We set off as early as we could hoping to get to Ferny Hills sometime in the afternoon.
We stopped at Glen Innes for morning tea and found the wind chill factor to be very severe but we had a very nice snack at a cafe we had visited on an earlier visit. We stopped for lunch at Warwick where the weather was a deal more pleasant. We made good time and arrived at Ferny Hills at four o'clock after six hours driving and felt a good deal better than we had after our drive to Katoomba.
The celebration of Kelly's birthday had been brought forward a day so that we could have a roast dinner with all the family including Al.
Sarah hadn't had time to make a birthday dessert so Jean and I went to Brookside to by a pavlova.
Kelly seemed happy with her presents and we had a wonderful lunch.
We had agreed to stay in Brisbane until after the long weekend so we made appointments for Jean to see the Podiatrist and the Hairdresser.
We met Sarah at one of her favourite cafes for a long lunch. She had taken the afternoon off because Kelly was playing in a music competition in the evening so an early evening meal was necessary.
The concert was seven Primary School string ensembles. Some were a bit rough but four of them, including Kelly's school, were so good that they scored within a half a point. Sadly another school took out the first place but we were very proud of Kelly and her fellow musicians for their fine performance.
We veged out for most of the day.
Al had taken my iBook to Next Byte for repair and he came round in the evening to deliver it back to me. It needed a recharge and a reset of the system clock but all seems well.
We went to town to do a bit of shopping on the way to St Lucia where we had been invited to lunch with Barb and Ron. The plan was to have coffee with Alain before we did the shopping but it took us so long to navigate round all the impediments in the streets of the Brisbane CBD that we had to take a rain check.
Lunch with Barb and Ron was really nice and the conversations took all afternoon. We spent some time looking at pictures of elephants in a refuge in Thailand which was a highlight of Barb's trip there in January. We left just as Ruth was getting home from work.
In the morning I went to Woolloongabba to buy a water pump for the Motley. While I was at Whitworths I bought a new power lead for the Garmin GPS because the original one had been mended so many times that more repairs were getting less and less likely.
Jean had appointments at one o'clock at the hairdresser in Mitchelton so we thought we would have lunch at Cafe Zanetti which boast "new management". We were not impressed when the lone waiter ignored us but served others who had come after us. We left without sampling the food but our taste of the "new management" led me to believe that the meaning of that term here was the same as its meaning at Wormald Technology, "Nothing matters except the bottom line!"
After a little lunch at Brookside, we looked up the Gallands but they were out so we went back to Patricks Road.
Jean had an appointment at the Podiatrist at four thirty in Mitchelton so we went back there. Jean's appointment had been for Tuesday but he had had a cancellation so she was able to get to see him at five.
I went to town to visit Next Byte to buy Myst V and a case for my iPod.
In the evening We had Indian take away which was pretty good.
The ladies had a 'Girl's Dat Out" so that Kelly could spend her birthday money. She bought a bean bag which she had wanted for some time.
Sarah left me with some repairs to do so I spent most of the day working. During one of my breaks, Ross wanted me to play Myst V with him but he got a bit bored after half an hour or so. I was pretty impressed with his involvement and his quite long attention span. He was a great help while he was interested. He was very ready to give me advice most of which was productive.
We went to Newmarket to have coffee with Al at one of Sarah's favourite cafes, Cafe Do Dah. We found that it had shut, apparently permanently. We went next door to another cafe and had coffee and some had brunch. Al had another date so we went back to Patricks Rd.
We all went to New Farm where we met up with Al for coffee. The cafe was the demonstration site for DiBella Coffee and the owner of DiBella, Philip, was working there as a barista. The coffee was remarkably good and Phillip was well pleased when we sent our congratulations awarding him five beans.
While we were there my nephew, Ross, appeared and we chatted briefly. A little later, Sarah's boss and his wife turned up to entertain Sarah and Ian to lunch.
Al took the kids to the cinema to see "Cars".
Jean and I headed back to Patricks Rd. On the way, we visited the caravan park at Newmarket to see if our friends, Lance and Glad were at home only to find that they had headed south a month ago and don't plan to be back until August. We stopped at Macas in Newmarket where we had lunch and a long chat with an Irishman who was sitting at the next table.
I looked at the muffler on Sarah's car. I found that the muffler and the exhaust pipe had parted company and they were both rattling around. I couldn't mend it so I jury rigged a temporary fix with fencing wire and asked Sarah to take it to muffler repairer with a view to getting a welded repair.