Saturday 15 February

We were all up early this morning: me to go to Surfers Paradise to photograph some of the entries in this year's Sand Sculpture championships (they started working on them yesterday) and Sooz and M to go to Deep Water Running.

Sand man

The Sand Sculpting has changed a lot since I last went two years ago. The entries are now under portable gazebos - which must be great for the competitors since they are not stuck shaping sand in the sun all three days of the competition and their work is protected in case of rain. This looks much more workable than the plastic orange sheeting they were using to protect the works then and also meant early morning people back then couldn't look at the works because the sculptors usually didn't take the covers off until 8am. There were lots of people looking at them today though - and I think they would have noticed the change to the "People's Choice" voting - each sculpture had a voting box - and people aren encouraged to vote via a gold coin. I wonder if the ultimate winner gets to keep all the "gold coin" or what you get is what you keep. It wasn't a bad idea and because the boxes are clear perspex, it means you can see how your favourite is currently placed.

Then, with questions still buzzing around my brain ... but not what type of sand they use, what happens to the sculpture at the end, how heavy the sculptures are, what they spray on them during the course of the competition - and why - I set off to Marina Mirage to meet up with Sooz and M for breakfast before M zoomed off to meet up with the Russians and take them to MovieWorld for the day. I wonder if it holds little attraction for them because the icons the rides are based on (assuming an icon can be a superhero) are not familiar to them because they were brought up in the east. (Update - well how wrong was that supposition? It seems like it really is a small world afterall and Kir and Ig are well aware of superheroes and culture outside Russia because most of it is now inside Russia!)

While M was off with the Russians, Sooz and I were having a quiet afternoon in - which translated to a big sleep for Sooz and a couple of nana-naps for me because I refused to give in to the heat and general tiredness and was working on the iPad outside instead of retiring to bed. But it was hot.

I finally went online to look at the SMH Benefits we get through our subscription. As well as more "print" content, we have access to something called "smh.tv" which has documentaries ... and feature length moview. I watched something called "The Behemoth" this afternoon and can say that someone could truly have saved their money by not making it. The only good thing was that it had "cigarette smoking man" from the X-Files who seems to have avoided being typecast by that role!

Sand (wo)man

We saw Pearl this afternoon - and we didn't have to kidnap her to do it! Although this morning I was saying I was prepared to ... maybe that part slipped my mind - as well as when I agreed to call Syl to arrange something for this evening (they were due back this afternoon) and it was only when I asked M what was happening with them ater this afternoon that she reminded me that I had agreed to call them. I had absolutely no recollection of it - and it makes me wonder how many other things I have agreed to do - but not. Anyway. I had promised to pick Mouse up this afternoon - and I did remember that - so that was good. Probably not too amazing, because she has such a great memory, Sooz said she remembered M having asked me to do the Syl call.

Gruff stuff

Pearl seemed happy to see us - but not as happy as we were to see her. The cats are missing her too we think - they are spending a lot of time hanging out which each other and not every encounter ends in fresh scratches on Tinka's nose!

Putt Putt with the Russians was ... interesting. The boys hadn't played before and did manage to get the hang of it ... before we moved across the road to Sizzler for dinner (thanks Mouse!). The queue was not small when we arrived - which would have been fine - had the air conditioning been working.

Even though there was the option of a second round of Putt Putt after dinner, it seemed everyone was happy to go home.And after we had dropped Mouse off at home, we went straight home ... not via the dance ...although we did stop at the Service Station because I wanted some milk and Sooz wanted a paddlepop - it was quite late by the time we got there but the highish temperatures of today were still hanging around.

Once home - and despite my early rise this morning - I settled in front of the television to watch some Winter Olympics ... but, I had to make myself promise that I wouldn't turn on the captions so I wouldn't still be there at sun-up.