This is a joint post from the Oink nest. Natalie and Claire (authors of the joint post) and holed up in Gipps St, Abbotsford, Melbourne to avoid infecting more of Australia with Swine flu – even though they infected us first. We have had an intense 6 days which got off to a false romantic start as Claire did not quite manage to get to the bus stop in time for the tearful slow motion welcome. But we made up for lost drama by making mushroom-less dumplings and drinking lots of bubbly for three days.

We mixed that up with high tea, shopping and a four am stop at Hungry Jacks (you can take Claire and Nat out of NZ but you can’t take Hungry Jacks out of Claire and Nat). Shout out to our new friends Nick, Elliot and, well – that’s about it. And huge shout out to the best Melbourne host/tour guide/lifestyle coach/stylist/personal carer Jess who has inspired us to take up a life of luxury in this fabulous city.

We did not meet the drug lords and the Mafia club was shut on a Sunday but we did see the boxes where you can discard of your syringes – how urban! It was slightly ironic (we think) that we made fun of Swine flu then only narrowly dodged it (unconfirmed but fingers crossed – we take it very seriously now).

All in all – a great weekend had by all. We can highly recommend taking time off work to eat and drink. Natalie has become some what of a hygiene cleptomaniac but that’s the minor price you pay for an otherwise very beneficial weekend.

Looking forward to Tuesday night’S wine club.