Surviving party season

It’s been a crazy few days … as per usual.

The frenetic whirl kicked off with my office Christmas lunch on Friday at an uber cool Surry Hills restaurant called Chin Chin. We enjoyed a banquet of South-East Asian deliciousness, including stir-fried rice noodle rolls with meltingly tender beef and perfectly roasted pork belly.

A blasting soundtrack of ’80s music was playing and the place was HEAVING with people. There were queues to get into the restaurant, queues to get into the bathroom … It felt a bit like I was in a nightclub as pretty young things took selfies with each other as we waited to pee.

I got the very thoughtful gift of some sport socks in the office Kris Kringle, which will come in very handy as I fight to take off all the Christmas and holiday kilos I’m accumulating.

I had to bolt off early from lunch, as I was attending a Taylors Summer House of Shiraz event. I invited DD along as my plus one as he’s a big Taylors fan and instructed him to be at Rose Bay jetty wharf at 3.45pm ON THE DOT because we needed to catch a (complimentary) water taxi to the event.

The traffic was insane, I don’t know if it was a combination of school pick-ups and Christmas parties, but it took DD almost two hours to get there. He was the most flustered I’ve ever seen him when he ran to the boat.

I think he was regretting coming along until our water taxi pulled up at the Point Piper mansion that had been transformed into an exclusive summer backdrop for the temperature-themed red wine tasting event.

From Pinot Noir to Tempranillo and through to Shiraz – the Summer House was designed to show that red wine can be a refreshing drop all year round if served at the optimal temperature.

My Kitchen Rules winner Will Stewart was waiting on the mansion’s wharf with a glass of red in hand to serve us a selection of matched summer dishes to accompany the selection of Taylors reds.

After tasting four perfectly chilled reds, we chose our favourite to sip as we enjoyed the harbourside ambience. DD also got the chance to have a chat to chief winemaker Mitchell Taylor.

We had a fabulous time, although all my photos look like they have a sepia filter on them due to the harrowing bushfire smoke that still hangs over the city.

Then we headed off to DD’s work Christmas party at the Greenwood Hotel in North Sydney, which was another HEAVING venue. I think I’m getting too old to hang out with hundreds of boozed up office workers loudly carousing in Santa hats.

I was also meant to pop over to my sister’s to toast her birthday, but I was knackered and she’d spent the day hosting her office Christmas party on her back deck, so we postponed until Saturday.

My parents came down on Saturday arvo to celebrate the occasion and I swung over for dinner after attending a fellow skipping mum’s Christmas drinks at her drool-worthy North Sydney apartment with views of the harbour. Noice.

Sunday was a little more relaxed, if you classify battling crowds at a shopping centre to tick off the youngest’s Christmas list as relaxing. Then I dropped her to skipping training and raced up to the Northern Beaches to get myself some much needed ocean therapy.

The water was filled with bushfire ash and dotted with the occasional bluebottle, but I desperately needed to be in those waves. They soothe my soul.

I’d like to say I’m taking it easy tonight, but I’m off to a sour beer cocktail competition.

Poor me.

I’ll sleep when I’m dead … though I feel half-dead already … I may be getting a bit long in the tooth for such sustained social whirling.

Song of the day: Bon Jovi “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”