Happy Birthday to Roo

On Monday of this week we celebrated Ruth's thirtieth birthday. She had a really nice time and the community went to great lengths to make it a day to remember. We had our fellowship group meeting at the Volkofskys and Penny had created this amazing four course meal that we all really enjoyed. After this we went to the lounge for a party of sorts. We had some more great food and a great time. There was supposed to be an 'English' theme to the party so we had plenty of tea to drink and a few special guests, namely Dr. Who, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and a random Englishman in a peaked cap. We felt very honoured by their presence. Kind of.


You may remember that a few blogs back I reported that I had crushed my finger during the fateful trip to Swan Hill. Well, the fingernail is still black and ugly but doesn't seem to be doing anything. It's neither healing nor dropping off. It's like it can't decide whether to be dead or not. It continues to live, function and grow in a state of undeath but it's definitely not being 'normal'. It's my undead fingernail; my zombie ungula. An ungula, by the way, is another word for 'claw' or 'talon'. I looked it up on the Internet when I was searching for another way of saying 'fingernail'. So now everyone who insists that it's only a good blog when they 'learn something new' should be happy.

We've finally got some idea what we'll be up to next year. We think we'll be staying here in Dubbo for the first part of the year (probably anywhere between three and six months) and then being sent to a first-year centre. At the moment the favourite seems to be Swan Hill, but we'll see. Things can change in the course of a month. While we're here in Dubbo we'll be finalising things like our visas and how much of the course that I haven't yet done I can get away with not doing.

It's really hot here. It must be mid-thirties. And it's still only spring.

Calvin has been pestering us for a pet for a while. He's tried to convince us that a goldfish wouldn't be much work but I don't believe him. Or maybe I should put it this way, I believe that a goldfish is not much work but the point is that Ruth and I would be the ones doing it. Well, OK, mostly Ruth. However, we have now acquired two guinea pigs and they sit in a bird cage on our front lawn. The guinea pigs are sisters (I hope they are anyway because I gather than guinea pigs don't have the same qualms that we have about brother/sister relationships) and the boys 'possess' one each. Calvin named his little pet 'Sydney', which is quite a good name for a female Australian guinea pig. Reid showed a little less sensitivity but just as much imagination by naming his 'Spiderman'. So we have two new additions to the family - Sydney and Spiderman. Hmmmmm. I made it clear to Ruth that we could only take them on if I was not expected to have anything to do with them. I failed to get a similar understanding in place when Xanthe was born so I wasn't going to get caught out this time.

Have a good week. See you in a week and hopefully I'll have something worth saying.