One of the other production editors at work is getting married this Friday evening, so she's taking the week off for preparation, and another three for her honeymoon. I was assigned the task of passing the metaphorical hat around for donations and using it to buy a wedding present. The 'hat' was actually a crumpled paper envelope, but with fashions the way they are these days I'm sure it won't be long before it's passing for a hat on the head of some 19-year-old fashion tragi-comedy. More of my grumblings on fashion later. Anyway, I did all that and managed to put together a very nice and professional-looking hamper consisting of wine glasses, a cheese platter, a serving dish and a couple of fancy knives/smearing implements for said cheese, all in a very hip and funky style that I knew she'd like. This task took up my entire Thursday evening so I do have some serious loafing time to make up for this week.

I learnt over lunch that same day that I am not the only one using my drive time to and from work productively. (My commute is generally an hour and a half each way, which does tend to become horribly boring without some form of amusement. I will not use this entry to badmouth Sydney's traffic and public transport infrastructure or its ridiculous number of toll roads ... whoops, did I give away the ending?) I had been listening to a file on my iPod designed to help me along with my attempt at learning German. It turns out that the new design manager at work has been learning Japanese in her car, and the senior editor is learning Italian in her car. It's like a vehicular Babel!

We went out for dinner with Daniel's parents and their friends and some miscellaneous other family members on Friday evening as a farewell, because on Saturday his parents and another couple were to leave for Europe, not to return for six months. Daniel and I were to drive them to the airport, so we stayed at their place that night, and were afforded the pleasure of arising from our slumber at an hour known to most as "sparrow's fart" so that we could drop them off at the airport before 6:30 am. By 7 am we were at our own home again, so we got an hour of extra sleep in before getting up again to get ready to meet with friends, who had bought us tickets to the V Festival as a wedding present.

The Festival itself started at 1 pm and went through till almost 10 pm. I started to enjoy it properly at about 6 pm, because at that point there seemed to be a sudden changeover in crowd. This is where I whinge about fashion.

Who the hell thought it would be a good idea to bring the fashions of the '80s back, but make them even worse than they were the first time around? The fluorescent colours, the tight jeans on guys - sometimes cut off just above the knee - the shapeless dresses, the ugly shoes? Who added the finishing touch of letting guys wear their skintight pants so low that four inches of underpants are showing? Why wear a belt if it's only going to hold your pants just under your arse? Somewhere, somebody very evil is sitting behind a control panel, hands steepled, laughing maniacally over this one.

This was supposed to be a music festival and all the girls were wearing pretty sandals and ridiculously short dresses and lots of makeup. I remember when I was in high school, you always knew when the Big Day Out was on because you'd see crowds of teenagers with hair dyed ludicrously bright colours (or black), cut-off cargo pants with brightly striped socks and black or khaki band t-shirts. I must be getting old because I really thought that was just Standard Concert Attire. Times have apparently changed and now males are allowed to wear fluorescent yellow singlets and tight shorts in public.

The entire crowd - everyone but me and my poss� - was dressed like this. (We were all wearing jeans and a shirt.) They were all aged between 18 and 22. I just couldn't get into the music while surrounded by this sort of atrocity.

At 6 pm we joined the huge queue to use the bathrooms, and by the time we got out, the crowd had magically undergone some sort of metamorphosis and suddenly everyone else was dressed like us. Dark, muted colours, long pants, very casual. It had finally stopped feeling like a gay Euro disco party, and I was able to relax and enjoy the music. Jesus and Mary Chain were great. Queens of the Stone Age played really well. We wandered around to catch a bit of Duran Duran (no, seriously, they're still around and playing at music festivals, how's that?) before going back to the main stage to see the Smashing Pumpkins. I was absolutely amazed at how many people had come just for the Pumpkins, because as soon as their set started, people came swarming in from everywhere else at the festival, and at a guess I would say that somewhere between five and ten thousand people were at that stage watching the Pumpkins. I'd never seen anything like it before.

I think it's fairly obvious to say that today - Sunday - we were exhausted. And yet we had to go back to our place at Cronulla and pack as much of our stuff as we could to bring back to Daniel's parents' place, which we are housesitting until they get back from Europe, because otherwise the dogs would have to feed themselves, which would be difficult for them as they lack opposable thumbs, and indeed judgement as to what constitutes a balanced diet. So here I sit, at my laptop at their house, typing up a DiaryLand entry.

I used their ensuite shower this evening. I know it's weird but while I was in there I rather enjoyed taking the lids off all their lotions and shower gels, sniffing them and applying them as I saw fit. OK, that sounded perverse. I meant that if I liked the smell I'd use the gel. That still sounds sick but I'm too tired to correct it. Fine. I'm a lotion-sniffing deviant.

If I feel like it, and if I remember, I might regale you in my next entry with the story of how the police were called while I was visiting my mother over the Easter long weekend (drunken and violent neighbours, you see) ... and how one of them turned out to be my friend's youngest brother. Ouch, man. I'm over the hill.