On Top of the World

Today is Australia Day which, for many Australians, means a barbeque and several beers. For me, it meant (other than having the day off work) staying inside and trying to keep cool in yet another day of 40-degree heat. We went to a café for lunch and then went to try to find some indoor plants, but other than that we stayed at home. Fortuanately it cooled down enough to go for a walk tonight, and being in the study is bearable now that I can open the windows and let the breeze in.

Lots of people at work are taking the day off tomorrow to make a 4-day weekend, and I’m debating whether to stay home myself. M is going to work, but I’m strongly leaning towards staying home. Yesterday felt like a Friday because we had our end-of-month drinks (due to so many people staying home tomorrow), so Wednesday night felt like Friday, and I’ve spent all day thinking that today is Saturday, so the thought of going in to work tomorrow doesn’t hold much appeal.

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When M and I were at the supermarket the other day, I saw some King Island Dairy Chocolate Creme Dessert. I’d heard good things about it, so I thought I’d give it a try. I also got some Belgian chocolate desserts, and some Emporio mocha-type biscuits. As you can see, I didn’t contribute much of any nutritional value to the basket that day.

We tried the King Island Dairy dessert that night, and may I say: mmmmm. It just tasted like really thick, chocolate flavoured cream, which I guess is what it was, being made by King Island Dairy. M had a look at the ingredients but I didn’t really care what was in it because all I knew was that it tasted gooood. I could easily have scoffed down the whole lot (mmm 42 grams of faaaaat), but I made myself put it away while there was still some left.

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When we came home from work a few days ago, I was walking from the carport around to the front door, when I heard my neighbour talking. He said that ‘we had a visitor’, and was pointing to a tree in our front yard. I looked into the tree:

and saw a koala having a snooze on one of the branches:

It was so cute! It’s the first time we’ve seen one in our own garden, although we hear them a lot when they’re being vocal in the park near our house. It was quite strange to see one there, because it’s certainly not the kind of tree that koalas usually go for. M and I went inside and got our cameras and took way too many photos, considering that all it was was a koala. But, hey - it was a koala in our garden! I took the top two photos, and M took the bottom one - his camera has a lot better zoom on it so I couldn’t get in as close.

The koala stayed in the tree for at least an hour or so. We went for a walk later that day and he was there when we left, but had gone by the time we came back.

I didn’t get around to posting about my birthday as soon as I was planning, but here’s what happened…

I woke up at around 8:15 and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I woke M up - I figured I was allowed since it was my birthday after all! We lay in bed for a little while before getting up. I had the day off work so it was nice to have a little sleep in.

After we got dressed, M gave me my presents - I got a 365 Days of Kittens calendar, and a gorgeous 18ct gold necklace, imported from Italy. It’s a plait design, with each strand of the plait comprising its own intricately-woven stands of gold. It’s beautiful.

We then went downstairs and M made me a coffee, and we had half a piece of toast each - we were going out for lunch so we didn’t want to ruin our appetite. Later on I got dressed for lunch, and put on a top I bought in Sydney, and M put my new necklace on me. I felt very swish indeed!

For lunch we went to a really nice Italian restaurant in the city. The only problem was that there weren’t many places to park for the length of time we were going to be there, so we ended up parking in a 1-hour spot, with M having to move his car a bit later. Soonish after we got there, M asked if I wanted to go into the city on Saturday night. I asked why, and he said, “Oh I don’t know, maybe we could spend the night at The Embassy [the hotel we stayed at on our wedding night]?” Yay! We’re staying in an executive suite with a spa… mmm spa. So we’ll be spending another night away from home this weekend - the cats won’t know what’s going on, with us disappearing all the time!

We had our entrées, and then M went to move his car. Fortunately he got a 2-hour park this time, so he didn’t have to move it again during the meal. Soonish after he came back, he said that his pants were a little tight, and that he must be putting on weight - this was of course a lead-in to him bringing another package out and handing it to me.

I opened it, and it was a bracelet to match the necklace. It looked so lovely, sitting on the black velvet in the box. He put it on me, and I felt even more swish! He has a habit of springing surprise presents after you think the present-giving has finished. I confirmed that this was the last one, and he said it was! The rest of our meal was really good - I had a fillet of beef for the main course and we ordered a couple of side dishes. Afterwards we were both really full, but managed to share a dessert - flourless chocolate and almond torte. Yummy. After that and a coffee, I was completely stuffed.

We went home afterwards, and I relaxed for a few hours before getting ready to go to my parents’ place. We got there at 6, and more present-opening began. I got a Cat-A-Day calendar, but not quite the same as the one M gave me because this one sits on the desk and you tear off a sheet each day. I also got a set of really cool coffee spoons, and some gorgeous diamond earrings. I put them on, and felt like an advertisement for a jewellery shop! La di da. I also got some perfume and some chocolates.

We had dinner consisting of pizza (although I only had 2 tiny pieces because I was still comfortable from lunch!), and then a brilliant birthday cake, which consisted of a centimetre of chocolate sponge on the top and the bottom, sandwiching a couple of centimetres of chocolate mousse. Mmmm.

So that was my day! I wore my new necklace and bracelet to work on Thursday, and put up my two cat calendars, so I was surrounded by presents.

We just got back from the hotel, and it was excellent. We wandered around town yesterday afternoon, then came back to the room and relaxed before going out for dinner. We went to a pub up the road and had quite a nice schnitzel (although still not as good as The Earl of Leicester’s schnitzels), then came back and opened the bottle of wine we took with us. I took a few photos of the sunset, although the photos didn’t look as good as the real thing.

