My first Summer birthday!

It normally snows on my birthday.....not this year!

Unfortunately I had to work on my birthday, but we went in late so that I didn't have to rush opening my cards and prezzies - yay!  I felt a bit like I was on 'I'm a Celebrity' or 'Big Brother' receiving 'messages from home'... but it was lovely to get so many lovely gifts and cards from everyone .....thank you!  Soph sent a massive bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk, so needless to day I was more than happy with that particular present!!!  And Louise sent a t-shirt with a message printed on it from an 'in-joke' back home that really made me smile!

We left work just after 5pm and it was 32.5 degrees!!!  Lovely!  We went for a wonderful Thai meal in the Docklands and then walked from there along the South Bank to the Botanical Gardens for Shakespeare in the park.  We went last year when we were over here on holiday and I really wanted to go again this year.  When I'd mentioned it to Darren he'd turned his nose up, so I told him that if we didn't go then I wanted a surprise for my birthday and it had to be better!  He had been telling me that the surprise might be that there was no surprise, but he was a star and had booked the tickets for us!  I did manage to spoil the surprise though by checking to see if I'd been paid and spotting the money going out for the tickets (oops!)...but I didn't know that we were going on my actual birthday!

It was a perfect night....really warm and clear, and it really was lovely to be watching Midsummer Night's Dream under the stars!  What a birthday treat!  I felt totally spoilt - I must have been a good girl!  You're not allowed to take pictures of the performance unfortunately, so the only one I have is of me with an ice cream during the interval!!!!!

Saturday night we went for a bar crawl in the city with friends which was lots of fun!  We've not really been to the city bars since we've been here so it was nice to find a few good ones.  The bars here are really just doors off the main streets where you go up stairs to the bars - a bit scary when you don't know where you're going, but fun in a group!  We went to a bar with lots of stuffed animals around the place which is quite surreal, and we also found a really nice rooftop bar with palm trees that felt quite tropical!  It felt a world away from the pubs back home!

Sunday we decided to head to the Coffee Club on Chapel Street for birthday cake - I do like to spread my birthday treats out!!!

I think it's safe to say that for my birthday this year I've pretty much had my cake and eaten it!!!

Feeling on top of the world!!!!

I guess it's about time I did an update....I haven't done it for a while because now that I'm working, day to day life is much the same as home - except the weather and surroundings are much nicer!!

So a round up of this week.....

Monday night was lovely!  Kelly and Dave, some friends from the UK are doing a road trip to Adelaide and were spending one night in Melbourne - so of course we met up with them.  We met at the Beachcomber, which is a bar right on the sea front at St Kilda.  It was a really sunny evening so we enjoyed a drink out on the deck there.

We then went to 'trendy' Acland Street for a fabulous Italian meal before heading our separate ways again.  It was really wierd to meet up with friends from home and just go for a meal on the other side of the world!  It was a lovely night - just a shame that it was only for one night!

The rest of the week was just a combination of work, a run on a very hot night, seeing Mark in between their road trip and a trip to Tassie, a Kimax class...and more work!  Work is going ok - what can I say....it's work!

Saturday we decided it was time to do something touristy again as it was a beautiful day and seemed a shame to waste it!  So we headed to the Eureka Tower where there is the highest viewing platform in the Southern Hemisphere!  Anyone who knows me well will know that I am terrrified of heights and although it was something I really wanted to do, I was also a bit scared!  Luckily (sorry, unfortunately!), the 'edge experience' wasn't available, which is where you go in a glass cube 3 metres out over the edge of the building!

In 38 seconds you go up 88 floors (9 floors per second!), and from there you get the most awesome views of the city.  We picked the right day because, although very windy, it was a really clear day and could see for miles.  There's an outside terrace that you can go on where you are exposed to the outside elements 300 metres above ground - and like I say it was a very windy day!

Here are some of the views.....

 

Sunday and it's a day for the girls to do their thing and the boys to do theirs.  I met up with Diane and Josie in the city from where we make our way to South Melbourne to the St George just opposite the South Melbourne market.  We were lucky enough to get one of the sought after tables outside and all of us had the roast beef - the first roast I've had since leaving the UK!  It wasn't a patch on a home cooked roast, but it was nice enough and we had a lovely time.  Not quite full, we then went over to South Melbourne market for fabulous ice-creams!  Josie and I then got a tram to St Kilda and walked about four miles along the beach back home again!  Lovely!

In the evening Darren plays footie with the other halves of Josie and Diane - funny how the boys spend their time doing sport and the girls spend their time eating and chatting!