My birthday

Leaves changing colours, temps getting colder, shorter days... must be my birthday! As I mentioned on Ben's birthday, the flip-flopped birthday eco-cues are one of the weirdest things about living in the other hemisphere. I had grown quite accustomed to lilacs, lilies-of-the-valley, and bleeding hearts around my birthday. Even more than cold Christmases or autumnal Halloweens, I miss my spring-ish birthday. (...but yes, we are still wearing shorts.)

But despite my lack of spring flowers, I had a wonderful birthday weekend, primarily because Ben was here, but also because it really felt birthday-ish. The vets had a cake for me on Friday, Tamara gave me wonderful socks from Tasmania, Maria sent a bottle of wine up with Ben, Kristie sent me a text message, I had a pile of cards from home, Ben decorated my room with balloons and crepe paper and had a confetti gun and everything - y'all are great!!!

On Saturday, we went to see Spamalot, which was a lot of fun, and it was the New South Wales premier, no less. We actually saw Spamalot in Chicago for my birthday a few years ago. Between professional Chicago theater company or local Dubbo theatre group, you might think Chicago would win hands-down, but we both kind of liked Dubbo better! First of all, you're just much more up-close and personal, but also, the whole idea of Spamalot is that it's a spoof on people who took themselves too seriously, but in Chicago, they took themselves too seriously. Dubbo still had amazing costumes and scenes, but without so much attitude. But we came away from both performances with aching cheeks from laughing so hard, which is always a good way to spend your birthday.