It's beginning to feel like Christmas... :) Thank you to everyone who has sent me Christmas cards - they are proudly sellotaped to my wardrobe and it is lovely to receive them.

Christmas feels very different over here because there are no woolly jumpers and cold noses! But it's a lot of fun - on Saturday night I went to a free televised open-air concert in the Domain (next to the Botanic Gardens) with about 100 000 people. It was lovely and no one was cold! It was a family event on channel 7 with everyone sat out having picnics and things, bagsying their spot from about 2 in the afternoon until the concert started at 8.30pm. They had a lot of entertainment going on during the day to keep all the children (and parents) entertained.

Just before the concert started I met a girl from England who grew up in Redcar, which was really cool and so we sat about waiting for the concert to start, talking about Pacittos' lemon tops and cold Christmasses. I was also reading tacky women's magazines and one had a picture in it of a dog surfing on Tynemouth Longsands! So I felt like I had a little piece of home with me as we all were singing along to the carols. There were fireworks at the beginning and end of the concert, and loads of music stars and celebrities singing songs. Brian McFadden sang "War is Over" and "Oh, Happy Day", which was the best bit! The whole thing was co-hosted by Sally from Home and Away. Everyone had candles in red holders (provided by Woolworths the supermarket, the sponsors that haven't gone bust over here!) and when it got dark it looked lovely. I have put pictures up, but here is a youtube video so you can see what it was like...

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=-wKEjmHQIEY

and here is someone's random video of the fireworks at the beginning (yes, they are singing to the tune of "Ode to Joy" but I never got what the words were!)

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ1L-5zHBeY&feature=related

and this is the finale...

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=LjIj0HuOeVk The men in red, blue, purple and yellow suits are the Wiggles - I can't even begin to explain how excited everyone got when they came on stage - they were the only people that had the whole crowd up and dancing!

Following my attempt to get on channel 7, the next thing on my list of Christmas things is to try to get on ITV! GMTV are broadcasting in Sydney on Tuesday morning in Britain, and I'm going down to see what's going on. So if anyone's up between 5.30am and 7am on Tuesday morning..... hah!