Friday and a day out

It was a late start to the morning today - the second time. I had been a responsible cat guardian and been up at 6 to give Tinka her shot, and she and Maggie their little cat broths, but try as I might, I couldn't make myself stay up ... and then, each time I set the alarm and it went off, I would reset it. Finally, just before 8:30 (when the next alarm was due to sound) S texted, and that was the impetus I needed to finally crawl out of bed - being careful not to disturb Tinka who had come in with me after her breakfast and morning ablutions. The funny thing was that it wasn't really a late night last night although I was up and down a couple of times!

The movies queue

The road was open again this morning and whatever they were doing it had nothing to do with fixing the potholes and, this isn't going that far out on a limb, I think they made some of the holes worse with their heavy equipment. Maybe they were working on the overhead power lines after all.

It was busy again at the Nerang Shopping Centre - and what is it about that that turns people into parking monsters? And let's not even go near the Movies, where the line was so long it almost went right around the inside of the Centre (see pic).

The rink

After mucking around at Pacific Fair, I was within minutes of being late to meet Mouse and Az for coffee. I was at The Coffee Club on time though which was good since Mouse only popped by to collect me - we were meeting Az at the coffee shop outside Myer on the first floor of the Centre - and as we waited for her, we watched the children "ice" skating on the rink below us. They were skating on blades but it really didn't look like ice ... it wasn't wet and no-one was "gliding" on it. It looked like hard work actually - but it was good to see what a finely honed sense of balance some kids have - and how rapid arm rotations - and was that flapping? - can sometimes keep them from falling over. But not always.

Illuminated Christmas figure

The rink was a good tie-in, or was it the reason for (?), the Christmas in July theme complete with Christmas trees and illuminated animals throughout the Centre. Alas the Muzak was not Christmas carols.

Next stop ... Broadbeach ... The Coffee Club - to fill in half an hour before my dental appointment. I did manage to score a street park though, so I was extremely pleased with that ... and TCC's strawberry milkshake - it turns out I wasn't full after half a sandwich ... and since I'd already done the pre-dentist teeth clean, I wasn't about to have anything to eat.

Despite my numerous protestations of "it's safe" (a not too obscure reference to Dustin Hoffman's "Marathon. Man") the dentist visit was one of the most painful I have endured for a long time. Halfway through they suggested I come back another day and have injections before proceeding with the clean but at that point I just wanted to get it over and done with. I wasn't sure I would be able to make myself come back any time soon so it was best to "stay and play". We did talk about possible causes afterwards including anxiety (this visit was the first with a different dentist - my normal guy has left the practice and is currently in Yeppoon until August before he moves to Western Australia) which apparently can make people feel more pain than if they weren't anxious. I can attest to the fact that something was causing more pain. The funny thing was that before we started they'd gone over my teeth with a new desensitising cream … it didn't work or if it had, I can't imagine what it would have been like without it - or how they would have coaxed me back down from the ceiling!

The Rock Stars

Back at Latimers, the furries were suitably attentive ... admittedly a little less so after they had their dinners but still they were "around" rather than putting themselves straight back to bed.

On our walk up to B's this morning, Pearl and I chanced upon a couple of the Rock Stars out in a paddock. At first their behaviour seemed a bit odd - not that I'm really a horse person, so don't really know, but I'd never seen two horses standing side by side top to tail chewing on each other's legs ... but then I realised that the Rock Stars are Clydesdales - long leg hair/fur ... and they were grooming each other!

I'm need to check again in the daylight but it seems that the road repair crews were out and about during the day. The two massive potholes - the ones very close together - have definitely been filled so it looks as though it's going to be safer to drive along that stretch of road - at least until it rains again and the patch gets washed away.

It was a very low key evening for me and the furries tonight – we all watched a little bit of television, each of the cats coming out at different times, and Pearl with me most of the time. She seems to like Harry Potter, and The Simpsons almost as much as I do!