Sunday was necessarily a quiet one. Johannes had crashed with a friend and didn't reappear until the evening. I caught up with Simon the Dutch guy for a very late breakfast and a gentle walk around Pott's Point, which is the area just round the harbour from Woolloomooloo heading east and home to some beautiful houses. The day was gloriously sunny, but not overhot. I was pleased that in the end I hadn't drunk much at all at the party except water; it meant I could enjoy at least some of Sunday without a raging hangover.

In the evening Simon cooked me & Johannes a Dutch dish called stamp-pot, which consists of potatoes, onions & a vegetable of your choice (in this instance broccoli) mashed and then mixed with blue cheese & mustard. Actually, I believe non-vegetarians might slip a sausage or two onto your plate as well, but hey ho. We sat around chatting for a while after food, but everyone was still pretty knackered so before too long Simon headed back to his backpackers, Johannes retired to his room and I slumped down onto my mattress in the living room for a well-earned night's rest.

On Monday Simon swung by the flat and I walked with him the scenic route past Mrs Macquarie's Point to Circular Quay and the ferry to Manly. We had thought we might go for a swim in the sea, as once again it was a lovely sunny day, but the air was actually quite cold and to be honest I didn't feel like risking the water.

As it happened, all I had time for at Manly was a spot of lunch (we had Mexican which was really yummy) before I had to head back into town, thence to catch a bus back north towards Macquarie University. I had arranged to meet Kate for a coffee and a catch-up, and as she was busy we decided on somewhere that was handy for her. She was eager to learn how it is that I could have spent two whole weeks in Canberra without dying of boredom! I hope my photos went some way to convincing her that the ACT can be as much fun as NSW. It was lovely spending some more time with Kate. I feel sure that we will meet again.

In the evening Simon, Johannes & I went for dinner with Sean, a Kiwi friend of Johannes', at the Czech place with the great beers. The food was good the second time round too! I gave in to the temptation of ordering the pork again, which perhaps wasn't the wisest choice because the pork wasn't quite as cracklingy this time. I made up for this slight negative by finishing my meal with a Becherovka herb schnaps, which went down very nicely indeed.

That, combined with the litre of gorgeous Czech beer I consumed, meant that I was content to listen lazily as Simon & Johannes had a trip down memory lane back at Johannes' flat, where they dug out CDs of questionable Euro music from the '60s and early '70s. I slept soundly if a little gassily (bloody sauerkraut!) that night, eventually managing to blot out the German Schlager songs from my thoughts by thinking about, well, anything else.

On Tuesday I spent some time online - at last, a cheap internet cafe! If only I'd known sooner that a place existed where I could have unlimited access for $3 - after a pleasant breakfast at a place just up the hill from the flat. The waitress there was outrageously flirtatious in a laid-back, nonchalant way, and cute with it. Perhaps I should have explored that avenue further, but I couldn't summon up the energy or, more importantly, the courage. Story of my life.

In the afternoon I decided to pop back to my old Bikram Yoga class for a session. It was not as hot & sweaty as I remembered actually. Perhaps I'm getting used to it. But then again, perhaps I'm not: that evening I came down with a huge 'flu and spent the night racked with hot & cold flushes, waking every hour and trying to swallow some water past my livid throat. It felt like I had a cheese grater stuffed down my neck. I had a series of bizarre fever-induced dreams about a strange old woman all through the night, and felt pretty shit the next day.

What I really wanted to do was crawl into a hole and die, but that wasn't an option - I couldn't find any holes - so instead I caught a bus back to Canberra; I had heard from the optician that my lenses were ready for collection, and besides, it was time to take my leave of Johannes, who himself has been unwell for the past few weeks with a stomach bug. Illness everywhere!

I dozed pretty much the whole three & a half hours down to Canberra, then went to a chemist to get something for my throat before heading to Joe's house to curl up in my sleeping bag and feel sorry for myself. When Sean came in he kindly got me some dinner, but I was monosyllabic in my conversation, sad to say.

I didn't sleep much better that night - oh how I hate being ill! - so I decided I would have to visit a doctor on Thursday. She recognised my illness as tonsilitis, which I haven't had since the awful bout during my year in Spain (where the doctor said to me she would give me medicine in powder form cos there was no way I would be able to swallow pills past those tonsils), and prescribed some antibiotics.

The rest of Thursday I wandered around in a daze, ending up curled on the sofa in my sleeping bag shivering. Justin walked in, and -like his housemate last night - kindly fetched me some dinner (he was going to get a takeaway laksa for himself anyway), but I fear I was lousy company.

Friday was more of the same really. I felt ropey but also guilty about hanging around the house and obliging someone to be without their house keys, so I arranged to move out to Johannes' friend Chris' flat in the south of the city. He too was feeling ill, but he said he was happy to take me in so long as I wasn't expecting too much activity! I got to Chris' flat in the evening and we popped out for some Vietnamese food in a nearby suburban restaurant that was really quite good, then turned in.

I had a family-oriented interlude in the week's entertainment on Thursday and Friday, because I went to spend some time with Julian, Fleur, Natasha & Josef up in Lane Cove (or Brisbane, as Johannes referred to it - but then he's a south-of-the-harbour Sydneysider and, for them, anything on 'the other side of the bridge' might as well be in a foreign country - oh how London of them).