Today we went into town again, and I bought a watch with my birthday/Christmas money. Well, I’ve almost bought it - the woman’s getting it sent to a jeweller to have a couple of links taken out. She initially had a go herself and scratched up the band a bit, so if it’s not perfect when I get it tomorrow I’ll ask her to order a new one for me since she’s the one who stuffed it up in the first place. So I’m a bit worried about that, but hopefully it will be ok.

The cats didn’t miss us at all - as soon as we got home, all they wanted to do was go outside! It’s so nice to be loved.

I had an absolutely fantastic day today. It’s my 30th birthday, and M made it really special for me. I’m about to go to bed since I’m absolutely knackered and I have to get up early for work tomorrow (bummer), but I’ll recount the day’s events in mind-numbing detail tomorrow. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to miss that!

We’re back from Sydney, and started back at work yesterday - blech.

Sydney was good fun. As you may remember, for M’s birthday I got him 5 laps in a V8 at Eastern Creek International Raceway, which was the reason for the trip. M enjoyed his V8 driving, although he said he didn’t get as much out of it as he might have because he was worried about crashing the car. I’m glad he was cautious - I had awful images of videoing him crashing into a wall or something, but of course he was fine. Here are a few photos:

We caught the train from the CBD, then a bus that allegedly went near the track, but we had to walk for what felt like bloody ever from where we got off the bus to where the entrance was. We walked 5 minutes down the road and found the Gate 1 entrance, and thought that that was pretty close, but it said on the voucher to go to Gate 7, which was waaaaaay around the outside of the track. Once we got in we had to walk all the way down to the pits, and saw that Gate 1 was right near where it was being held, so I don’t know why they couldn’t have let us in there.

During the walk we were repeatedly molested by flies, and several of them were hitching a ride on us. Little bastards. Even though it wasn’t a hot day, we were boiling and buggered by the time we finally got to the gate.

Some of the cars at the start/finish line.

M waiting for his car. He looked so cute in his helmet!

I didn’t get any photos of him getting in the car or being buckled up because I was videoing it. It was hard to alternate between the digital camera and the video camera. I was also hoping to get video of him coming into the pits at the end and getting out of the car but I totally missed him. I had no idea which car was his as he came past, so I just videoed all of them and will try to pick him out when I watch it. He also got an in-car video of him driving, which was good. He also had his photo taken with one of the cars before the driving, which was made into a laminated certificate.

Before the race, he and the other drivers had a briefing session where they went through the track and told them which gears to use on which corners and how soon to brake etc, then they got their car with the instructor and did the laps. I thought that he was going to get some in-car training before doing his laps, but nope - you get in the car, do your 5 laps and that’s it, so I thought that was a bit disappointing.

Afterwards, we decided against walking back to the train station and got a taxi instead. We had to wait an hour for it because the first person they sent picked someone else up instead (nice one), but I didn’t mind too much because my legs were still feeling pretty weary, so I was glad to be able to sit down for a while.

Overall, I think he enjoyed it. At the time I bought the voucher, the company didn’t offer anything in SA, but they do now so if he wants another go, we don’t have to travel quite as far. It was a good excuse for a holiday though.

There are more photos I took while we were in Sydney in the gallery.

It is now 2006… where I am anyway. It’s still New Year’s Eve for most of you, so I hope that whatever you’re doing to bring in the new year, you have a great time.

As I said in my previous post, our plan was to stay at home this year for NYE, but our neighbours (the ones we had over for Christmas drinks) were having the people on the other side of them over for drinks, and asked if we wanted to come as well. So we went over there, armed with some red and white wine, and proceeded to eat, drink and be very merry. It was a good night, and we went over to our neighbours’ neighbours’ house to watch the fireworks at midnight. We blew our whistles and popped our poppers, and watched the fireworks. It was really cool, because there were at least half a dozen different places having fireworks at the same time, so we got to see lots of shows. It really is good living up here!

We came home at around 1:15, and went to bed soon after. M got up at 7:30 this morning because it was hot and he couldn’t sleep, but I managed to sleep until around 10. Neither of us are feeling particularly well today, but we felt a bit better after some breakfast.

M’s nephew rang a little while ago and asked us over for a barbeque, so we’ll be going there in a couple of hours. We didn’t see them for Christmas, so it’s a Christmas/New Year catchup. We thought we’d take some wine over, but the last thing we feel like doing is drinking any of it. I’ll be happy with a huge pot of coffee and the chocolate walnut log we’re taking there. Hopefully once I smell the barbeque it will wake something inside me and I’ll suddenly feel a lot better and will be able to eat something.

At least it’s not hot today - from a stinking hot 42°C yesterday, we now have pissing down rain and a temperature of around 20°, which is infinitely better except for the pissing down rain part. At least I can cope being in the computer room, and the cats look a lot happier as well. Yesterday they spent the whole day flaked out in various places in the house, poor things.

Of course it’s typical that now the weather is half reasonable and we could go out and do something, everything is shut for New Year’s Day. I think everything’s shut tomorrow as well, so that leaves one day of holiday at home where the shops are open before we go to Sydney, and then we’re back at work next week. I’m really looking forward to the Sydney trip; it has been planned for 4 months, and those 4 months have felt like ages, since I had to keep it to myself the whole time!