So for my birthday, I cooked us cheese kranskys for breakfast.  As you do :)

Spent the morning battling with kerberos.  Bah.

For lunch a huge group of us went to Bella Vista.  We got the banquet.  I'd have liked to have ordered off the menu, but with twenty people that was going to be too impractical.  So we just ate lots of pasta :)  (five pastas, two of which went undocumented, and a few other things as well)

After lunch, a smaller group of us kicked on to the Lighthouse.  Where we might have stayed all afternoon :)

Then I hopped on a bus and went into town for the next event - dinner at Ardeche.

I had "Escalope de veau avec moutarde et creme" - veal in a creamy mustard sauce which was *amazing*.  So tender and tasty.  Loved it!

And then we went to the theatre!  To see Phantom of the Opera! When I first saw this advertised and saw that it would be running on my birthday, I knew I *had* to go see it.  You see on my birthday in 1996 I went with another group of friends to see it in Sydney.  I wanted to repeat it seventeen years later, and so I did :)

The show was amazing.  Really well done.  Thoroughly enjoyed it, as did the rest of our little group.  Although it was hard for me to resist singing along ;)  And my legs didn't get restless!  Hurrah!

Got home pretty late, and didn't get to bed til after it wasn't my birthday anymore.

Thanks to everyone who came along to my various birthday celebrations.  It was brilliant, and I had a wonderful time at all my parties :)   **hugs** :):)

Last Sunday afternoon I went along with Nat and Andrew to this year's Lego Brick Expo at the Hellenic Club.

Verdict: the Lego was awesome, the venue was a disaster.

They've learnt from previous years, and now you line up outside the venue where they have staff come along and check tickets.  Then when your allocated time slot comes up you can all just go straight in.  So it was much more efficient getting in.  The problem was that inside things were spread out all over the place in different rooms and in corridors, so people were squeezing in to see the Lego while other people were squeezing past, and it was a rabbit warren of rooms so I was worried about missing a room just because I hadn't seen the entrance to it.

Not to mention the crowds and crowds of people.  They sold 12000 tickets for the two days.  !!  So it was jam packed with little kids that seem to know exactly when you are about to take a photo and stick their heads or hands in the photo.  It was amazingly frustrating.  We did get the last session of the day, so at least at about 5:20pm things were thinning out enough to go back and redo some photos with less crowds.

They really need to get a big room at Epic and be done with it.  I think if they do it at the Hellenic Club again next year I might not even go.

Thursday night: Slept til 4am then woke up and couldn't get back to sleep.

Friday night: Went to bed at 9:30pm.  Got up at 9:30am.  Only slept six of those twelve hours.  Spent the other six hours stressing about the party and the fact that I wasn't sleeping.

Saturday: Did a bit of house organising but not really enough.  Was too tired.  Went out for kebabs for lunch, then did party shopping.  And nearly killed people because there was too many of them in once place.  Came home and cleaned the house, but not really enough because we only had an hour and a half and there was just too much to do.  Chris P arrived at 4pm, then Neil, who forgot the salami so Stu went with him to get it.  Then others turned up in dribs and drabs for the next few hours.  After about an hour I finally managed to have a drink.  And finally another.  And finally started to relax.  And then finally to start enjoying myself.  There was *tonnes* of food.  We bought eight packets of frozen food to cook over the course of the night and it all got eaten (and the neighbours came up very late and brought some frozen pizzas and they got eaten too).  I spent so much time trying to make sure I talked to everyone that I didn't really talk to anyone, which was slightly sad.  A slow cooker and a half of mulled wine was drunk, along with a whole recycling tub full of beer and wine.  I think people had a good time?  Certainly the last of them didn't leave til 2am!

Windy took a few photos (thanks Windy!), but this was my favourite - a "Cognac of Chrises" (and a small ring-in whose middle name is Chris).  There'd have been eight if Henrch and the other Chris Bell had been able to make it!

