Monday

It was another busy day. First up was a trip to Ormeau and a catch-up with Jo over breakfast. All is well in her world. Je and Ad are back from their week-long visit to Japan and they enjoyed it very much! She has told Ke about the unavailability of seats on planes to Canada before Christmas and that she hasn't been about to get Ra onto a flight back with Je ... so Jo will be going with Ra. She (Jo) thinks Ra is too young to fly to Canada by herself. And, of course, they have just celebrated Ra's 16th birthday, and that including sending her and a bunch of her friends to the Q1 for lunch in the Pink Panther Hummer. Amazing!

Catch-up done, it was time with my appointment with the doctor. I had the first spot for the day - 8.45 ... and at 9.45 I was still waiting. Reception had phoned her before she arrived - and since it was a "pupil-free" day she had come in earlier, taking an appointment before mine. She was giving family-planning advice to a young couple - or specificially how to plan not to have a family straight away - and she felt it was important to spend the time with them to make sure she had discharged her responsibilities, and given them enough information to stay child-free until they made a conscious decision otherwise. While I understand the importance of such a notion, it would have been nice if I hadn't had to wait for over an hour!

I managed to get to work only three hours late when it was all said and done so ended up working a very short day (6 hours) ... and because of the shorter time, it flew faster than it usually does!

Sooz and I called in to see Syl and Anita on the way to Trivia this evening. I tried out the video file format I'm using for An's birthday presentation, to see if it would play on their televisions - and just as well, because it didn't. I'll have to try something else, maybe a bit safer, like MP4. But at least I had the "The Army Years" segment on the iPad and could show them that so they could see what my video/editing work is like. (Well done Sooz in helping me choose the music and for your patience in watching the various versions.)

Trivia was ... interesting but FI must never know how close we came to being on The Podium tonight! He is still away in Malaysia - which is a shame since there was a "Celebrities as Kids" photo round up first tonight - but we managed a solid 6 without him (much, much better than the last time when we managed a total of 4 for a people photo round).

We called in to the Bundall Post Office on the way home from Trivia. The one letter we didn't post there was Mouse's puzzle entry. As we sat waiting to see the doctor this morning, I asked Jo (who was keeping me company) if there was a post box in the shopping centre complex - and yes, there was, and it had used to right outside the surgery but had recently been moved to roadside. Honestly, just after that conversation, a LOL came in, clutching a handful of envelopes, and asked Reception where the post box had gone to. They explained it to her and when it was obvious that she was going there straight away, I asked if she would mind taking one for me ... and she did ... so well-done her. It was greatly appreciated.