Crossing the ditch

I am in countdown mode this week, as we're off to Surfers Paradise on Saturday morning. Rich and I have both been struck down with the flu, for which I am thankful, because how often do you hear of people getting sick on their holiday? At least we're getting it now.
So after what seems to have been an exceptionally long and dismal winter, we're super excited about getting our pins out and wearing our jandals again. I have even bought a new nail polish to celebrate. I know. It's called Suzi and the Lifeguard and is an OPI polish. It's a lovely pale pink with a slight shimmer to it.
We also are feeling pretty smirky because we have a Thing where, if we have coins in our pockets/wallets/back of the couch, we put them into a money box. I hauled the contents into the bank today and the sum total will pay for a new fragrance for us both and should stock up the booze cabinet also from Duty Free. I absolutely love Duty Free shops...I know it's only a bit cheaper than normal, and you can probably find better prices online...but there's something about knowing that you're getting a bargain and everything smells delicious and everyone's happy because they're going on holiday. Brilliant. Fragrance-wise, I'm going to get Ange ou Demon by Givenchy, because it's the first perfume in a long time that I've actually been able to single out from the myriad of others on the market these days. Rich is getting Fahrenheit, which I adore. Mmmm.
So while we're in Surfers we're going to visit some theme parks - Rich is DYING for Wet n Wild, but being a lady and terrified of heights, I might need to talk him out of this one. We're going to Dreamworld too, but what I most want to do is lie on the beach in the sun. It was 31 degrees there in the weekend - and 16 here. Ahhhhhhh.
Basil has also been in the wars this week. He's very....licky. Like, his fur is sticky, he's so licky. I sound like Run DMC. So he's off to the vet tomorrow before his trip to Karakakats this weekend. Poor wee button.
Our weekend was lovely. We had drinks at ours with some friends on Friday night. We made the most delicious nibbles platter. It had wasabi peas, pistachios, havarti cheese, pate, grapes, feta dip, rice crackers and normal crackers. We mowed it. We also mowed a heck of a lot of wine. We then toddled off up the road to a very small and casual pizza place where we terrorized the owner into having a wine with us and giving him all sorts of advice on how he should do his pizzas. We were awful. It was great though. Hangover the next day - not so great.
Last week I had a tiny operation.... I had a neuroma in my leg. It's this thing. This big hurty thing. So the doctor cut it out....it looked like a cooked lentil. Amazing that something so tiny could cause me soooo much pain. Anyhoo, I now have 3 stitches on the back of my thigh, and an excuse to get out of doing pretty much anything. The word "stitches" opens a lot of doors. Thankfully, it's not a tumour. Well, probably not.
I bought a pair of jeans yesterday. This is only because I have lost 4kgs. Me and jeans shopping do not have a happy relationship. Because I am apple shaped, and short, I have a battle of a time finding a pair of jeans that fits around my tummy, and doesn't make my ass look like the saggy baggy elephant. But, minus 4kgs and nothing to eat for breakfast = success! 3 inches of hem are being removed as we speak, so I can finally throw away my old pair of jeans that I've had for 3 whole years. Madness.
Summer is on the way here......the entire neighbourhood has caught the gardening bug. All we can hear is leaf blowers. In my day, we used a broom. It seems that spending 2 hours chasing leaves all over the place with a roaring, stinking piece of plastic is what you do in the affluent suburb where we are renting. The neighbours also chopped down an enormous lovely pine tree near to our backyard, where tui and keruru would play. I think it annoyed them because every so often, a pine needle would fall off, and land on their Audi, possibly scratching the paintwork and necessitating in an upgrade to the newer model. Thankfully, the tui have now adopted the puriri tree in our backyard, so we are treated to their beautiful song day in and day out. Luckily Basil only shows interest in sparrows, of which there are billions, because they are smaller than him and have ninety million feathers for him to distribute around our hallway and under the furniture. Richard and I have a pact - I do poos and spews, he does dead things. We both think the other got a better deal.
So, back to our Australia trip. We're planning on doing a lot of eating, drinking, lazing about, and spending of money. We finagled really good costs for tickets, and accommodation, thanks to knowing people in the right places. So we're going to spoil ourselves, because we have both had such a difficult year - not with each other, but money-wise, job-wise, living-wise, it's been rough. Here's to a well-deserved rest and celebration time, and what a way to bring in Summer by getting a tan ahead of everyone else. Yessssssss!