Sunday:  woke up early (apparently that's what happens when you drink) but didn't get up til around nine.  Chris got up before me and cleaned up the entire kitchen and living room!  It was amazing!  She was my little cleaning fairy!  Quiet morning with Chris and Zac (Zac's quite a lovely kid, as kids go) and Potty, and we shared some of Chris L's bread and marmalade for breakfast.  Saw Chris off at lunch time, then tried to get ourselves and the house back into some semblance of sanity.

In the afternoon I went to Brick Expo, but I'll save that for another post.

Sunday night had a nightcap before bed, then slept very well from about 9:30pm til 6:30am.  I needed it!

Monday: Spent all morning dealing with fallout from the weekend's work.  

And it looks like life might get super complicated in the next little while...

Didn't sleep all that well on Saturday night.  The bed was definitely too soft.  And my mind was still going from the excitement of the day.  The curtains were pretty good and kept the light out really well, so we had a bit of a sleep-in.

Went to The Scottish Restaurant for breakfast after checking out, but they took forever and I was worried about missing the train we needed to catch.  I was thinking we'd have to catch a City Circle train to Central and change, but the train we caught at Circular Quay went to Hurstville!  How weird is that!?!?  So did that and changed there, as it was less far to walk than Central.  Although more than Sydenham, but I wanted to go as far as we could.  That, and the novelty factor of catching a train directly from Circular Quay to Hurstville!

So yeah arrived at the parents' then went out to Tradies for lunch.  I had a reasonably decent caesar salad for lunch, and then there was cake!  Two of them :)  One for dad and one for me.

Lots of people came.  Around seventy!  Lots of people I haven't seen in years.  Lots that knew me but I had no idea who they were.  But quite a pleasant afternoon.  Dad's not doing so well at the moment - very unsteady on his feet because of all the zapping they're doing to his brain :(  But he did well and I think he had nice time.

After everyone left, we went back to my parents'.  Stayed there for a while, before dropping Dad back at the hospital and Mum dropped us off at the airport.

Had a pretty good flight.  Took off from part way down 34L and banked round to the left, which gave a great view of my local neighbourhood.  In fact because the ATR planes are slower than the jets, got a really good long view.  Couldn't document it because it was too dark, but was able to locate heaps of things, so that was lots of fun.  Also got to see the Antonov that David saw yesterday.  It was just sitting at the international terminal.  I thought it had already left Sydney, but there was definitely a huge plane with wings on top and a blue tail, so what else could it have been?

Got home with a sore throat and exhausted.  Definitely feeling like I needed a weekend to recover from my weekend ..!

My Dad turned 70 on Sunday.

So we trundled up to Sydney.

And I figured if I was going to be in Sydney, I'd try and catch up with some of my Sydney friends for part one of my birthday bash.

Stu wanted to fly (to get points so he can get Virgin lounge access).  So we spent obscene amounts of money on flights and a hotel.

But let me backtrack a minute.

I'd decided that we should go to the Löwenbräu Keller, as it was central for everyone, it had pork, and it had beer.  I thought that we could have a lunch, and people could stop in for a drink afterwards if they weren't able to make it to the lunch.  Except when I made the tentative booking they said that they were a restaurant and everyone had to be dining.  This they underlined.  Well actually they said that everyone who made a reservation had to be dining.  And they wanted a $20 deposit for everyone.  And we had to order off one of the very restrictive set menus.  So that was my drama last week.  Anyways.  I got my RSVPs and made the final booking and paid the deposit, and fortunately on the day everyone showed up who said they would, and no surprises.  But more on lunch later.

So Saturday morning we got up and got ready and headed to the airport.  And after complaining a couple of weeks ago about Stu getting to fly in one of Virgin Australia's ATR 72-600s, I got to go in one :)

Took off to the north, with a view of Canberra and the new Majura Parkway, but a lot of fog around still (delays all over the place because of heavy fog in the morning, and was a bit stressed that our plane would be late or cancelled).

Actually to say was a bit stressed was putting it very mildly.  I was totally stressed out all morning - about the lunch, who would/wouldn't turn up, the restaurant being bumheads, getting to the airport on time, the plane being on time and on and on.  Was feeling quite queasy until we got to the airport and our plane was going to be on time .. 