I was expecting to do a spot of babysitting of Natasha & Josef, to let their parents have a night off for a change, but it turned out different: Fleur's cousin Todd was up in Sydney for a job interview, so I wasn't in sole charge, and they took Josef with them to the school parents' evening that was their choice of entertainment for the evening - and as Fleur said, how OLD is that?! They even put Natasha to bed before they left. So we had a quiet evening, with a few beers when Julian & Fleur got back.

Friday I plugged myself into the net for the day and caught up with myself. Or, to be more accurate, I plugged myself into the net for the time that Natasha was at pre-school; before and after pre-school I was called upon to perform tickling and silliness duties. Ah, playing with her is a palliative for the ache in my heart that I feel at being so far from my nephews & nieces, but it's no cure.

That evening we watched "8 Femmes", a bizarre but ultimately gripping French film about eight women (surprise surprise) who are stuck in a house together. The film begins when the man of the house is found with a knife plunged into his back, then goes into a song-and-dance routine (I told you it was bizarre), then explores, Agatha Christie-like, the motives each woman had for killing him. Don't worry, I won't say whodunnit.

On Saturday, after a morning of play, breakfast, play, chat, play and tickling, I tore myself away from my Sydney surrogate family and headed back to Johannes' place in Woolloomooloo. There I was just in time to say goodbye to Chris, who was heading back to Canberra for a friend's birthday party. After he left I did a load of washing and repacking and all that jazz, then helped Johannes prepare for the dinner party he was hosting pre-parade. There were six for dinner: me, Johannes, Tom from the other night, Alan, Mark, and Simon, a Dutch guy who is spending a few weeks in Sydney and who Johannes met a few days ago through a mutual friend.

After food we walked up to Oxford Street to find a good spot to watch the parade from. We met Guy from the other night on the way there. The spot we had was on the corner of a side street with a wide angle of view and close to the barrier; not bad for only turning up half an hour before the thing was due to start. As night fell, the crowds swelled in anticipation. People turned up after us wielding stepladders, and in the end I felt we were quite cut off from the crowds by the crescent-shaped wall of artificially raised spectators that formed behind us.

The first element of the parade was also the one with most impact: Dykes On Bikes! There were fully 400 lesbians, some in leather, some in less, astride a stream of big grunty motorbikes that stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions. It was a modern-day Amazon invasion, something that could have been out of Mad Max. The crowd went wild every time the dykocade came to a halt and revved their engines, purple-tinted headlamps punching defiantly into the gathering darkness.

It was a tough act to follow. Indeed, it seemed there wasn't much of an attempt to follow it at all; many of the floats seemed more about local community issues than glitz. But among the more impressive marches past were the Bears, kitted out in Roman gladiator gear (well, skimpy leather versions thereof); the New South Wales police, who were singing & dancing jazz standards in a very accomplished manner; the Gay Raelians, complete with alien masks and anti-religion slogans; the Asian Boys, who did a nice bit of formation line dancing; and the S&M Leather Dungeon float, which was, well, basically a leather dungeon on wheels.

A few hours after it had begun, the parade was over. I think maybe I was expecting more of it. I had visions of Rio-style Carnaval uber-glam. Perhaps my slight disappointment was more to do with the fact that I was seeing it in close-up and not edited for TV. And of course you didn't get even an inkling of the hugeness of the crowds, because the spectators were spread out along the 5km of the route.

Thankfully, the Mardi Gras all-night party was a different story entirely. The walk there through streets which only hours before had held half a million people was eerily quiet, but as soon as we reached the entrance turnstiles the press of humanity was fully in evidence. And there were ALL sorts of people there!

Considering how chilly a night it was (it had been raining earlier in the day, but luckily it had cleared up for the parade - so unlucky all you fundamentalist Christian groups who prayed for rain - and that's no joke, apparently some congregations do exactly that every year), clothes were scarce.

Okay, so in the three main dance arenas where it was hot & sweaty like it should be (shades of uni-era sweaty bops) clothes weren't that necessary. But even the many outdoor food stalls and dance areas were thronged by seminaked guys (mostly) & (occasionally) girls. I suppose some of the chunkier chaps could claim a certain amount of subcutaneous protection (not unlike my humble self), but still, it made me feel cold looking at them standing there in nothing but body hair, a codpiece and some S&M harnesses. It was a bit like having a night out in Newcastle. Except actually I've never seen anyone in S&M gear on the streets of that fine city. I was thinking more about the feeling cold on behalf of others thing.

While the music was pretty good, the laser lightshows were fantastic! I stood mesmerised for some time by the particoloured protruberance that hung majestically from the roof of the medium-size venue; its smooth chrome surfaces caught the laser beams and scattered them throughout the hall, casting kaleidoscopic patterns over the roof, the walls & the frenzied masses on the dancefloor. And I just love that effect where the laser beam creates a funnel of gentle luminescence, through which you see clouds of dry ice passing by as over some sort of inverted planetscape.

I must be getting old: I was hoping to stay the distance and not leave the party until 10am, but my weary bones (not to mention my still sore feet) were having none of that. I did at least manage to stay up until the first light of dawn around 6, and that without partaking of any of the chem-E-cal st-E-mulants on offer, if you get my drift. It's not my sc-E-ne. At least there was no difficulty getting a taxi, which was a blessing because it was still bloody cold out.