Feb 23 - Guest of Honour: Me!

  A bit of a slow start to the day.  Gub and I woke up, had some toast and then she started compiling photos onto facebook and I started a bit of decluttering.  While we worked through our various bits and pieces we watched a couple of Disney movies for background noise, including one of our newer favourites, The Princess & The Frog.
  As a result of my decluttering time, my Christmas fabrics have now been sorted and put into an appropriate place to await use, the kitchen table now looks worse but definitely has less things on it and I managed to get a little bit of laundry done, not as much as usual but enough that I will cope on Monday.
  Gub had asked me if I could take her to a friend's place in the mid-afternoon and so after a relatively cruisey day, we both started to get ready to head out.  I had decided it would be easiest just to head straight to Mr Smart's after dropping her off so I packed my bag and a couple of bottles of wine and off we went!  I arrived to Mr Smart's earlier than I expected, and almost certainly earlier than he expected, but luckily I'd brought my kindle.
  It was actually really lovely to just curl up in the quiet with my book while he finished his study and reading.  Lately life just seems so 'go go go' so I relish those moments where I have nothing to do.  A quiet moment with my nose in a book is bliss because for a brief while my brain isn't trying to focus on a million things at once.  It was so relaxing in fact that I fell asleep at one point.  I'm not sure how long, twenty minutes maybe.
  Regardless of when I arrived and nap timing, it didn't feel like long before it was time to head to dinner.  Mr Smart grabbed a couple of mysterious presents, one of which was wrapped in Christmas paper.  I once remarked to him that "you can't give someone a birthday present wrapped in Christmas paper" and I believe he has taken considerable joy in proving me wrong on that point.  I grabbed the wine, and off we went.

  Tonight's dinner at Maharajah Tandoori Cuisine, with Masterchef, Mr Masterchef and MissM, was to celebrate my upcoming birthday!  We all arrived a little early for our booking but we were seated straight away.  We perused the menu and almost immediately, all decided on Banquet Three.  After we had ordered, and wine had been poured I was handed presents to unwrap!
  The first was from the Masterchef family and MissM and it was a beautiful but still practical, completely wipeable, recipe organiser from the Swedish stationers kikki.k.  Now I won't have to transpose recipes from magazines onto notecards, I can just tear them out and whack them in a plastic pocket and in the folder.  For me this will be a considerable time-saver.  The guys had even prepopulated a few pockets with some of their favourite recipes which was a truly lovely touch.
  The second present, a small but elegant brown paper package tied up with string, was from Mr Smart's sister and her family.  It was a really gorgeous hand balm, not at all greasy and a beautiful subtle scent, kakadu plum & macadamia nut.  It will become a lovely part of my evening ritual I think.  The product name held a special amusing significance for me too.  She has a great sense of fun and I can just imagine her laughter when she came across it.

  The final present, a large festive-looking delight, was from Mr Smart himself.  I had little idea of what it could be but I suspected something electronic as he had inferred that it could be obtained at either JB HiFi or Officeworks and there had been price-matching involved.  Mr Smart is a brilliant bargain hunter.  I carefully opened one end and peeked inside.  A 3 terabyte network drive!!!
  I grinned like a maniac.  That is the last piece in the puzzle that has been my computer to TV interactivity.  Even better, he leaned in and muttered, "And of course it comes with free installation".  Mr Smart, you are the greatest.
  Shortly after present unwrapping, a steady flow of food began to come out.  Everything was delicious and copious.  We thought at first that we were only getting one serve of all of the main dishes, which actually probably would have comfortably fed the five of us but hardly qualified as a 'banquet'.  Our fears were allayed though, when I second dish of the four mains followed almost immediately and even further allayed when we were told, "if you run out of anything, just let us know".  Apparently their banquets are bottomless, however we did not even make it completely through the two serves as it was.
  After dessert we waddled out and headed home.

  Today's food was:

• Breakfast was two slices of toasted Bürgen wholegrains & oats bread with Vegemite.
• Lunch was a small lemon crumb fish fillet with small serve of sweet potato fries done in the AirFryer.
• Afternoon snack was a single original-style Tim Tam.
• Dinner and dessert were as per the Banquet Three menu.  I had what was photographed, plus a small serve of the onion bhaji, which was done almost like a pakora rather than rings of onion.  I had a couple of bits more garlic naan and one extra kofta.  Yes, I did have both desserts.  I also had one glass of rose champagne and one glass of Dolcetto & Syrah.

  Thank you guys for a fantastic birthday dinner spent in great company, and for your lovely gifts.  I felt really special and thoroughly enjoyed myself.
  Jess