Tuesday

While it looked it was going to be a fine and sunny day, it wasn't always. As I sat in Zarrafa's this afternoon, the sun shining brilliantly, the rain came bucketing down out of nowhere! I had just made it in but others - you could tell who they were because they were more than a little wet - weren't so lucky. It could be that I spend a lot of time inside, or that they don't happen on weekends - or maybe that often - but this is the first sunshower I've seen in a while. It was actually very exciting to see the juxtaposition of sun and rain.

It had stopped raining by the time I arrived home - although we all know there was no way I would have left Zarraffa's if it had still been raining - and M, who was driving up to Brisbane this evening for a dinner, had time to squeeze in a walk with Pearl. And then, because I still needed to rack up a few steps towards my daily goal, I took Pearl again after M had left. We went down to B's shed and I was surprised at how much more interested Dolly and Pearl are in each other than previously - and not necessarily in a positive way although it's a little hard to tell across the species divide at times.

We had hoped that now J, N and the kids have moved in with L next door that someone would have more capacity to take Spot - the car chaser - in hand. But it hasn't happened yet - and it really does need to if he's going to survive on the laneway. For the regulars - it's okay because we know what he's like - but more than local folk come down past their house. Today, for instance, the Neilsen Ratings man came to install "the box" (did anyone else hear a drum roll there?). The technician (and he was a technician rather than an installer) was very knowledgeable and obliging and was able to do some "fixes" while he was there - a couple of them above and beyond what could reasonably be called "duty". S and M liked him a lot - or should I call them B and A - because those are their new ''secret" identities. And there are no prizes for guessing that K will now be known as C! The tech did a great job of teaching them too because they had no trouble/problem teaching me what to do when logging in and logging out. It will be an interesting exercise, especially as our data is transmitted back to base in the wee small hours of the morning. I wonder how they did it before the technology existed and if they choose households which don't have internet capability or whether that's built into their box! Questions, questions, questions.

Emma is still ''out of the"cupboard" and seems to be well within herself. Tlnk is still looking a bit on the skinny side, which is odd because she has been known to push Beazley out of the way to get to his cookies. Poor Beazley - Maggie does it too!