Happy Birthday John ...

It was the big cheese's birthday today - not telling you what age he turned (he might hit me!). Don't think the "getting older" thing agrees with him - seems he wants to go backwards from now on in - there might just be something in that.




Seems like we are still in the middle of this little lot - with kids but itching for the open road.

and they get smaller ...

Speaking of small boxes - here is Miss Bella happily curled up in our bread roll basket on the kitchen table. She's very cute but I think the basket might need a bit of a sanitise prior to it's next use.

Boxes ...

Cats love boxes - that's an official fact. The problem is they love ALL boxes regardless if they can actually fit properly in them. Not such an issue for Miss Bella as she is tiny but our over sized Mr Zo has some problems in the squeezing into small places area.

Getting into Top Gear ...

Headed into Sydney yesterday afternoon to check out "Top Gear Live". We did the show last year and as it was James May accompanying Jeremy Clarkson instead of Richard Hammond this time we knew we just had to go again. The show was much the same format as the last one with a few new quirks and a roll out of new and exciting cars. We enjoyed ourselves; nothing like some high octane fumes in the afternoon to wet our appetite for the upcoming new TV series commencing next week.

So beautiful ...

Ahhhh - how I love long stemmed red roses.

Happy St Valentine's Day.

A good day ...

The big beaming smile says it all - this was ribbon two of the day, second in backstroke. He finished the CCAS school swimming carnival with 2 x second (backstroke and freestyle), 1 x first (breaststroke) and 1 x third (relay). He went in everything he could go in and was asked to swim in the final event of the day - the house team relays. I couldn't have been prouder. Well done Christopher.

Playing with paper ...

I've been busy doing layouts for a number of challenges for a cyber crop weekend held over on Get It Scrapped! I haven't done a lot of paper scrapping lately so it was nice to play with my supplies this week. Above are just a couple of the pages I did.

Fine dining ....

John took me here for my birthday yesterday. It's a gorgeous Italian restaurant, the head chef is Stefano Manfredi of international fame and it was as close to perfection as I have ever dined. Definitely a 9.5 out of 10. The food was superb, the waiters attentive without being overpowering. A lovely night all round - can't wait to go again.

And the heavens opened ...

Went to lunch today with a girlfriend at Iguana's on the Gosford waterfront. Just as we started on our garlic bread the heavens opened and a huge thunderstorm proceeded to drop heavy rain across the Central Coast. It thundered and rumbled, there were huge flashes of forked lightening. The rain came down in sheets and then suddenly there was a massive clap of thunder overhead and everything went dark - blackout !! The worst area affected was from West Gosford through to East Gosford where every traffic light was out of commission and there was deep water across the roads. Police were called in to do point duty at major intersections and many businesses were forced to shut down due to lack of power. Drivers took more than an hour to cover just a few kilometres. Of course this storm coincided with the end of the school day which created even more problems. A journey from Iguana's to my kid's school is normally a 5 to 10 minute run; on Friday it took nearly 50.

A sticky situation ...

CJ came home today laden with books from school.

"These have to be covered Mum," he says.

"Covered??" I squeak weakly.

"Yep - in contact," he replies.

"Groan," is my response. I hate contacting books, hate it, hate it, hate it. In fact I think I am the WORST contacter of books in the southern hemisphere. Definite "Fail" plastered all over my achievements - wrinkles, bubbles, holes - you name it, I can come up with it.

"Tonight?" I ask tentatively glancing at the front door wondering if I can make a quick getaway without anyone noticing.

"Uh - huh," he tells me.

"Double groan".

I do two - they look like crud. So bad - I try the third, it's worse than the others. I pull the contact off. Cut another bit, realise I misjudged size and it's too narrow. Throw that away. Cut another piece, try to get that on - it wrinkles up and as I'm pulling it off for another try it attaches itself to the other adhesive section and I can't get it apart. I ball the whole thing up and chuck that too. Things aren't looking good at the kitchen table - I'm using words that shouldn't be used in my own company and I'm eyeing off the pile of books still sitting there wondering who I can rope into doing them at 9pm at night.

Enter hubby who realises that a meltdown of monumental proportion is about to happen and takes over - bless his wonderful little cotton socks. I knew there was a reason I married him. His contact covering is in the C+ category but is one heck of an improvement on mine.