Friday

What are the odds? Not one circus, but two circuses/circi/one circus and another one - in town at the same time. I saw the sign for one of them yesterday - and almost received a text from a pal who had seen the sign as well - and the actual Big Top ... which I saw this morning as I turned off the Smith Street Motorway towards work. Look!!! There it was!!!! Larger than life!!!! (Well, you know what I mean.) The Stardust Circus - right next door to work at Parklands! And the Moscow Circus is apparently down the road at bit at the Southport Broadwater. Gee, it would be nice to go ... as long as I can be assured the animals are well-treated and things are above board. (No, we are not going into the story of my family's rich heritage in show business - and especially not my paternal grandfather's dancing chicken concession!)

We are having Family and Friends dinner tonight and we are off to the Sheraton for their buffet. S and I are planning to make the effort to keep Mouse and Mi company in dressing up this evening - and to go one step further and even colour co-ordinate our outfits! (Later) Well, it almost happened like that - we were co-ordinated but only if you call black a colour. But that's not taking into account the Turkish trousers S was wearing, as given to her by Ma (while she was out here), which were very colourful indeed - but which still had the black to tie in with what I was wearing. In retrospect, I would have to say that everyone took extra care when they were coiffe-ing this evening - and yes, it's fair to say that it was also impressive when M went that extra step and did a touch-up iron of her outfit as we were getting ready to leave.

The food was great too - not as big as a selection at The Big House but everyone (at our table at least) thought it was better. Unfortunately the Internet connection there wasn't good enough to allow a Skype call with the folks in Turkey but it was good enough to allow a FaceBook check-in so they would know where we were!

It is F's birthday on Sunday and he has kept protesting that he doesn't want anything ... except perhaps a right-handed Odyssey chipper - and who knew that golfers are restricted to 13 clubs in their bags. I think there are plans to do a cake for him on Sunday morning at the Markets. But he will probably still need to do the coffee order - because he likes doing it so much - and is so good at it.