My birthday

In thinking about where I would celebrate my birthday, Will had suggested the Blue Mountains and I had nearly choked on my muesli (my spell-checker doesn’t recognise my spelling of the word muesli and suggests instead that I use the word Muslim. I’d like to make it clear that I did not choke on my Muslim). If we’ve learnt anything about ourselves on this trip it’s that Will is happiest surrounded by beautiful scenery (which is obviously why he’s with me) and I’m happiest surrounded by life form of a more human nature. He’s happy walking up hill and down dale and I’m happy walking into deli’s and boutiques. Which is why we find ourselves celebrating my birthday in Sydney with Nicky and Andy.

We’re having dinner at Marque, one of Sydney’s best restaurants (where, as a non-meat eater, I was labelled as an aquatarian. Surely that means I only eat fish?) which we’d heard was a BYO (you can take your own wine). We didn’t realise that you’re only meant to take one bottle per table and turned up with 6. Fortunately, they let us off with a warning and we also bought a bottle from them just to appease our guilt.

I’d wanted to spend my actual birthday sailing around Sydney harbour, but this worked out to be so ridiculously expensive that we just took a gorgeous picnic and champagne to Balmoral beach instead. Some beach tennis and frisbee, swimming and sunbathing with our friends made for a perfect day.