Wednesday

What a busy week we've had so far ... and it's only Wednesday. Of course, you have to start the week from the last blog entry ... and in that time we've been to Toowoomba for a couple of nights, and to Swell a couple of times, and managed to do some walks down at the Broadwater, a night food market, and to fit in some reading (but not a lot) and maybe a couple of viewings of "Only Murders In The Building". Yes, it's been busy busy busy since I put in my last assignment to TAFE.

It was good in Toowoomba .. we managed to catch up with the bro' who has been off and about tripping around Australia since March. He is in town to swap out his T-Van for a new off-road self-contained van that will hopefully be ready by the end of October - they keep pushing back the delivery date ... I'm wondering if that's because of supply issues or because so many folk are now spending their dollars touring Australia since they can't really do that much overseas travelling - is it harder to get motel bookings or caravan sites?

Wa has so many stories about his travels so far - because he really does intend to do a lot more - and once he has his self-contained van he will be able to go into National Parks - something he really wants to do but is only allowed if your travelling vehicles are totally self-contained - for both black water and grey water.

While he's around he's doing some odd jobs for Mum (and maybe the others) - because he's really good at that. We're expecting him to come down and see us in the next little while, and he doesn't realise it yet but we may have some handyperson jobs lined up for him ... for us, and also for Pe. She's after someone to help her with five small-ish jobs around her apartment - which may become six if she does decide to move her television onto a wall mount (because she has two cats and I told her about Mimi and her altercation with M and Mouse's television).

The flowers are out in Toowoomba and there were heaps of folk out and about having a look-see. We went up to Picnic Point to see that display before driving past Queens Parks where there was absolutely no change of getting a park, before we met Ma and We for lunch at Cafe Guitar, one of We and Ma's new favourite hangouts. They have live music on a Saturday afternoon - and an impressive array of guitars hanging from the walls - and there was even a sitar made out of a pumpkin.

On Saturday night we went out to Westbrook where they were having a night food market. We met the others there and then went on to Ch and Te's to celebrate El, Ch and Ma's birthday's - how amazing that they have birthdays on Saturday, Monday and Wednesday!

Back on the Coast, on Monday morning I went off to Swell to see what they have on offer this year. There are some spectacular pieces but you have to be fast if you want to make an offer on some of them. The Guardian was put on display on Wednesday at lunch time, and it had sold by that evening for $45,000. Of course it looks to be worth every cent of that, and more.

I managed to restrict myself to just under 700 photos and it took a good chunk of time to look through them to sort down to what I thought was the best selection. As always there were some I couldn't decide between and I'm hoping Sooz will be able to choose between the ones where I still have five or six very similar but still different shots.

We were back at Swell on Tuesday morning - Sooz, Pe and I. We had breakfast at the Surf Club - their first breakfast offering in four weeks as they had been unable to get their staff over the border. As we sat watching, a gentleman at the next table took out his camera and focussed out to sea ... and that's how we noticed the pod of dolphins. Very special. There were a few more people walking in and around the Swell sculptures this morning - it's good to see there are so many folk interested and excited about art and prepared to walk on the sand to see the sculptures.