Birthday week

Rob's birthday week starts with our wedding anniversary - it's always the 8th January, but this year it's a bit special - being 45 years since that hot summer's day in 1972 when we were married, in Brisbane. In some ways it seems like forever ago - but in other ways it doesn't seem like that long at all! 

We celebrated our wedding anniversary in Sydney: drinks at the crowded Opera House Bar at sunset..

 ....then dinner at Sydney Opera House's beautiful Bennelong restaurant..

 ..where we had the best table in the house and a wonderful meal of Tasmanian octopus, Holmbrae duck with pickled new season cherries and a cherry jam lamington for dessert (a "deconstructed" lamington like I have never eaten before!). We also discovered a lovely new wine - and a Sauvignon Blanc to boot: the Terre a Terre from South Australia - very crisp and flavoursome on a hot Sydney summer night.

Rob's birthday is 3 days after on the 11th. Back in Canberra the girls spoilt him with a cooked breakfast (their idea): handmade (from scratch) waffles with chocolate sauce (and blueberries), then a happy family dinner that night and ten pin bowling with the girls the day after. This was a first for us, with the girls; we had fantastic fun and found it an ideal activity for us on a 37oC day.

Saturday night we celebrated with friends over a Kerala Thali at Daana's in Curtin followed by a celebratory breakfast with J & J and the girls at our fave Hyatt Hotel.

And Rob enjoyed yet more birthday best wishes last night with another group of our friends. It might look like we are in Tuscany - but we're actually sitting in a really lovely courtyard garden in inner south Canberra.

I've made him a cake too, and we're cutting that next weekend...this is the birthday that keeps on giving!