Sunday

It's good when you wake up - refreshed - before the alarm sounds because it's like getting time for nothing. By the time I would have woken this morning I had already fed Emma, cleaned out her cat tray, lifted Beasley up to his cookies, had my shower, decided what to wear for the day, put it on, and was ready to leave the house. Now, if I could only do that on a day other than the weekend, I would be truly happy! Especially if Zarraffas doors were open and the coffee machine warmed up by the time I got there.

The Broadbeach Markets were on today and I had a wander around them before breakfasting at Alto and making the weekly call to Trish. It certainly is a much more satisfactory and satisfying experience using the Telstra 3G network to make the Skype call. T gives it 95% which isn't bad compared to the other networks which wasn't reliable at all. You wouldn't think there could be such a big difference between two of Australia's larger cellular digital networks - but it is marked.

Back at the Bundall Markets - it was time to start celebrating F's 50th birthday. It is, he keeps telling us, just like any other day - and while that may be so for him, others who have turned or are about to turn 50 sometimes have quite a different story. But, if that's what he wants to believe ... that's okay, as long as there is still an option to have cake to celebrate - even if he doesn't wish to. But we did get some photographs of him (and the rest of us) with his cake with the big 5 and 0 on top of it. It's a pity we neglected to mention to the Market's Coffee people that it was F's birthday - they're quite fond of him and are in awe of his ability to remember the table's coffee order - especially when it changes because there are different people there or the same people having different things.

He was off to see the Shaolin Monks this afternoon - which he was looking forward to - probably even more than he had been looking forward to his game of golf yesterday afternoon. That tuckered him out and he was asleep when M and A rang from Bosnia last night hoping to catch him mid-party rather than mid-nap. But it was good they were able to pass on their birthday wishes via Mi.

I think S is right and the trips to Toowoomba are more tiring than I realize so we had a fairly laid-back afternoon - but not before I'd had a Laksa fix over at The Q Centre.

M is still in hospital with her back troubles and it doesn't seem as though they are any closer to a diagnosis. They have suggested it might be a kidney infection but have not confirmed that - or anything else. L came over last night to pick up the LandRover and while he was here he had a complain about the hospital system - especially as M is in a private hospital and because they are paying for M's care, L is actually expecting that she will get some! She's been in nearly a week now so hopefully they will start to get on top of it soon.