But carrying on ..

Because it's such a little plane, they don't have the full food service where they sell food/drinks.  Instead they have complimentary drinks and snackages for everyone!  So that was pretty nice of them.

Flew almost right over the top of River Island (it was on the other side of the plane)

Then up over Campbelltown and in from the south-west.

M7-M5 junction

Holsworthy

Look Mum I can see your house from here.. and mine (under the clouds).  Looking into the sun, so not much more in the way of good shots for the rest of the flight.

Bate Bay looking very blue

So off the plane and onto the Airport Train.  I've never actually taken this train before.  Reason being: it's a complete rip off!  $31 for the two of us to get to the city.  Absolutely ridiculous.  And of course, there was trackwork, so we had to change trains at Central.  At least there *was* a train to Circular Quay - when Stu went a couple of weeks ago, there were no trains at all in the CBD.

Carnival Spirit

Walked up to our hotel, and were able to check in.  Fairly basic hotel room, but very nice and a pretty decent view.

Then we wandered down to the Lowenbrau, and even though we were fifteen minutes early, we were only *just* the first ones there heh.

No good photos of Marc/Ryan and none at all of Emma/Charlotte.. doh!

So everyone arrived and they brought out meat.  So. Much. Meat.  This times four!

We got the "Schmankerlplatter" which was $39.50 and the cheapest of the options we were forced into having by the Lowenbrau.  I was really annoyed by this, as it meant people couldn't go for a lighter lunch if they wanted to.  One thing's for sure - I'll *never* be booking to go to the Lowenbrau again.  If opportunity arose I'd still go there, but I'd never organise an event there again.

*Fortunately* they were happy to package up all the leftovers, and Stuart R and my brother took them home.  So at least a quarter of all that food didn't end up going to waste.

And the pork was pretty damned good.  And there was other meat too.  For those that wanted it ;)

So after lunch, since the Lowenbrau were being buttheads about not wanting people to drop by casually, we headed up to the Argyle for drinks.  Fiona, Stu, Chris, Daniel&Fi and me and the sweetie went, and were joined by Fran, Jake, Ric, David and Yvonne.  Where we stayed til early evening :)

The Argyle's unisex bathroom.  The funky pods at the far end are the urinals!

So all in all it was actually a wonderful afternoon.  I hadn't seen Chris in twenty years, and I'd never even met Stuart R (except online, and he had actually thought I was a boy which gave everyone a good laugh ;) ).  And all sorts of lengths of friendships in between.  The only sad part was not having enough time to catch up with everyone for as long as I'd have liked.  Oh well.. will have to make more effort on future trips!  And convince people to come visit ;)

Stumbled back to the hotel.

Picked up some snackages on the way back to the hotel, thinking we might get hungry later on.  But we never did.  Too much meat!

However the hotel had put out a little bit of cake and a macaron for my birthday - how sweet of them :) (when they asked at checkin if I was up for a special occasion I said I was :) )

Enjoyed the view briefly before collapsing into (a very soft) bed.

Pretty crappy night tonight.

Well it started off all right.  Went to Alice's with the sweetie for dinner which was nice.

On the way home I started getting anxious about stuff I have to do and unknowns I have to face and strangers I have to call.

At home we found that the third brake light on Stu's car wasn't working.  After we had just gotten the car back from a service *today* in which they assured us it had been fixed (this was the second time they've looked at it).  So I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.  One more stress.  More money wasted.  More hassles.  I mean I like Mick and all, but sometimes I think he's not a particularly good mechanic :(:(

The Old Reader has died, hopefully only temporarily.  They did a migration to new hardware on the weekend and it all failed in a heap today.  They're still hoping to get it back within a couple of days.  So using Comma Feed in the meantime which has all the same stuff in it, but isn't as good as a reader.

And then the real drama started (yeah the rest of it was just a warm up).

