Sunday

Skype was behaving itself this morning - which is a welcome change when it comes to the weekly call with Tr because usually there are (lots of) technical glitches. But today it was trouble-free, no interruptions, no need to call back, no pixellation. The Skype folk must be getting closer to implementing their in-call advertising and, presumably, the ability to opt-out of the advertising with a low-cost subscription. Time will tell.

The Markets were good again today - although a reduced crew again with M and Mouse and N still away. V came by herself yesterday (N was at a soccer match) bearing Pide - very nice - which was an excellent first course, followed with A's yummy-as-always banana cake. It is time to kick the murse again next week because we have almost reached the end of the available funds - and, yes, I really do think we are drinking more coffee these Market days! Mi is still having her massages, the boys are still down their end of the table, and really, nothing much else has changed although it is getting harder and harder to get a table that is out of the breeze - and that breeze is fairly cold - but not yet cold enough to have M change out of his tee-shirt and shorts.

E and B came to the Markets today as well and B is looking well but you can tell he hasn't been because he doesn't have the strident forthright attitude which we know him for. E can't be missing Bingo too much because there was no suggestion (that I heard anyway - I was up the boy-end today) that perhaps she and S could go for a game this Wednesday. But Trivia is definitely still on for tomorrow night! There was fire in both S and F's eyes as they talked about it so I guess we'd better pull out all stops! Hopefully one of the questions will be about pigs knuckles because we know the answer to that one!

We called in at the service station on the way home to get some petrol for ROM, before moving on to the supermarket to stock-up on some staples. S was kind enough to do that in Coles while I went and had a poke around in Aldi. Alas, there wasn't that much I was interested in there except a couple of 8GB flash drives and another spindle of blank DVDs (because you can never have too many)! While we were in the shopping centre, I also managed to post Mouse's puzzle entries. I am still in awe at how she does them all - there are some of them that I would rather not have to do (read: perservere with) but it would be just our luck for one of those to be the answer they were looking for when they pulled Mouse's entry out of the barrel. It would be interesting to know how/if they actually do check answers. You would think they would want that part of their business to be as efficient as possible. I'm still not liking those number puzzles very much. Give me the other Numbers anyday!

S's garden was still intact by the time we arrived home so Pearl hasn't been burying any more bones in there. I did remember to offer her back the bone I confiscated last night, but for some reason she didn't want it back, so I had no option but to bin it - and wonder where the others are if they're not in the garden. I'll have to go for a walk to look for them before I jump onto ROM.

S had a nap this afternoon while I did some downloading - and luckily that had finished by the time M Skyped otherwise that may have compromised the bandwidth available for the call. They are doing well in Turkey, and had (and we knew this from our Market spies before S spoke with her) been on a shopping expedition to Greece which is, from where they were, only a stone's throw away (if you have a good, strong arm).

The good news is that no-one was left out in the seating arrangements in the living room tonight - especially since Maggie was having a kip in our room at the time, leaving spaces on the couches next to both S and I for the feline furries until, that is, Pearl wanted to be up on a couch as well!

Tonight's MasterChef was all about soup and Dude Food ... that you have the munchies for at 2am in the morning ... you know, mused Gary, like when you wake up in the middle of the night with a kebab on your chest ... and apparently Emina did!). I cannot wait to see the parody of the episode in tomorrow's Sydney Morning Herald!