With Lee-ann gone I felt a bit lost. Luckily, I had Matt and friends I had made over Christmas to hang with and I also made a new friend in Mark Watson. He was a friend of James Morton who had come to Sydney for a two-week holiday from London. He took a big liking to Atif, which was sweet. Over his two weeks I saw a lot of Mark in the gay bars and we chatted a lot. He’s a fun, friendly sweet guy. We exchanged e-mails before he left and have stayed in touch. Props to you Mark!

I did lots of stuff, I went around the botanical gardens and read some Harry, and I went to Bondi beach with Jon and visited some museums. I was acutely aware that I would be working soon in Melbourne and I was determined to have lots of fun and make the most of my last few days off. I’m pleased to say that I did so. I partied a lot, met some boys and had a blast!

Mardi Gras was a bit of a wash out due to the torrential rain that came down during the parade but it was still great to see it. Graham, James, Mark and I looked sexy in our plastic ponchos and we all went home and changed before the huge after party.

The party was an experience but not really my cup of tea. I left by three, I was still tired after a big night the day before, naughty monstarr.

One thing I haven’t really mentioned was Eric being in Sydney. Some of you may think this is odd, and I haven’t ‘not’ mentioned him deliberately. The truth is that I just really didn’t see him much at all. I met him, Greg and Atif at the airport with a silly sign and that was cool.

It was good to see Eric but things were different now as I knew they would be and I had prepared myself for seeing him. Unfortunately, I had some stomach problems for the first few days he was around and I wasn’t my usual monstarr self. I think he miss-read this as me having problems with our status as just mates. I reassured him this was not the case.

I’m being entirely honest when I say that I didn’t want to start up any kind of relationship when Eric was in Sydney. It wasn’t what I wanted at all and I knew Eric too well to think that he would. I felt that it would be good to hang out with him and the boys, do tourist stuff, catch up and, I’ll admit, maybe get naked with him if it happened.

The naked stuff didn’t happen but that was pretty much irrelevant as I got my kicks elsewhere. I hung out with the three of them, briefly, maybe three or four times in the fortnight. I would see them every day of course, I would bump into them in one of the bars, say a quick ‘hello’ and then I would hang with my mates. But that would be about it.

I was disappointed that I didn’t spend more time, as friends, with Eric, but hey, shit happens. It was a small slight on an otherwise kicking three weeks in Sydney so I can’t complain really. I got to see the B-52’s live, nothing could’ve brought me down too much after that! They rocked Sydney, gotta love them!