Dinner is in the first stage of prep and I'm relaxing while I wait. I'm thinking that I should be putting a load of washing through but I'm not there yet.

It's potato bake tonight. Should I have it with salad? I'm not sure. Sunday night should be a lazy dinner I think.

I love it when I get to see the native wildlife doing their wildlifey things. Last Tuesday I was dreaming out the bus window in the morning and happened to spy some kookaburras in the trees. Two were huddled together on one branch and a solitary one on a different branch in the same tree. A little further on I saw one on the wing. *smiles dreamily out the bus window*

On Tuesday I finally received the approval I needed to go ahead and book travel for a couple of the GTs. When I finally let the travel agent know we could go ahead, so much time had elapsed that the price for the airfare had doubled. This is not unexpected - the closer you get to the departure date, the more expensive the fares. I let my GM know. He was not pleased. There was not much I could do about it! Since the price increase was so dramatic, he decided he would have to speak to his boss and gain approval to spend the extra money.

Wednesday rolled around and no further action on the approval front. I thought I would let the travel agent know what was happening. My GM asked me to email his boss directly to advise what was happening. I did. Then the travel agent got back to me asking if the travellers would be willing to travel a day earlier. That dropped the price of the fares back to a more bearable level. I thought I would do the costs again, this time with the earlier days travel. It worked. Instead of a price increase of $2000, I had narrowed it down to an increase of $200. My GM was please but not effusive. He asked me to email his boss with the details. I emailed his boss. Surely enough, my phone rang. Can you please come around and explain this to me? I snuck around - who wants direct contact with the Director? - and explained what I had done. He was sooo happy! Happy and enthusiastic and sang my praises to the heavens for saving him having to explain to HIS boss. My GM was happy that his boss was happy and thanked me for my excellent work. Those travellers, he said, owed me big time. Huh. Somehow I don't think it's the TRAVELLERS who owe me, thanks!

Everything is booked and ticketed on Thursday and I can relax a little. But only a little. One of the travellers is not happy that he has to travel a day earlier and doesn't get to stay at the hotel of his choice. Not much I can do about that.

Thursday evening is grocery shop. We headed out to our favourite shopping centre. It's not the local one. This one is bigger. We are nearly home and suddenly we are not able to continue but instead are diverted through our local shopping centre car park. The road is closed. There are flashing red and blue lights, ambulances and fire engines. We follow the detour to the next road. No, that's blocked too. Luckily, there is another way for us to get home. Not long after we get home, they block off the intersection at the exit to our suburb. That's two entire blocks unpassable. The police cruiser parks at the intersection and stops the traffic. During the night, each time a fool tried to go past the cruiser, the lights flash, the siren blares and the horn announces THIS ROAD IS CLOSED. You'd be surprised how many fools there are.....

The cruiser is a few meters down from our house. MOTH, being MOTH, wanders down to talk to them. He reports back that a motorcycle and a bus have come together. The rider did not make it. It's after midnight when they finally clear the roadblock.

*dinner is delicious*

Friday is quiet. I think I'm coming down with something and I'm hoping not since we are joining Bestie and her hubby for lunch tomorrow.

Saturday I'm awake at some ungodly hour with a terrible headache. It's not helped by the nausea which accompanies it. I take some tablets and drift off to sleep again. It's after 8am when I wake again! We head out to finish the rest of the grocery shop and pick up drinks to take to lunch. Half twelve and we head our for a 3/4 hour drive to Bestie's place. She's happy to see us - it's been nearly 6 months since our last visit I think. The afternoon flies by and suddenly I realise we've been there 5 hours. I decide it's time to pack up, and I'm beginning to feel unwell again. Later that night the headache arrives again and I'm in bed by 10pm. I've gritted my teeth and hung on till the end of Happy Feet on the telly.

Sunday the headache is still there. I stumble out of bed around 7am and take more medication. We are supposed to be going to the movies today; I'm hoping it will ease by then. MOTH heads out for his smiles and I take the opportunity to vacuum the floor. Yes! I did. Don't fall over. And I mopped the space around the kitchen bench where the oven and stove top is.

I've decided to sell the laptop so I spend some time uninstalling some of the programs. I'm still not completely finished. Small things now like disconnecting from my home network. I'm thinking of asking $700 but I'm not sure. It's a Toshiba Satellite, 2.0 GHz intel core duo processor, 4GB ram, 1GB cache, 250GB HDD and Vista Business. Am I asking too much?

I'm feeling ok and we decide on Ironman 2. It's a great movie! I think I enjoyed it just as much as the first one. Which MOTH insists he hasn't seen.

Home at 4pm; I'm still feeling a bit iffy and it's time for a hot bath and a good book. Then to cook dinner. I still haven't started that washload. I think I'd better do something about that.