Happy Birthday to Me!

The alarm clock went off at eight this morning... oh, except it was the telephone... I grunted, half-aware (actually that's a bit ambitious) through what can't really be called a conversation with Dad and received his birthday greeting with a groan. Sorry...

The house was then awake and we went about my present opening. Yippee. From Nicole, some cookies, some coffee, some chocolate, a hat, and a great book about wild places to visit around Brisbane. The coffee woke me up.

A leasurely dog-ride down the brook ended with Matilda on the lead after ignoring SWMBO one too many times, then a shower and off to the rainforest at Mt Glorious, one of my favourite places, for a little walk round a 2km circuit diving down into a sub-tropical forest glade. The sunshine was very warm as we got out of the car, and the temperature dropped radically as we entered the gloomy rainforest.

I love rainforests. They are so very old. They are apparently relics of what life was like back when the continent was part of Gondwana. Made me feel quite young. On my birthday. A good thing.

We then toddled up the road a little way to a little café we'd spotted last time we drove through on the way back from Lake Somerset and quite liked the look of.

We ordered cream teas only to be told that they were short staffed and cream teas were far too time-consuming. There were two ladies serving, the rest of their little posse at Olley's Rainforest Honeypot Retreat had gone into Brisbane for a flower show. We heard them arguing out back about whether cream teas were on the menu or not. We couldn't really work out what the panic was as there were only four other customers there.

We settled for sandwiches (vegetarian for me, toasted ham cheese and tomato for Nicole) and coffees, which were very nice and a babychino for Eloise. The babychino, as the name suggests, is a sort of cappucino with no coffee in it, just foamed milk. The ladies there didn't know that (though it was on the menu), couldn't decide whether it was hot chocolate or coffee that went in, thought they'd seen us with a baby, so to be on the safe side made it with coffee, which was nice for me. The food was very nice actually and we finished off with pancakes with honey, butter and cream.

The café was in the rainforest as well, with plants poking up through the decking. It was quite cold. We broke out our hoodies.

For supper we had leftover soup, then bathed Eloise in the sink. She has lost the plug for the shower, and we can't find one anywhere that fits. Although we have actually only looked in Bunnings (B&Q to you).

We spoke to James. I'm expecting his present in the post. I may be waiting quite some time.