Friday

It was an extremely busy day at work but it was made a little better because J was able to go out and fetch lunch for us. We're still having problems with the financial systems at work which makes it very difficult to rely on them - and even more so to try to get anything done to a pre-determined deadline because uploads fail seemingly randomly now. Ah well, it will still be there on Monday.

After work - it was off to Kyogle to meet up with S. I admit I could have planned the drive better. I had thought it would be good to drive down in the late afternoon - thinking I would be heading south. That would have been fine, except for that I was actually driving south west and the setting sun proved to be quite a problem. I stopped in Murwillumbah to dig my sunglasses out of the back of the car - which helped a little but was still not ideal. But it was worth it for a look back over Mt Warning and the surrounding hills with the red sky behind them. I imagine it must be a little bit like it is on Mars!

The Kyogles were all good and in fine form. They had been off for a day of sight-seeing in the local area - including to the Murwillumbah Art Gallery which I still haven't managed to visit, and to a picnic area out the back of somewhere in a lovely bush setting. There were a couple of groups of people there including them, but it was they that the 2-metre-long goanna approached first looking for tidbits - it can smell my lamb sandwich P said - and he may have been right. Apparently as it approached its little (?) tongue was flicking backwards and forwards - and that is, so we're told, how they smell. They didn't wait around to see what it would do - although there was some discussion that as the tallest one, it would probably chose P to run up if it was frightened and was seeking higher ground in a "tree".

L's saxophone playing has turned a corner and she managed a B+ in her recent exam - beating her brother who gained a B. I suggested she might be competitive - but, she assured me, the only one she had wanted to beat was P. It is a bit scary reading through a teenage girl's music book - she said she had been bored one day when she had written comments about the "Lean On Me" song - and, it would seem that if one was in a position where one needed to, L should probably not be the first choice.

P's trombone was silent while we visited, but he did let us watch him on his flight simulator - as he lamented that every town in the US seemed to have an airport!!!