I tried booking the lunch I'm having on Saturday.  But because there were more than ten people coming we have to choose a set menu and pay $20 deposit each per person.  Except I don't actually know how many people are coming yet because quite a few people haven't rsvped.  And it's fricken expensive - with a set menu there's no choice of having a smaller cheaper meal if you wanted.  And heaven help you if you're vegetarian.  And also, because they're a "restaurant", people can't just pop in for a while during the afternoon for a drink - they have to dine as well.  So I've had to change the plans a bit, and then email everyone again asking *again* for rsvps. 

I fricken *hate* that sort of drama.  It's made me stressed/depressed about the whole thing.  

*sigh*

Oh yeah, and I forgot to call dad *again* tonight.. wonderful daughter I am .. *not*

Yesterday we went out to the club for a Christmas in July lunch.  As usual there was a feast of food thanks to R&T and A&J.

Lunch included, but was not limited to, lots of potatoes, turkey rolls, corn, salad

Dessert included, but was not limited to, rum balls, chocolate mud cake, trifles

And then.. it snowed!!

That was pretty exciting :)

Afterwards we debated staying the night, but the sweetie had some work to do for uni, so we came home, as he thought it'd be easier to do at home.  That, and it was *freezing* out there.*

This morning there was still snow on the mountains out past Queanbeyan.

There probably would have been snow on the Brindabellas too, but we didn't leave the house all day, so we didn't see.

Bit of house tidying today, and then my tax man came to sort out my tax.

And so endeth the weekend.

* Freezing in the both literal (snow) and figurative (feels like) senses of the word, for people that want to complain.

This is an idea that's been kicking around my head for a while now, but I don't think I'm really the person to make it happen.

What I want to do is have a monthly "Jigsaw Exchange".  This would be a monthly meetup (similar to Bookcrossing meetups) in a cafe or pub where people can come along with some jigsaws and exchange them with other peoples' jigsaws.  It'd mean a never-ending supply of jigsaws for me and the guys at work, as well as being able to share my jigsaws around with others.  Other than a small collection of jigsaws that I've had for a long time, I rarely feel the sentimental need to keep jigsaws anymore.  Jigsaws need to be loved by all!  And with the price of jigsaws even at second-hand places like Vinnies, sharing them around would be very economical as well.

So if anyone's reading this and has the motivation to do it, please do ;)

Yesterday afternoon (after doing our food shopping) we headed out to the club.  Chris did some rather nice soup, and some amazing jacket potatoes with a whole slew of wonderful toppings.

Oh and Peter may have done a nice salad :)

We .. well we did desserts :)

The caramel slice was from a recipe I saw in the newsagent last week.  Snapped a photo of it and attempted to make it on Friday night.  But after taking it out of the oven it was completely solid on top and I thought it was an epic disaster.  Saturday morning I topped it with chocolate anyway, thinking if it was a complete failure I'd make a Violet Crumble Cheesecake Slice.  But as I cut it up I realised it wasn't such a complete disaster after all!  And in fact people liked it!

I also made an apple crumble from an untested recipe I found online.  Actually I only used the topping from that recipe, I used another recipe for the apples.  But it was untested so I had no idea if it would work.  But it did!  Hurrah!

After dinner we played Geoff's version of "Crazy Whist" which was very silly but a lot of fun.

Didn't sleep too well in the caravan.  Not really sure why, I was warm enough even though it was freezing*.  I disturbed some kangaroos at 6:30 going to pee .. hrmm.

J&H did bacon and eggs from breakfast and we used the leftover potatoes as well so that was pretty nice.

We were going to do some stuff with the caravan, but in the end just came home.

* I mean freezing in the figurative sense as it wasn't freezing *inside* the caravan.  Apparently people aren't clear on the difference between my figurative and literal speech.  However it did in fact freeze outside overnight, and there was plenty of frost on the ground to prove it.

So I had some fun today.  Playing with Domino Designer.  Working on a documentation database.

Yeah there's a couple of sentences people probably wouldn't put together too often ;)

Things have changed a bit from 7 to 8.5, but then plenty of things have stayed the same.  Plus I wasn't doing anything too complicated.  So achieved most of what I wanted.  Now to populate the database with some data ..

Fun times :)