NaBloPoMo: day 19

One of the GPO clocks from the 7th floor of Myer

I looked in the mirror this morning and thought, "Geez, Jayne, you look old and tired," but then I went off out into the sunshiney world and got my hair cut and coloured (bye, greys!) and my nails painted and then I looked a bit better and was pleased. 

I had a gluten-free blueberry muffin from the cafe I used to stop at sometimes often back when I walked to work. It was very good. A little crunchy around the muffin top

We're off down the peninsula tomorrow for Luke's sister's surprise 40th birthday party. I've only been to one surprise party before. It should be fun. 

Birthday plans

Tis my birthday on Saturday and Luke and I are going for a day trip to Woods Point, a little township about three hours' drive away. We shall have lunch at the pub and explore. I read that the cemetery is a must-visit, plus I'm in love with this rustic little shack/shop. 

I've seen signs pointing to Woods Point when we've been up that way before, and it got me thinking we should check it out one day. Saturday is that day.  

According to the weather report,  Saturday is the only day in the outlook that Woods Point will see some sunshine and a top temperature of more than 10 degrees (just: it will be 11, which is quite balmy compared with the high of 3 degrees forecast next Tuesday.). 

Apart from that (and cake at work on Monday), I haven't planned anything else for my birthday. Initially I told Luke I didn't want a present - I really didn't! - but then I decided I would like to finally own an e-reader. 

JBPM: day 8

A friend at work shared some happy news with me today and it made me happy too. Brigid, the graduate lawyer in my team, was keen to do her next rotation in the Intellectual Property (IP) group, but HR was adamant it wasn't possible. She was quite glum about it - and a few other things going on in her personal life - but yesterday she was notified SHE'S GOING TO IP AFTER ALL! 

It means she will be moving back over to our Bourke Street office from Monday and I won't see her as much. I'll miss her. She's so lovely. All the grads who've rotated through my team have been lovely actually.  

I somehow managed to go from bed-to-desk in just over an hour this morning. I missed it by only six minutes. I'm not quite sure how I managed it.  I don't think I missed any parts of my morning routine and I walked most of the way (I caught the tram the last four blocks because it was there). 

I saw a Nankeen Night Heron on my walk home tonight. (Today's one of the few days this year I've walked both to and from work. I've been slacking off.)

Tis my birthday eve! 

JBPM: day 7

Tonight while sitting on the couch mucking about with my phone I saw mentions of Tesla in my Twitter and Facebook feeds, and then I became aware the word was also emanating from the TV. Not a word that meets your eyes and ears every day and here were three mentions almost simultaneously in three separate media, one referencing the inventor and electrical engineer Nikola Tesla, and two in relation to the electric car maker named after him.  Freaky. 

I wore a new red skirt to work today - a skirt I'd admired in store months ago, but didn't buy and then got for an absolute bargain at a clearance sale a couple of weeks ago. *fist pump*

One more day of work until my birthday holiday. It's going to be a cold, damp day and I'm tempted to spend the day at home re-watching Bored to Death. If not, I think I will take myself out for brunch, a massage and a manicure. 

Wooh! A week of blog posts! Go, me!

Belated big birthday bloggage Part II

Birthday bouquet from Bertie and Lauren

And now for my actual birthday... I had a good day despite being at work. Or perhaps partly because I was at work. Weird. 

My day started early in the morning when Luke woke me with a birthday kiss and hug. It's far preferable waking up with someone you love on your birthday, even if that someone then leaves for work and you go back to sleep. 

There was a steady flow of birthday text messages and posts on my Facebook wall. There were also a few emails from work people with birthday greetings. They knew it was my birthday because the home page of the intranet has a spot to highlight staff birthdays each day, which I think is a nice touch. 

And I got birthday cards in the mail! It's such a delight to get a card in the mail these days.   

The other secretary in my group had organised mini cupcakes for morning tea. I had three...following on from the gluten-free berry muffin I had for breakfast. I got the muffin at a cafe in the Centreway Arcade, which I walk past every morning on my way to work. I always look at the tray of sugar-dusted muffins as I go past and I always resist temptation, but not on my birthday. That's for indulging, not resisting. It was delicious too - and still warm from the oven.  Yummmm.

