On Saturday, I had a very wonderful day. At 2:30 pm I met up with Maddy and we welcomed Sarah to Canberra! Yay! I hadn't seen Sarah since October, so it was really wonderful. We left her bag in Maddy's car and went for a walk into Civic and had lots of good chats as we all wandered about and then went to Essen. Sarah said she hasn't done anything particularly spectacular since I last saw her, but she's always so full of life and fun, she hasn't changed a bit since Hawkesbury.
Maddy's house-mates were having their engagement party that night, and despite the fact we were supposed to get there at 4 pm, we didn't arrive until 6 pm, though we did manage to get the present and some grog along the way. It was mostly relatives of Nick's and Mel's, so we just sat quietly off to one side. It was the Canberra Multi-Cultural festival that weekend, and that night was going to be the big annual fireworks displayed "Sky-Fire".
So we all piled into cars and drove over. I was sitting in the back with Mel's young sister Amy. She was 4 and I've never chatted to such an adorable little girl in my life. We got out of the car when we arrived and she held my hand so she wouldn't get lost, I've never been clucky before, but gosh darn it… I was then.
We watched the fireworks from the edge of the lake and being quite close they were really wonderful. I was chatting with Sarah and then when it was over at about 9 pm, we did the mad dash to get out before the traffic got to awful. I was not far from home and so elected to walk back to Toad. I got my ego massaged by two guys who wandered in the opposite direction over the bridge with a conversation which went like this; Him - "How are you?" Me - "Good" Him - "You look it". ;)
I was totally exhausted and crashed out. The next day I woke up late and got all my laundry and domestic chores done before Mum arrived about noon. We chatted and had coffee and then we drove down to Maddy's place. Mum was thrilled as always to see Maddy (as was I), and we were all chatting away when Maddy's parents rocked up also! I hadn't seen them in quite a long time, but this house was certainly the meeting point that Sunday (Mel's parents were also there with Amy). So we had a great time until first Maddy's parents then Mel's parents left and finally Mum and I left and we took Sarah with us to save Maddy the drive to get Sarah to her bus.
We did some quick grocery shopping, and then Mum went home and Sarah and I spent some time lounging about before we walked over and I saw her off on the bus. I was totally exhausted, but it had been a wonderful weekend.
Today was Ok. I had to put up with last year's honours student who has come back to do a Ph.D.. She didn't have anything to do, so spent most of the day chattering away. My supervisor hasn't yet finished looking at the paper I gave him, and I had a few synthetic set-backs. I came home and chatted to a friend on the phone for a while and that's been about it. I thought it was going to be cold today, but it turned into a wonderful afternoon. Not too hot nor cold, a perfect day for wandering about with some nice music playing in a disc-man. I wrote up some results but I need to plan where my synthesis is going.
The SCA meeting is on Wednesday, but apart from that there isn't really anything planned for this week. Just as well, I need to keep working as much as I can.