A Happy Birthday to Me!............('and me!' says 'Elaine'.)

My day began with four cards from the UK. Thank you to Anne, Margaret, Auntie Joan and Andy, Julia, William and Maisie.I went for a walk in Toohey Forest, though I forgot my phone and feared getting lost without my satnav, but happily didn't.

Grass tree incineration.

Dulcie, 'Elaine' and I shared half a Charcoal Chicken for lunch, 'Elaine' had more than her fair share as you would expect.

When Will returned home I opened my presents and got a lovely new rainbow umbrella, games , minstrels and a tee shirt and a Custard tart cake!

Wendi, Will's sister came for tea with Dulcie and Will and I went out for a meal to 'Blackbird', a restaurant in the city by the river over looking the Story Bridge.

For starter I had warm citrus cured New Zealand king salmon with baby squid, garlic, saffron and ink linguini.

Will had silk purse from a sow’s ear with Glasshouse Mountains snails and green goddess dressing.

They were both fantastic and so delicious, though 'Elaine' grumbled at the portions.

For mains we both had a 300g Darling Downs - Black Angus – Scotch fillet. All served with a selection of house made mustard, sauce and Blackbird coleslaw.

We both had a caramelised red onion sauce and shared shoestring fries with lemon myrtle aioli and saltbush, truffled cauliflower ‘mac-n-cheese’ gratin and beans and pulses, cracked grains, salted ricotta and caperberries.

We were well and truly stuffed!......even 'Elaine' was grumbling.

Afterwards we drove to Balmoral (no, not that one.....the suburb of Brisbane...tut) to see a film.

We had a private showing (yes, we were the only two in the whole cinema!) of 'Boy Choir' with Dustin Hoffman, Kathy Bates, Eddie Izzard and Debra Winger.....such an illustrious cast but one of Dulcie's descriptive phrases comes to mind to sum it up:

"A heap of crap!"

No matter, I have had a very lovely day.

Battle Update - Achievements.

So.......since we came back from our trip to Canberra I have walked at least an hour everyday.Thanks to my friend 'Endomondo', who travels with me in my pocket, I can tell you that in the last fortnight I have walked over 100 kms in 18 hours and burned over 6500 calories.I can also report that the new, more accurate scales that I bought last week, announced today that I am now 89.4 kgsTake that 'Elaine'.

Anzac Day.

Weirdly, this was my computer background when I switched it on this morning. There are many various images that my computer cycles through as a background on my desktop so it chose it itself. Is it proof that computers are becoming sentient beings and one day when I type something that it does not agree with it will snap shut and chop off my two middle fingers?It is called 'Mohnfeld Poppy Field' by Marco Muller and very appropriate it is too for today is Anzac Day here in Australia. A day when everything shuts except the essential things like hospitals and airports and power stations. I think even McDonald's has had to shut to pay it's respect......but I think it can reopen again after noon. Pubs and clubs can open, of course, for people to go in, watch the celebrations on TV and have a drink or seven.The build up has been going on for weeks, nay months and dare I say it almost feels as long as the war itself......(he quickly  withdraws his middle fingers in case his laptop is offended.)Today marks 100 years since the first Gallipoli landing but the Gallipoli Centenary Celebrations are due to continue until 2018. Gulp!"Lest we forget"We should not forget and certainly the TV over here will not let you forget but it would seem that much of the World has forgotten because people are still dying in wars and conflicts the World over. I wonder what those people who gave their lives at Gallipoli would say looking down at the World they died for. Will we ever learn?It does seem that the World is a much more horrible place these days but I expect King Herod, Atilla the Hun and Ghengis Khan might disagree. I'm not sure it is.As you know I am engaged in my own battle but I don't want to annihilate 'Elaine'.......just cut her down to size a bit.Recently while out walking to burn up calories three little things happened that made it clear to me that there is still good in the World.The first was as I was walking along a narrow footpath by a very busy road earphones in, listening to my ipod and a workman was walking home from work in the opposite direction. We were different, had different coloured skin and he was definitely tougher than me and younger. I was glad it was daylight because I would have been worried about encountering him in the dark. I stepped off the path nearer the road and continued to walk along the grass with my back to the traffic so he could have the footpath. He stuck out a finger and wagged it, looking disapprovingly and motioned for me to move back over and he walked along the grass nearest the road because he was facing the coming traffic and could see any danger. He flashed me a fabulous smile as he passed.Yesterday, in pretty much the same area, I passed a very run down house which Dulcie would say definitely needed a bit of paint. A small group of people of African origin were playing in the garden......it was a Dad and his four children and the children were laughing happily with him. He looked like he had just come home from work. How many Dad's, I wondered, do that these days?Just around the corner another man was cutting his grass. I had never seen him before in my life but he gave me the friendliest wave and smile as I walked past that I can ever remember getting.I just hope that those Anzac heroes witnessed those small, heart warming moments and are not tuned to Channel 9 News every night.

And in the going down of the sun.......I remembered them.

The Results.

Marie answered my phone call this morning and before long I was speaking to Dr Hew.The CT scan report confirmed that Dulcie had a compressed fracture of her vertebrae but there were no other complications that we did not know about which was good.Dr Hew said he would give us a prescription for more Endone and that her pain could continue for up to 6 weeks.She has been much improved today and is much more like her usual self.

Nocturnal Exertions........(Ahem!)