I had lunch with Bertie and Lauren from my old work and when I arrived back at my desk there was a beautiful bunch of flowers from them waiting for me, as well as some yellow tulips from my boss, which was a lovely surprise. I got a bouquet of flowers from some cousins at my birthday lunch the Saturday before too, so my flat has been looking a little like a florist's shop. I think I'll start buying myself flowers once a week. It's such a cheery sight.

Tulips, cymbidium orchid, and my Abbotsford 

Convent big bird feather in between

I arrived home on my birthday to the delicious aroma of roasting lamb (my favourite). Luke had left work early to come home and put the roast in the oven. He'd roasted the vegetables with whole cloves of garlic. I can't eat garlic (dagnammit!), but the flavour had transferred to the vegies, so I got the taste without the cranky belly. 

While the roast was still cooking, Luke told me to look in the fridge. I opened the door and there, nestling on a plate with some purple grapes, were three plump purpley-green figs. FIGS! I almost squealed and I've never been the squealing kind.  

Clapping eyes on those figs was seriously one of the best bits of my birthday because I've been looking for fresh figs since Easter when I ate roasted figs in a tasty salad at the Northcote Social Club. I was looking in vain, because the fig season ended in about March. Missed it by that much! I'd resigned myself to waiting for them to come back in season again. But Luke  found some -  right under his nose at work! - no doubt from somewhere up north where it's warmer. 

We had fresh figs with vanilla yogurt for dessert that night and I roasted the others for dessert last night (after freezing them during the week so they wouldn't spoil. I'd read online that you can freeze them, but I think it ruined them. They were very mooshy). 

Still on the topic of figs, on the Saturday just gone, Luke and I had lunch on Chapel Street and when we were walking back to the car, I stopped to peruse the menu displayed in the window of a newish restaurant called Morris Jones. I zeroed straight in on the fig and walnut bread and exclaimed, "Fig and walnut bread! Yum!". A waiter walking past heard me and commented, "It's great. We make it ourselves." Sadly I was already full from lunch (another hearty and warming Hungarian lamb stew at Borsch, Vodka &Tears). But this coming Saturday, I'm gonna be all over that fig and walnut bread. 

Anyway, that was pretty much my birthday. Lots of simple pleasures. 

These are from the bouquet from my cousins. When they got droopy, 

I chopped off their heads and put them in this bowl. 

They're still going strong now, a week later. 

(I had also planned to organise a get-together with friends in Melbourne, but I didn't get my act together due to indecision about what to do and where to go. I might still do something yet.) 

Belated big birthday bloggage

So, last weekend...I left work early on Friday and Luke and I hit the road for Deniliquin, in southern New South Wales, for my 40th birthday family get-together. 

The sun was setting as we hit the outskirts of Melbourne. 

Taken from the car

On the last leg of the trip, between Echuca and Deni, the moon was rising - a huge orange orb, just above the horizon. It was quite mesmerising. I didn't get any photos of it though.

We arrived before 9.00pm, checked into our motel and then went around to my aunt and uncle's, where my mum was staying. I haven't seen mum since Christmas so it was great to see her. It's been a year since I saw my aunt and uncle, and they were their usual, slightly odd, selves. 

We had a cuppa and a natter, and I got my first lot of birthday loot, including a couple of cheques, which I have put straight into my savings account to go towards my next overseas trip (I haven't decided where I'm going yet).  

Luke and I then headed back to our motel room and the first thing I did was crank the electric blanket up to its maximum setting. I don't have an electric blanket at home because it doesn't usually get cold enough in my flat to need one, but it was freezing in Deni - actually, below freezing. Both nights the mercury dipped to around -3 degrees Celsius, which is unusually frigid for this part of the world. I do hope the inventor of the electric blanket was bestowed with some kind of Nobel prize. It was so, so cosy. 

The mornings were frosty, but the days were clear, sunny and not too cold. Perfect winter days. I did get to wear my doona-esque parka with the fur-trimmed hood for the first time this winter, which was pleasing. Sometimes I wish it was colder in Melbourne so I could wear it more often! 

