in my shirt pocket, and sometime during the day managed to lose it. I only realised when I was about to catch the train home.

Absolutely stuffed. Had to double-up - that is, umpire two games - yesterday, and this morning. Then, one of the boundary umpires in the game after me broke down and didn't turn up. So, someone had to fill in. That someone was me. The extra money and experience helps, but I don't think I've been more thankful to hear the final siren.

Argh! Our first choice for a wedding photographer, who we'd just been about to book, got snatched away from under our noses! It sort of forced our hand into booking the only other wedding photographer we'd been considering. He's more expensive, but the quality of some of his portfolio is absolutely sensational.

As part of my new gig as a testing consultant, I've started at the client site today. It's great to see that, 18 months after my last IT project experience, nothing has changed. Unrealistic schedules, stoppages and delays caused by problems outside our control, and lack of access to the people who really know the system we're testing. At least I received my key pass after only a day, which has to be some sort of record. One of my co-workers is really dirty at that - he had to tailgate people through the security doors for about four weeks.

Forget about the pub with no beer - nothing makes Kathleen sadder than a Japanese restaurant with no rice. We've decided we need to have a 'safe' word for when we go into a restaurant and realise that they don't quite meet our exacting standards, so we can beat a hasty escape. Maybe something like, "This place sucks, let's go."

With the umpires' move to flourescent orange shirts this year - yes, it looks as bad as it sounds - I was worried that the traditional terms of abuse from the outer would follow the white uniform and be relegated to the history books. Phrases such as "white rabbit", usually preceded with the words "you f***ing", have a fond place in the hearts of all umpires, and our game would be poorer without them.

But fret no longer, because a new challenger has arisen.

Today's game saw the start of a new tradition, with the call of a frustrated supporter as I let the play go on perhaps a tad too long: "Blow the whistle, you bloody glow worm!"

You know why we hate Scrabble? Because we get shithouse hands like this:

Kathleen, Kris and Lucy had a bit of a girls' night out at the flicks. Kathleen's been wanting to see Girl With The Pearl Earring for a long time, but it sounded pretty boring so there was not much chance of me going.

As Lucy said on spying the only bloke in the cinema:

"First date. It's the only reason he'd be here."

They loved it. But from Kathleen's description, it sounded like the mooooooost booooooooooooring movie ever.

Where the hell did the weekend go? Let's see if I can remember just what we did that made two days blur by...

We went to Kris and Rodd's place on Saturday night - just a 15 minute walk away. Rodd's a bit of a home brewer, so I was pretty keen to sample his award-winning brews. We met their friends Nathan and Steph as well - they're just married, so we got yet another idea for the honeymoon!

Unfortunately, Kathleen and the cat didn't quite see eye to eye. Kathleen disappeared outside, with a few sneezes, then a little voice calls back inside "I'm okay... I'm just allergic to the cat!"

So the poor cat got bounced to the bathroom. Where she sat and watched plantively everyone who needed to use it.

No, cat! Don't put your paws up there!

We ended up leaving around 11.30ish, just in time for the second half of the St Kilda-Brisbane blockbuster. If you'd told me 10 years ago that a game featuring these two teams would be worth staying up until after midnight for, I'd have laughed at you. And it ended up being a fantastic finish, with St Kilda just hanging on, with a massive goal from outside the 50 winning them the game by a point.

Kathleen's cousin Elaine is studying English in Melbourne for a few weeks. She used to be a model in HK, where the competition is pretty intense, and was working as a freelance choreographer. Her English is great, which is depressing - if I'd seriously studied Cantonese for the past few years, I might be reasonably competent by now...

So we took her out to yum cha, which is probably the equivalent of taking an Australian abroad out for a meat pie and lamb chops. We drove around Sydney, to the usual 'places to take a tourist' - Milsons Point under the Harbour Bridge, Bondi Beach, and Watsons Bay. A very quick "jump-out, take-a-photo, back-in-the-car" tour!