So ... as it stands ... Labor 72 plus 1 Green plus 1 Andrew Wilkie = 74. Liberal 73. 3 undecided Independents. Either side needs 76 to form a minority government. So, in this case only, it seems like 2 out of 3 ain't bad if you're Labor. A decision by the Independents is not expected before next week, and while one of them says they are not a "bloc", he said it would be in their interests to "act collectively".
Undeterred by the closeness of this election, bets continue on the NSW State election with the Coalition at $2.08 and Labor at $7.40. (Hopefully somebody knows what that means!)
Date night did see us at the Highland Court Chinese restaurant and, in retrospect, it may not have been the wisest choice. Hmmm. That's probably enough said because once I get started on how noisy it was and the behaviour of the small child at the table next to ours - unruly and unsafe - I may not be able to rein myself in. The other small bugbear is when we asked for "no MSG", the waiter did mention that there was already MSG in most of their dishes, but he did take the trouble to note "NO ADDED MSG" on our order. Still, it was nice enough but I don't think we'd go there again. Zen has spoilt us.
I asked S what had happened at Latimers today and she gave a quite succinct reply: nothing. As in "nothing", not as in "no reply". Well, that may not be true because I do know that she and the cats and Pearl took a walk up to sort through the carrots in the fridge in the stables and see if any were past their use-by date. She had a tussle on her hands though when she tried to throw the tired ones out ... who knew that Pearl likes carrots?
There has been some reorganization of the horses in the paddocks and Lottie is now in the one closest us - with Lacie back in the next paddock. Hermes seems no worse for wear for having loved and lost Holly who is now back in her usual place. And, thanks to a conversation with C, we now know that Lottie is UB. (We may have known that before but I had forgotten and certainly wouldn't have been able to recognize her in a line-up ... is that why they have colours and numbers on horses when they're racing?)
Are we in the land of political correctness gone mad or just people gone mad? It seems that a principal at a Melbourne school has decided to change the words to the Kookaburra song and it now ends with "Fun your life must be". Would people take the same liberties with other pieces of great literature? It's not as though they say "Bah, bah, rainbow sheep" ... except apparently they do and have done for years now. We need to hang out with young children more so we can keep up to date with these developments.
It was a big Apple day yesterday - with the September roll-out of news of a new line of iPod Touches and Nanos ... and news of an update to the Ipad operating system - due sometime in November. The biggest news however is that I received a recommendation for an App from someone who would this time last year probably not even have known what an App was!! Stunning stuff. (What I don't understand though is who is this "Christian" that is currently using the App who is already one of my contacts? A quick search reveals that he is the lad down the road who has been recommended for lawn mowing duties - thank goodness I put notes in my Contacts list :) ... especially since, if worse comes to worse and I can't work out how to use the App, I can always get him over to do the lawn and just casually start chatting about ... technology!)
F rang to confirm that we are still on for dinner tomorrow night ... he kindly provided a list of options, and we gratefully replied that we were happy with whatever he preferred. We will be there at sunset ... with dessert - now, if only we knew what he liked ... I think "crumbles" are up there ... but there is still time for us to do some research and truly stun him with a favorite. Now if only we could contact his wife it would make it so much easier!!
Weather is lovely here at the moment, and I am happy to be finishing in Brisbane again today for the week. They have been very good ... I did only a little filing, and data processing, and the rest of the time we talked about their systems and how they could, if required, be adapted to a certain water project. Perhaps we'll find out if there's been any further word on a decision on that tomorrow.
