Where have I been?

Well may you ask...  I have no idea where I've been other than to tell you the same old story applies. I never seem to have any time!  Arrrggghhhh..... I know, I know.  It's all down to my choices and how I choose to spend my time but I seem to have, obviously, too many things to fit into the 24 hours of my day. Why is that so?  

So, let me start at the beginning.  Hmmm, quick review.  Right-o!  We're up to the bit where Spud and I went up to Sunshine Beach for a few days by the seaside, right after the Gold Coast Half.  We stayed at a great unit, overlooking the grey wintery beach.  

Unfortunately, not one whale or fluke or spume of spray was spotted, but we did see several pods of dolphins frolicking in the breaking waves.  One day we walked around to Noosa via the National Park and celebrated at the other end with ice cream (naturally).

 Food actually was one of our favourite pastimes while we were away.  All my calorific burnoff during the half marathon was for nought I fear.  Most of the restaurants in the area were doing 3-course set menus for the price of one of their normal mains!  It was excellent and we were lucky enough to enjoy a scrumptious meal at Berardo's, a restaurant previously glimpsed from afar.  I tried to be good at breakfast time though...   

Tim the cat must be able to read and has seen the word, "food" because now he is sitting here beside me, banging heads with me and trying to smack my face with his paw in order to drag me away from this long overdue blogging session to put food in his bowl.  Forget it pussycat!  

After three chilly, damp days on the coast, it was off to the rainforest for three more days at O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat.  It was school holidays, so it was pretty busy but luckily no-one else was as mad as us to decide to walk the 10km Box Forest circuit one very, very cold, very wet, very muddy day so we had the place pretty well to ourselves.  It was so gorgeous readers!  Incredible!  We did not actually see that many birds but the trees and the fungi were sensational!  There were brush box trees with trunks over six metres across and hundreds of metres tall. There were luscious tree ferns and strangler figs and palms and booyongs in amongst creeks and waterfalls.  It really was divine, despite the MUD, which ended up all over us by the time we got back.  And the cold!  We were frozen - but we didn't care!  It was so beautiful....  

 

We also took part in the early morning bird walks, which were great because, due to an early morning bird walk (with crumbs) every single morning at O'Reilly's, the wised up wild birds are in abundance and we spotted the rare Regent bowerbird 

as well as the more common Satin bowerbird, rosellas, king parrots and lots of colourful little finches plus a pademelon with her joey! 

 So, even though I found O'Reilly's to be incredibly commercialised and quite expensive, in the long run it was really a sensational few days and I am really glad we did it.  The Visa bill is sitting beside me but I'm not going to look at it yet (other than to see the Due Date).  The bloody cat has just scratched me across the face!!!  If he wanted dinner, he can now FORGET IT.......... I'm bleeding!  The little @#$%^&* I took a photo of my "slashed" cheek using Photo Booth but when I saw it, I deleted it because I had puckered my lips and looked like an old hag.  You'll just have to imagine the bloodshed.  The cat has disappeared.  Must have been the smack across his head that drove him away.  Speaking of pets, we are having some landscaping done and the workers have been feeding Lil the Dog all sorts of culinary "delights" such as sultanas (toxic), 3-day old chicken curry and red hot salami!  Needless to say, Thursday night was spent at the vet having her rectum probed (the dog) and her bloods explored while her mother (me) was opening her wallet and pulling out that O'Reilly's-damaged Visa card....  Okay, I had better feed these critters before they start chewing on ME.  Will write more soon.  I think of hundreds of things to write about during the day but unfortunately, due to committments called WORK, I can't seem to get thought to blog in time and then forget all about it.  Or, more likely, I realise that it's just waffle and no-one would really care anyway.