Nov 10 - A Very Special Birthday

  I had a pretty lazy day today.  My evil body got me up early but I mooched around for a while before having a breakfast of toasted banana bread with yoghurt, two dried peach halves, slivered almonds and pumpkin seeds.  Then I went and had a rather long shower and then half-dressed and mooched some more.
  As I was starting to assemble my clothes and things for tonight and think about what else I needed to do before then, I realised that I had forgotten to wash a bra yesterday.  Eek!  No good trying to look gorgeous if you are then going to be whiffy I thought to myself.  So I stripped my bed and tossed a couple of bras in the wash with the bed linen.  I then went outside and brought in the dry washing and laid it away, put new fresh linen on the bed and made myself some chicken nuggets for lunch.  Ten to be precise, with two teaspoons of Heinz Salad Cream followed by a kiwi fruit with skin on.

 






  After lunch I hung out the load of sheets and put the bra in front of the heater to dry as quickly as possible.  Once it was done I got dressed into my new outfit and decided to give you a closer up photo of me than yesterday.  After all, it's not every day I wear a dress.  This was the best photo I took.
  I used the Canon on self-timer on my Velbon tripod.  It was a little tricky at first working out how to get the focus worked out as it refused to focus on a blank wall.  Eventually I worked out if I put a broom in my position it would focus and then I just had to throw the broom out of the way.
  I still have a lot of weight to lose, but it was lovely to hear the feedback yesterday that people could really see a difference.  Thank you.

  Now to a very special birthday.  I have been super nervous for the last two weeks, awaiting the reveal of my months of scheming but finally today came!  About five or six months ago Mr Smart remarked that he'd always wanted to go to Tasmania via the boat, and immediately my mind started ticking over.  From then until now I have been quietly scheming away, planning and booking a wonderful holiday for the two of us.  It seemed the perfect birthday present on a number of levels including the rather selfish one that I have wanted to return to Tasmania since I was about 15 years old and went on school camp.
  I wasn't quite sure how to wrap a holiday so my first thought was to buy a toy boat and wrap that with travel documents.  I rang the offices of the Spirit of Tasmania and asked if they sold souvenir models of the boat.  The lovely girl who answered, explained that unfortunately they didn't, but she'd be happy to send me one of their tub toys.  It arrived to me a week later with a note "Hoping the birthday surprise is everything you hope it will be!"  A really wonderful example of a company providing service that is over and above expectations.  Anyway, below is the present as I was wrapping it.  I was pretty pleased with how it turned out.

  Tonight a group of ten of us headed to the Village Square Greek Tavern in Heidelberg to celebrate Mr Smart's birthday.  When all the guests were assembled, I gave him his present, an inconsequential looking blue box tied with sea green raffia, and we all awaited his response.  Huge thanks to Mr & Mrs Masterchef, Miss M, Fly Girl and Earnest for keeping me sane and reassuring me that he'd love it while I lived in my paranoia purgatory awaiting this night!  He loved it, though he did not look as surprised as I might have hoped.
  On Thursday evening, I had asked Mr Smart what he thought he had worked out about my scheme.  He revealed that he had worked out when the scheme took effect (which wasn't hard, because I told him months ago that he had to be completely available that week) and he had also worked out that he was unlikely to be in Melbourne that week.  He did almost catch me offguard when he said "Is it something to do with Tasmania?"  I, probably unconvincingly, avoided answering the question and the conversation moved on.
  I asked him when we got home, what had made him guess.  I knew none of his friends had slipped up, so I could only assume it was me somehow.  After torturing me for a while he admitted that he remembered telling me how much he'd wanted to go to Tassie on the boat and that not soon after, but not a long time after, I had started my mysterious scheming.  So note to self for next time, don't tell Mr Smart you are scheming.
 We had a really lovely meal.  The food was great, the wine flowed as did the conversation, and the service was really friendly.  At one point Bertie had the hostess sitting with us teaching her and Mr Smart's sister how to make origami lotus flowers out of the napkins.
   We all chose to have their 'Set Menu 1' which at $45 per head consisted of: Entrees: Mixed dips (tzatziki, melitzanosalata and taramasalata) with homemade warm crusty bread, saganaki with lemon, marinated red capsicum strips and crispy fried whitebait.  Mains: A seafood platter with blue grenadier fillets, pan fried battered calamari and barbecue prawns followed by a meat platter with keftedes, gyro lamb, chicken souvlaki, chicken wings and loukaniko (a spicy pork sausage) and creamy potatoes and side serves of Greek salad containing a rather nice creamy fetta.

And then of course there was desserts!  Galaktobouriko (baked custard slice) and baklava and slices of fresh orange and strong sweet Greek coffee.  I had a lot of everything, including three glass of wine, a Grant Burge Moscato Rosa, a Grant Burge Moscato and a Chocolate Shiraz with dessert.  I had two pieces of both sticky desserts in fact and potatoes too.  Suffice it to say, we all ate too much, drank to much and generally had a wonderful time.  Thank you to all who made the trip in to make it a special night for our Mr Smart.
  Jess

Happy Birthday Mr Smart!