Hey crew, Well, it’s all over for another year of mayhem. Hope whatever you did, didn’t do, whoever you were with or without, that you had an OK time. That your mental health survived in tact. we had a roller coaster here in Oz.

Silly Season 2025 in Review

Christmas Eve Eve Jin, Kath and I go to the Sydney Fish markets. There have been others that joined us but for the last ten or eleven years we have been the core. We have some dinner on the waterfront and then Jin & Kath buy prawns for the festivities. It’s a lovely, fun thing to do and we have usually gone around 10pm but this year we went early, at about 8pm and got to see the sunset. Beautiful.

Christmas Eve we always fill the table with friends and Jin does his famous roast pork with extra crackling. He also bakes a cauliflower. I do the rest of the baked vegetables and salads. This year we had 11 at the table and it was a riotous affair. Loads of stories and catching up. There were presents and booze. It never goes late because 4-5 hours of people is my limit. At about 10.45pm I stood up, thanked everyone and they were gone by 11pm. That meant I could clean the table, run the dishwasher a couple of times, have everything packed away and be in a huge, cool bubble bath by midnight. Heaven.

This year on Christmas Day I did my best but honestly, I really did not want to go to my best friend’s sisters house. She’s a bully, a white-ant-er, a liar and a manipulator. I’ve sat by and smiled while she has undermined and humiliated my best friend for 25 years because my BFF has asked me to keep the peace as the sister uses her daughters as collateral. Just being around this woman is skeevy, makes me want to have a shower. Anyway, we were there 15 minutes and it was already pretty grim and then she started in on Kath. Hello Portia explosion. Not my finest moment. Was basically pushed off the property and told to leave or the police would be called. Oh well. Funny thing is, we had brought most of the food and she threw our cooler bags out with us. So there were about 10 people and we brought the prawns, ham, chicken, pork, potato salad, green salad and green bean salad. Don’t know what they ate but Kath came back to ours and we had a very quiet Xmas lunch that suited us perfectly. Jin is the smart one, as soon as he heard it was at the sisters place he said no, not going. So we came home, had loads of stories, some tears and laughter and generally enjoyed being together (as always)

Jin and I had decided to do nothing this year for New Years Eve. He is on call 24/7 at the moment, covering jobs above him on the railways. Then one of our girlfriends who works at the Sydney Opera House found herself with four spare tickets to House Kitchen. It’s the eatery closest to the very point facing the Harbour Bridge and Sydney Harbour. Jin didn’t want to come so I rounded up three girlfriends and we had the most amazing time. All our food was included and it was very extravagant, delicious finger food. There were bands, singers, DJs and a slew of roving entertainment. All we had to pay for were drinks. AMAZING! We had a table to ourselves, seats all day and night, toilets nearby that were clean right to the end. Seriously, we had the chillest, most comfortable NYE of my life. I was driving so didn’t have much alcohol all night, just a sip of champagne with the girls at midnight, less than two fingers of drink in a flute.
We got a lift back to my car from one of my girlfriends. I felt something sharp poke me hard when I sat down but just moved my ass thinking I’d sat on a pin or coat hanger. Suddenly I felt so tired and really out of it just sitting in the back of the car, my eyes were unfocusing and I was just a little nauseous. It was like drugs but not in a fun way. By the time we got to my car I was just sleepy but opened the windows, drank a bunch of water and felt better, but not quite right. Dropped the girls home, drove to my home, fell into bed. Slept like dead people.
Next morning I wake up with a bad head, super dry throat, my bones aching, joints creaking and I feel pretty rough. My guess at this moment is I’ve got C19. I do a test, negative. Can’t think what’s wrong. About 6 pm though I sit awkwardly on a chair and feel this contusion on my ass. It’s a tender lump about the size of the palm of my hand. I get Jin to have a look and there are two really large holes in my ass, about 1.5cm apart. I’ve been bit by a spider. Yes, I have. No wonder. It takes me three days to properly recover. HA! How wild is that?

Christmas Eve was modern Cabochard by Gres, Christmas Day I wore Sancti by Liquides Imaginaires and NYE Ambre Nuit by DIOR with a couple of swipes of vintage Guerlain Shalimar extrait. These were good choices.

So there’s my run down,
Tell me your high and low lights please,
Portia xx