My birthday do was at lunchtime on the Saturday. There were more uncles and aunts there, and cousins I haven't seen for a few years, including my first cousin Peter, who had  his one-year-old son Archie with him. That's the first time I've met the wee one. I think he was a bit scared of my hair (and he's not the first baby who has reacted that way!). 

I was spoilt with more birthday loot and then we had a nice lunch, finished off with yummy gluten-free chocolate cake made by mum, and of course a round of Happy Birthday. 

It was great to see everyone. We've not been a particularly close family over the years (geographically and otherwise), and it's never really bothered me. They're kind of a weird mob! But in the last couple of years, I've been feeling the need to be more connected with my extended family, which probably has something to do with losing my Dad.  In fact, life has been pretty hard going for all of us the past year or two, We've mostly seen each other at funerals, so I wanted us to get together for a happier occasion. 

After lunch was over, Luke and I went to the Waring Gardens, the park in the centre of town, to take some photos, but the shadows were a little long by then. I did take some of my previously posted bird photos here though, and the obligatory photo of the Simpson Band Rotunda, which is named after my grandfather, who was a fixture in the town's brass band. 

The next day Luke and I had breakfast at a sunny table at The Crossing Cafe near the banks of the Edward River. I had pancakes with mixed berry compote and yogurt. The pancakes had a dense, almost cake-like texture, but I liked it. 

Then we visited the Peppin Heritage Centre next door - a tourist information centre, gallery and museum in the old Deniliquin Public School building. One of the rooms is still set up as a classroom. I have a very vague memory of being in this classroom as a little tacker, long after it was used as a primary school.  These desks weren't there then though - just some old blue and red folding metal chairs. 

Old encyclopaedias

  

This is the logo on one of the old school bags. The motto amuses me, partly because it's more of a schoolmarmish admonishment than the usual encouragement to excel favoured by many schools. None of them high-falutin' Latin phrases 'round these parts. I guess Do It Now could be a plain-talking interpretation of Carpe Diem... 

It also amuses me because when I was a kid, the town's rather cheeky catchphrase was "Do it in Deni", underneath a cartoonish outline of a family of rabbits. Do it in Deni. Do it now. Haha.  (At some point, the Powers That Be must have decided Do it in Deni was too vulgar, because they got rid of it, but I'm pleased to see that it lives on as the unofficial town motto.)

The photo above is the gallery, with an old Cobb & Co sign on the back wall. The sign was found in a shed on the former site of the Cobb & Co booking office (which I think was somewhere around where my grandparents' house was). It was restored by the town's Historical Society. 

A closer view

A lot of the museum is devoted to sheep, since wool growing has long been among the Riverina district's major industries. There were photographic displays for the area's biggest and oldest sheep stations, including Calimo,  where my family lived until I was five (when we moved south to Victoria). 

There was even a photo of the tiny timber cottage we lived in. It had pressed tin ceilings and a clawfoot bath. 

This would have been taken long after we left, since there's very little garden to be seen. We were the last family to live there, so it's been empty for about 35 years. I visited Calimo on trip to Deni about four years ago and the cottage's only inhabitants then were possums. It was well on the way to ruin, which made me sad. 

Baaaa. Everywhere I go...taxidermy!

No blog post about Deni is complete without a photo of the Ute on the Pole and mention of the town's status as the Ute Capital of the World. (For non-Aussies, ute is short for 'utility vehicle'.) Here you go then: 

The town earned the title by hosting the largest gathering of utes in the world during the annual Deni Ute Muster, which is part of the Play on the Plains Festival. Other events include the World Record Blue Singlet Count (3500 people in a Bonds blue singlet is the current world record), and the Australian National Circle Work Championships (a bunch of hoons chuckin' doughies in their muscle cars). No, I'm not making this up (but I am affecting a bogan mode of speech). Basically, it's Mecca for bogans. 

I've never been to the muster and I'm thinking about going this year. As a Deni born and (partly) bred shiela, I reckon I should go at least once, even if it's insufferable. Better buy a Bonds blue singlet then...

