Chrismas dinner on the BBQ

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England's Jenny Gunn is writing a diary for ecb.co.uk during her stint playing cricket Down Under this winter. Follow her exclusively here on ecb.co.uk.

The build-up to Christmas was quite strange, as it still didn’t feel like it.

But at least it was cold and it rained all day so it felt like we were back in England. We planned a Pommie Christmas, so at least there were five of us for dinner around our house on Christmas Day.

Christmas Day was bizarre, waking up to the sun with it being quite warm outside, but it was the same as at home when we were around the tree opening our presents.

We were all sitting around and I was feeling quite lost with what to do in the morning but it didn’t take long for us all to be in the pool to play with all our new presents.

Our Christmas menu consisted of garlic and lime prawns for starters, chicken as the roast, followed by chocolate bomb for pudding.

Cheesy and I were watching the food channel and saw this guy cook a roast on the BBQ, so we decided to give it a go and cook our chicken in the same way. It turned out brilliantly and I was quite surprised how nice it was.

All in all, for me it felt more like a Sunday roast then a Christmas dinner.

Christmas dinner on the BBQ - with English-style weather

On Boxing Day we were invited to Sarah Andrews’ (opening bowler for Australia) birthday party up in Newcastle. The six Poms (Beth, Cheesy, Nat, Robyn, Sarah Bartlett and me) went and are now labelled as ‘rent a crowd’ as we are there at any event in full force, providing mainly great entertainment for everyone.

December 30 was Charlotte Anneveld’s birthday (social event of the year), so we went out to The Rocks, which is quite close to Circular Quay.

Once again, ‘rent a crowd’ were out but this time were quickly outnumbered by Aussies.

Since we have been over here quite a lot of Aussies have been saying how tall the Poms are.

Personally, I think it’s a bit of both. We are quite tall and some Aussies are quite short, as the picture of Sarah Bartlett, Leonie Coleman and me shows.

Tall stories: Poms and Aussies measure up on New Year

New Year’s Day was very busy. A few of us went around to Leah Poulton and Jen Wallace’s unit.

They got a new game for Christmas and decided to give it a go. It was a shame that it was 'Sing Star'.

Most of them were quite good singers and I don’t know how they managed it but they got me to have a go.

It was so embarrassing as I lost to Charlotte Anneveld and some might say she is tone deaf (says a lot about my singing).

In late afternoon we had a football match (four Aussies versus three Poms). It was going quite well until a dodgy tackle killed the game and everyone decided to go home and have dinner instead.

Natalie Lane took us to an Indian curry house. Robyn, Nat and I were sat there happily enjoying our food while Charlotte Anneveld seemed to be struggling with hers.

Nat asked what was wrong and she said the “vindalass” was quite hot. We all cracked up as she had ordered vindaloo.

I know she doesn’t really like curry and doesn’t have it often, but I thought everyone knows vindaloo is one of the hottest curries around.