The week begins in Toowoomba

Well after a pretty outstanding weekend I've started the week in Toowoomba...

Actually the last few weekends have been pretty good, this one certainly started with a bang with Ness donning her silly hat, and proudly accepting her Doctorate. The other highlight was without a doubt the speech by Ian Lowe, it barely felt like a ceremony speech at all.

After the ceremony it was off to Stone (at the Saville at Southbank) for dinner. Nice spot, the service was ok, but not great and the food was about the same... Not bad by any means but not up to the standard you would expect given its presentation as you walk in. I'm probably a little biased in my opinions as there were only about 2 things on the menu that didn't contain either Gluten or Seafood (they have an interesting menu idea which incorporates a share plate idea where you can pick 2 different entrée sized dishes to create a main meal, the only problem for me was I could only eat one of the dishes so I ended up ordering 2 of the same which came out as separate dishes). Still it was a great evening and the glass of Annie's Lane Chardonnay certainly jollied the dinner along.

 

We had a slower start to Saturday than we planned, but ended up spending most of the day cruising the highways in MinX while the weather was gorgeous. Had a few un-inspiring trips to the shops, although I did manage to resist purchase a Sony PFM-X1 plasma that was on sale for $2k.

I had a wedding to sing at in the afternoon so the shopping was cut a little shorter than we probably would have liked, but was probably best for the bank balance anyway.

Having a rare Saturday night free the obvious choice was to try and catch a movie. Putting across the river in the ferry and wandering down to the Balmoral cinema is so much more romantic than the last couple of trips to the BCC megaplexes. 'Thankyou for smoking' was about the only thing on we really wanted to see and it didn't disappoint. It's probably the best movie I've seen in a while, very funny, brilliantly cast and well acted. Definitely worth seeing if you're trotting off to the cinema any time soon.

 

I've got the strong urge to redecorate at the moment so Ness indulged me with a trip to Bunnings to start the colour choice process. I had my heart set on an orange and black combination but have been swayed around to a slightly less stark orange and brown set. The plan was to paint canvases and place them up on the wall, unfortunately getting swallowed up by Bunnings for an hour or so we ran out of time before we headed to the Opera. I also took the canvases to Toowoomba with me so I don't think they're going to progress much further this week. We did manage to get out of Bunnings for under $50 AND Ikea for $10 so at least we managed two major achievements for the weekend!

 

The Opera in the afternoon was a lot of fun but definitely nothing you would expect from your stereotypical opera, with the possible exception of the level of Soprano warbling. Both were performed in French but the surtitles allowed you to follow any aspects were there was confusion.

 

All in all another great weekend, was just unfortunate that I had to start the week with a drive to Toowoomba in the wet this morning…