Anyway, back to last weekend. After lunch at my aunt and uncle's, we said our goodbyes and set off for home, with a short stop at the cemetery just out of town. All of my grandparents are buried there, along with many of my ancestors. 

This is the grave of some of my ancestors, set among peppercorn trees in the old part of the cemetery. Next to it is the grave of another ancestor, Emma Riverina Lloyd. It's said she was so named because she was the first white woman born in the Riverina, but I don't think that's true. Either way, I kinda like it as a woman's name. 

We stopped again for a little while in Echuca on the Murray River. Luke had never been before and then I realised I'd never actually been there either.  I'd been through it dozens of times, but never to it. We wandered along the main street, and down to the river port, where the old (and not-so-old) paddlesteamers are moored. 

Old(ish) sign

 Old machinery 

  More old machinery

Then we hit the road again. 

The road

I haven't even got to my actual birthday yet! That will have to wait for tomorrow, as will this weekend's glee, because it's past my bedtime. 

A little taste of the weekend's glee

I have much glee to report from the past three days (including my birthday yesterday), but I'm tuckered out, and desperate to have a hot shower and put my gym-weary body to bed.  Here is a picture of a water rat to tide you over until my full birthday post. 

This little guy was going for a swim in the Waring Gardens lagoon in Deniliquin on Sunday morning. It headed for the shelter of these tree roots on the edge of the lagoon when it heard us. "What's that in the water?" "I think it's a water rat." "It is!" 

I had to sneak up on it to get this shot and I'm surprised it's so clear given I didn't have much time to focus. 

(click to enlarge)

Deni, chilly, smelly, zingy

Foggy morning

Luke and I are off to Deniliquin, my hometown in southern New South Wales, tomorrow afternoon for a family get-together to celebrate my birthday. We'll be able to stay a day longer than our last visit in July last year, which means more time to spend with my mum and to take photos. I'm really looking forward to it. 

It's going to be really cold overnight while we're there - down to 0 degrees C one night and -2 the next. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I'm looking forward to wearing my super warm parka though. I haven't worn it at all this winter. The days are meant to be fine and sunny, and not too cold. Perfect. 

I'm still loving The Etymologicon. It's marvelous - it blows my mind a little bit on every page. Some of the origins of words and connections between words are just so bizarre, you couldn't make it up. I'll save up all the mind-blowing bits and regale you with them in one (probably very long)  post.  

I bought two bunches of jonquils on the way home last night - one yellow and one creamy white. When I opened my front door tonight, I was met with their heady aroma. It can be a little strong, but I like it. 

Speaking of nice smells, I gave my Docs a coat of beeswax leather conditioner tonight. I love the smell of that too. 

I had blood orange gelato for dessert tonight. It had a zing to it almost like sherbert. Yum. 

Belated birthday glee

My two-day getaway to Walhalla for my birthday last weekend was ace - one of my most memorable birthdays ever. The tiny mountain town is lovely, it was wonderful to have a weekend away with Luke and to wake up with someone special on my birthday.

 Walhalla is quaint, picturesque, quiet and brimming with history. It was love at first sight for me. It's tucked in down in a valley with one winding road in and out, and there's old stuff everywhere! Mining equipment, weathered wagon wheels, old shopfronts, cute cottages, little shacks high on the mountain side (below), remnants of buildings that are long gone (like the Royal Junction Hotel), and,  most spectacular of all, the cemetery spread out across a steep mountainside just as you turn the bend into town. My new camera got a good work out (see Girl in Melbourne for more photos).

A little creek runs through the town, so the soft babbling of water is an ever-present and comforting background noise.  Due to a lack of flat ground, the fire station was built over the creek (below  - it's now a museum rather than a working firestation.) 

On the first day we wandered around the town taking photos and then walked up to the entrance to the  old Long Gully mine overlooking the town.

Me and the faded Long Gully Mine sign

We saw a fungus that looked like a boob.

