happy birthday to me!!

Yes, I made it to 40. I'm so pleased and ready to celebrate. It's been a very tough couple of weeks at work, plus it's school holidays and we've had Ukki and Moomi (Dad and Anneli) visiting so have had a lot going on and as a result fairly exhausted so kept it pretty low key. I was lucky enough to have an aeroplane cake made for me (I was also told to get myself a hobby seeing as no one could think of anything I liked to turn into a cake)

 

I spent the day with the extended family (that is Kerrie and her kids came along too) at Malabar where Connah was good enough to look after 5 kids while Kerrie and I spent a couple of hours out on the water. Perfect weather for it.

We also attempted a bit of Stand Up Paddle boarding yoga which was pretty funny, we both fell in trying one pose or other. All up a great day with more celebrating to follow. thanks for all the well wishes.

After doing 40 new things last year (and more, not all yet documented on the blog), I have decided that while last year's word was "new", this year's work will be "fun".

 

All the new things were great. They seemed to fall into 3 categories:

1. thing that were ok and haven't wanted to do much again (bodybalance class, Dragonfruit smoothie)

2. things I really enjoyed but haven't had much of a chance to do again but have done a bit and would like to do more of (Friday yoga classes at Fitness First, Stand Up Paddle boarding, Ukelele playing...)

3. Things that have become part of the routine, how did I ever cope without these? (Monday and Thursday yoga classes at Fitness first, Little Bay, SLR photography, Bexley swimming pool, Beverley Hills movie theatre, Kogorah Aldi, local fruit and veg shop, the walks from La Peruse, daytime babysitting with hiking instead of eating).
It's been a good year and this year I'm looking forward to celebrating making it this far in the journey of life. Not everyone does. Bring it on.

Cambodia Day 2 Ta Nei

 

We were all feeling the heat a bit after walking around Ta Prohm for a couple of hours. Next on the itinery was morning tea. I was expecting coffee and maybe a biscuit. It panned out much more like lunch. White linen table cloth next to a lake, fine china and a choice of tea, coffee, juices and baskets of pastries. It did us all the world of good and afterwards Toby enjoyed having a look around the village houses where the chickens and chicks were roaming wild. We also found the contraption below in the tree - it's a cutting being given water to grow another tree. Clever.

 

Feeling suitably impressed, we headed out to Ta Nei. This was about a 10 minute drive off the main road through small forest trails and we were rewarded with a temple all to ourselves. Magical.

It's been amazing having your own guide. Certainly makes things a lot more interesting than just wandering around yourselves and we've seen so many details we would have otherwise missed.

Like the columns below, always in uneven numbers for luck. Or that the hindus took over the temples after the buddists and scrubbed all the budha faces out or just added extra arms and legs to turn them into hindi gods.

35 - New drinks

While away I tried a few new drinks including this guava juice, a dragon fruit smoothie, a mango daiquiri and a passion fruit mojito. Yep these new drinks were all good!

Bought some white rum in duty free on the way home - a new spirit to make my new drinks myself.