Saturday

It's great having a day off on a Friday because it really makes the weekend seem longer - much longer than that one additional day suggests. It's going to be a bit confusing for Pearl tomorrow though - when I'm around for the third morning in a row.

It was fine this morning so M took Pearl with her to have breakfast with Mouse at Sisters. In the meantime, S and I went off to the Post Office to collect a parcel - which may have been a birthday present but was more likely to be - and was - S's new book Down To Earth - written by the same woman whose blog she reads. It's a nice book, very well-produced, a good size, and very informative to boot. When we ordered it, I had a feeling she wouldn't be disappointed and she definitely isn't.

Em, while still a little on the low-key side, is now not spending all her time in the cupboard. She is eating like a horse again and is certainly making sure she gets outside at every opportunity to drink the water out there.

Today is St Patrick's Day and there was a draw in at The Big House with a chance to win a trip to Dublin or $15,000 cash. S came in for this one, too, as we had made a booking immediately afterwards at a vegetarian Chinese restaurant at Mermaid. Mouse came to dinner with us too. Don't tell anyone, but for someone who doesn't like tofu, I enjoyed it very much! How did they make the beef and cashews taste like beef with cashews; how did they get the tofu to have the right texture, consistency and flavour? How does a vegetarian know how different forms of animal and seafood protein taste? And why is it that when you see just about everyone else in a restaurant having the same dessert, you know you have to have it as well, even before you know what it is! Mmmmm ... sago with organic ice cream. It was good, although S didn't much like its consistency - which left more for us ... okay, me.

M managed to get some gardening in this afternoon - a good trimming of the bohemia tree (ROM will now fit under it) and some mowing in Hermes paddock. She would have managed more had it not started raining - and it was still raining very heavily when it was time to go into The Big House.

Beazley was very happy today because he managed to get into M's room and have a nap on her bed. He doesn't get to go in there often because in the past he has proved himself to be non-trustworthy and managed to not go outside when he needed to. Hopefully he had better manners this time.