We went to the "Wally Pub" that night - it looked more like a family home than a pub from the outside - and had a nice country style pub meal for dinner. Nothing too fancy, but cooked well and my T-bone was almost as big as my head. The barman wasn't too chatty until Luke mentioned football (AFL).

The Mountaineer Band Rotunda

There was nothing else doing in town  after we'd finished our meals just after 8.00 pm so we went back to our room. Tis a sleepy town...but I didn't mind.  Our bed and breakfast was perched up on the mountain looking down over the town. I didn't realise this when I booked it, so that was a nice surprise.

Our BnB high on the hill

The room was new and pretty in pastel blue and white.

Early the next morning (early, I said!) after the birthday hugs and kisses, Luke and I pulled on our clothes and went for a walk hoping to see some wildlife foraging. It was a cool, but fine, sunny morning with a soundtrack of bird calls, including one that sounded exactly like a siren.

We walked past the little weatherboard church and were very enthusiastically greeted by a pair of miniature grey poodles out on their morning constitutional as well. We climbed up the mountain to the old cricket ground, which was a fairly challenging walk (for me, anyway). I had to stop a few times to catch my breath and I worked up quite a sweat. I enjoyed it though - fresh air and exercise in the bush before breakfast. The poodles were the only animals we saw. Boo.

Our view, complete with kookas (one real)

When we got back to the BnB our host, Jason, was feeding a group of kookaburras and currawongs on the balcony overlooking the town. The tree out the front was dotted with rosellas and king parrots and there more birds, including wonga pigeons and a chook, down on the lawn. Jason had set up a table for us on the balcony and the birds kept us company as we ate a yummy cooked breakfast. One young kooka didn't budge from his spot on the balcony railing during our meal...OK, they were waiting to be fed; they were indifferent to our company. At one stage a king parrot landed on the guttering above and hung upside down to peer at us.

My eggs benedict

It was so peaceful and picturesque. I was brimming with glee. Luke gave me my present, which was the shark kite I'd asked for. Yay! Haven't had a chance to fly it yet, but hopefully I will this weekend.

After showering and packing up our room, we headed to the cemetery. It's fairly small, but spread out on the mountainside with a bush backdrop. The graves with their white and marble headstones and low rusted fences are arranged in fairly haphazard rows, jutting up out of grass and weeds. Many of the headstones are in surprisingly good shape given they date back to the late 1800s.

Treading carefully on the rudimentary paths and steps, we took photos and read epitaphs - there were a lot of men who died young and families who had buried a succession of very young children, but also the occasional person who made it to their 80s, which would have been positively ancient back then.

After the cemetery Luke and I went for a ride on the goldfields railway, a leisurely jaunt in an old (but well restored) train through the bush, past tree ferns and tall, straight-trunked eucalypts, with the babbling creek always alongside the tracks.

Then, alas, it was time to head off. We made a detour to Thomson Dam, Victoria's largest reservoir and the source of Melbourne's drinking water. It's at over 40% capacity, which doesn't sound like a lot until you consider not long ago it was stagnating at 16% as Victoria endured drought. It's kinda nice to know where the water that comes out of your tap originates from.

We stopped at the general store in Erica for a pie/pastie and sauce for lunch, then hit the road for home. All in all, a wonderful weekend out of town. I'd love to go back again one day.  

I loved this old shed. Had to get a photo in here somewhere.

And this shed. I suppose in such a small town you had

 to be multi-skilled and flexible enough to take on whatever "etc" might be.

The town's pay phone

Birthday get-away, mystery building, stair race

Gluten-free chocolate and vanilla cupcake

Luke and I are off to the tiny historic town of Walhalla in Gippsland for my birthday next weekend. It's perched on a mountainside not too far from Mt Baw Baw, so I expect it will be very picturesque but rather chilly.

Walhalla was a gold mining settlement that boomed in the mid-late 1800s before becoming a ghost town. It's had a renaissance as a tourist destination in the last 30 years but still retains its old world appeal. It also has a little old hillside cemetery which I'm a smidge excited about (me and my thing for old cemeteries). It has less than 20 permanent residents these days and it's quite likely we will have no mobile phone reception, so it should be a nice little get-away.

