Birthday, Wallace, Specs

We've been a little quiet on the bandwagon, so I decided to put my day off to good use and write an update about Dee and my activities of late.  (Unfortunately, after writing about 500 words of classic prose, poignant reflections on the craziness of la vie moderne punctuate with amusing quips and quibbles, Firefox crashed and lost my bloggy efforts.  The following entry is thus an attempt to reconstruct based on the principle of "er, what did I write last time?")

First I have to say THANKYOU THANKYOU THANKYOU to everyone for their well-wishes (and presents) for my birthday.  I had a great time -- a brilliant meal at a fancy-pants restaurant with my beloved, then getting stonkingly drunk on semi-expensive wine, then chasing it with a tall coffee with cream and those delicious little mints.  A brilliant night -- and well and truly worth the headache the next day.

I got some very nice gifts, too -- Egglings (eggs that you crack open and little plants grow from); Ambergris wash (made from whale sick, look it up!); green tea picked by specially trained monkeys (as opposed to monkeys who have a more general education such as the VCE, or A-levels). 

From Dee I got an awesome gift -- the Suunto T3 heart-rate monitor watch!  Stylish in black, the T3 records heart-rate, calories and "training effect" for each training session -- brilliant, since I'm trying to concentrate on my personal fitness goal of running the Edinburgh marathon (I've actually been running the equivalent of a couple of miles about three times a week at the gym -- which I can only do now that I got fitted for some new runners, as my old ones were horrible, plastic and hurt my feet).

We took a weekend away to the foot of the highlands a little while ago, staying at the little cottage house shown here.  We travelled by bus to Stirling, home of the William Wallace monument, and spent an afternoon climbing circular stairways and learning about Braveheart.  We've not been anywhere since, but we're both working as much as we can at the moment to save up some dosh.  We've got all the tickets and everything for Paris in Decembre, and then we're planning on visiting Egypt early next year, and maybe a bit of an Eastern Europe tour sometime too.

Of course we're looking forward to seeing Dayna in a couple of weeks, and having her with us for Christmas.  Dee wants to make her "Haley's Comet" again this year -- the Christmas pudding with enough brandy to run a 1925 Silver Anniversary Buick for about 17 hours straight -- so I've got to get the local fire department on speed dial before then, you know, just in case.  She also wants to instigate a new family tradition -- making home-made Baileys.  (Actually, this is a borrowed tradition from some dear friends, and so much fun.)  We're going to get a "living tree" for Christmas, then put it out on the balcony (or in the hallway) until 2007, and try to keep it alive!

The other news is, as you can see from the picture, that I've got some new glasses.  It's about time, really -- since I lost my "nice" ones in the ocean off Adelaide's coast I've been wearing contact lenses and the "spares", which I don't really like that much (they were two for one at Budget Specs back in Uni).  These new ones are, I think, pretty trendy.  I'm also trying out monthly contact lenses -- that is, lenses that you wear for 30 days (including overnight) and then throw away.  It's brilliant being able to wake up and see in the morning, and until my prescription settles I'm not going to get laser surgery (it needs to be stable for a couple of years, really).

Not much else, although I've uploaded the baptism photos to Flickr if anybody wants them.  (Such a cutey!)

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