Saturday

Where has the month gone? Already we're only a day away from August 1 - traditionally known as the horses' birthday.

We went to breakfast at Sisters with Pearl - after we had a game of "tug-of-ball" with her new red ball with the short rope at Latimers. I wish I could track of what we do with her tennis balls because there's never one around when you want one ... and while the red ball is fun, she invariably chews both ends of the rope so that makes it a bit ... wet. But still it's good fun, and after breakfast, we went for a walk around the dog park with her. It's really her first outing in a while and she really did seem to enjoy it - except for the riding in the car there and the riding in the car back ... I don't think Pearl is one of the world's best travelers.

This evening we went bowling ... and this time S came too. I wish I could say we excelled but certainly mine was a lacklustre performance of epic proportions. Hmmmm ... I was just thinking - isn't it interesting that Strike is used in two types of sport (at least) - ten pin bowling (where it's a good thing) and baseball/softball (where the third one usually means you're out!).

Post-bowling we went to the pizza and pasta bar, Vapiano, in Surfers Paradise. It was good - and reminded us of Mi telling us how she had been to the Vapiano's in Vienna. We truly live in a cosmopolitan centre. One of the interesting features of Vapiano's is that they don't have a "bill" as such. Each diner gets a "cash chip" - a card which they swipe as they order - and then they pay individually at the cashier.

Then it was iff to Ripley's Believe It Or Not with H. M didn't go because she thought it wouldn't really have changed from when she went years ago, and I think she is probably right. But what they did have that was "new" was ... the tunnel. It's a visual illusion - you walk across a bridge which is in a rotating tunnel of lights and you very quickly feel disorientated and if the whole bridge is tipping. H and I both thought this was the best thing there and we went through it a number of times. I found the effect got "more" each time I did it - but when I questioned H to see if this was happening to him too, he didn't think so.