We're staying at a nice B&B. I'm hoping there will be somewhere with an open fire for dinner on Friday night.

I picked up a book at Reader's Feast today called Five Hundred Buildings of New York and I flipped it open to the page featuring a building I fell in love with while I was there but had no idea what it was. Now I know - it's the Ansonia Hotel.

I have a new thing where I try to make it to my front door before the light in the stairwell clicks off (it's one of those push-button jobbies). I have to pick up my stair-climbing pace a little to beat it.

Fog, comfy, day off

 If you squint a bit..

Melbourne got its fog on again today. It was a little foggy when I left for work and it never fully receded before creeping back in the late afternoon as the sun was sinking. It was so thick in places I could only just see the top of the Arts Centre spire protruding out of the blanket of white. It was strangely patchy.

  

(ignore the reflections)

I bought some new trackie pants (sweatpants) on the weekend. I won't be wearing them out of the house, but gosh, they are cosy and comfy.

It's my birthday on Saturday week and I've taken the Friday off before. Yay.

Chocolate, gift, wishing tree, squeezy

What an ace day. My seminar went off without a hitch this morning. I left work at 4.00pm and met up with my friend Si for a chocolate overload at Chokolait. Mmmm....mousse cake....Belgian hot chocolate...

Then we went for a wander and I spotted this on a wall in a laneway off Little Collins Street:

It's a wishing tree! Awesome!

Someone's wish. Awesomer!

I just love that someone did this and people embraced it (apart from the joyless person who wrote FAIL on the trunk). Most of the wishes were 'to be happy'. Which makes me happy, but also sad.

It was Si's birthday last week and I gave him a card and gift, which he was super-pleased with, which also made me happy. It really is better to give than receive and the best kind of giving is when you give with no expectation of anything in return, just to put a smile on someone's face.

It was raining when my tram arrived, and it was packed full but I squeezed on. Normally I dislike squeezy tram rides (doesn't everyone?), but this was the best jam-packed tram ride ever. The people were in good spirits - most were going to the Andre Rieu concert or the Dinosaurs Alive  show. They were chatty and friendly, the children were excited and the driver was also chatty and in good humour. At one stage the lights went off on the tram and everyone went, "Oooooh" and the driver joked, "That's a concert warm up for you." It was quite lovely.

I walked through Gosch's Paddock in the chilly night air in light rain. AAMI Park was lit up and looking stunning under the cloudy sky, tinged with orange by the city lights. Megabats (of the grey-headed flying fox variety) flew overhead. (Since I found out they are classifed as megabats, every time I see one I think, "Megabat!")

I was very happy to get home to my toasty warm flat. I think it might be mitten and ear muff weather now. Yay.  Well, sort of yay.

Surprise, growth and sausage dog

A new building in Docklands - it's modern, but I like it

I made my surprise visit to Adelaide for my brother's birthday on Friday and it was fun. He had no inkling I was coming and although he is a man of few words, I could tell he was rapt I was there (along with Mum, who made her surprise appearance the day before). I'm happy I went.

I noticed today the trees along the river are finally showing signs of spring growth. I was starting to worry about them.

I saw a man walking a sausage dog on way home (they'll always be sausage dogs to me). A sausage dog never fails to make me smile.

Surprise visit, spring and macarons

I'm going to be a surprise visitor next Friday. It's my brother's 40th birthday but he doesn't know I'm flying to Adelaide to attend his birthday dinner. I also get half a day off work. Yay! 

Oh, speaking of birthdays, I just realised today is Gleeful's second birthday. *blows whistle*

It's spring! OK, only by the calendar and it was a pretty gloomy day, but still....it's spring!

I ate two macarons (macaroons, if you prefer) from the Lindt Cafe on Collins Street on my way home tonight. One vanilla and one milk chocolate. OMG. They are divine. A slightly crisp shell and all soft inside...yum. I fear I have started a bad habit...

Birthday eve

It's my birthday tomorrow and I've taken the day off work.  It means I miss out on a fancy cake from David Jones (which they'd probably begrudge buying since I'm leaving in a week), but I'm having a cake made for me with love by my friend D instead, and it will be accompanied by cuddles from my gorgeous quasi-nephews. Yay.

YouTubing

I'm probably very behind the times with this, but I only discovered the playlist function on YouTube the other day while attempting to stave off boredom at work by watching White Stripes' videos. If you haven't checked it out, it puts together a playlist of music videos in a similar vein to the music you've searched for.

Thanks to YouTube, I've now discovered - speaking of behind the times - The Blasters, Mr Airplane Man and the Gun Club, and have now got them on my iPod.  I've also added The Black Keys, who I'd heard of, but whose awesomeness was not fully apparent to me until now. Yay for new music!

Here's a Gun Club video for you:

Gleeful is 1!

Today is special for three reasons: it's the first day of spring, it's Gleeful's first birthday and this is my 200th post. Yay, yay and yay!

The blog has turned out to be a little less frequent than I envisaged, but I still can't believe it's been 12 months since I kicked off with a post about the Muppets and an R rated movie. And I can't be stopped now. I'm the Glee Monster. Rarrrrr!

It's been a joy to write Gleeful - to go through the year seeking out and celebrating the simple pleasures that life can offer if you open your eyes to them. I know it sounds cheesy, but I really do believe that the secret to happiness is being able to appreciate small things, because that's mostly what life is - a string of small things. I'm certainly a lot happier - and a lot nicer to be around - since I worked that out.

Of course a big, big thank you to all of you for reading and commenting. I would have kept writing the blog anyway if nobody read it (well, I think I would have...) but you've made it so much more rewarding. You've been the yummy icing on the chocolate cake of glee.

And now for some Muppets to celebrate:

PS I also celebrated with actual chocolate cake.

Birthday week

Swirly clouds for my birthday

Well, I am another year older (that's not very gleeful) and I've been having a fun week of celebrations. Tomorrow I head off on the Wagons West Birthday Extravaganza Road Trip Down Memory Lane. Hurrah!

On Wednesday night I went to see the Circus Oz show Barely Contained. In keeping with my decision to just do stuff on my own rather than miss out for lack of someone to accompany me, I went to the circus solo. I managed to time it just right so that I wasn't hanging around looking like Freddy No-Friends (I might be going places on my own, but it still feels funny).

The bonus of going alone was that I was able to get a great seat. I plugged a single-seat-sized gap in the second row.

The show was fun - cheesy, but I'm not against cheese. There was a tap dancing lady midget and it felt weird being allowed to stare. They certainly are a talented bunch and the men are a buff lot. My only complaint is that I would have liked to have seen more of the guys with their shirts off, but there was still some impressive biceps and shoulders on display.

Thursday was my actual birthday and it was a beautiful, relatively mild sunshiney day. It was nice to get lots of messages and emails from friends and family throughout the day and little presents from friends at work.

I had lunch and a glass of wine with a friend at a little restaurant down a laneway near my work and there was birthday cake (flourless orange - yum!) with candles and a rendition of Happy Birthday back at work in the afternoon.

Last night I returned to Bridie O'Reilly's with my friend Kirstyn to feast on corned beef with mashed spuds, cabbage, bacon and mustard sauce. Kirstyn ordered it too and was similarly impressed. We rhapsodised about it afterwards. I hadn't seen Kirstyn since earlier in the year so it was good to catch up for a natter and a laugh.

Today a solicitor at work told me she assumed I was her age - 27! I love her. I'm 37 if I haven't mentioned that anywhere. That's what staying out of the sun can do for you.

And tomorrow - I'm off sojourning to the south-west of Victoria to revisit places from my youth and, of course, stalk...I mean, see Wagons play in Hamilton. The whales have arrived in Warrnambool in time for our visit too. There's one whale with a calf and one pregnant whale in the bay. Hopefully they will be close to shore.

It's going to be a chilly weekend - maximums of around 10-12 degrees celsius, with wind, rain and possible storms but pah! I'm not daunted by bad weather. We'll be in the car a lot of the time anyway and my new parka is super, super cosy.

I'll see you after the weekend!