Finally, an update...

I have had my blog printed in America in three volumes. I really love the finished result. We have also received our wedding album also done on line. We had two copies printed, with one of them sent to The Netherlands for our Dutch family to keep. The result is very good indeed.

Thanks a lot to the very many of you who sent birthday greetings to me over the past fortnight. I guess 60 is a pretty good milestone, but I damn well mean to see many more birthdays in the future. I had morning teas at my schools, and on the actual morning my friends the MacDonald's (Di and Torquil) took me out to breakfast at Belle Epoque http://www.belleepoque.com.au/ in the Emporium Hotel. Marvellous start to the day! In the evening Rene joined us at Cloudland, a wonderful restaurant and night club venue recently opened in The Valley. It is on four levels, has a Black Hat chef, amazing decor (truly eclectic) and all in all a very special place to have a special occasion in. A three storey waterfall dominates the front, with a sliding glass roof for admiring the stars. Check it out here http://www.cloudland.tv/ The dinner was truly delicious and quite special. Never one for cocktails, I loved the one I had on the second floor from the bar made of thousands of glass balls. When the lights run around the circular bar every 30 minutes, you have to be amazed.

Work is fine, the airport ambassador work is enjoyable and the weeks just fly by. Rene and I are going to see three productions in the next ten days as part of the Brisbane Cabaret Festival. With trivia every Tuesday, dinner out usually another night and we dine at friend's homes or they dine with us - all in all the days just gallop by. I must include pictures from the garden in the next post. For just fifteen months growth it is quite impressive.

Both of us are in fine health at the beginning of winter. I could do with losing some weight, but I don't think its going to happen any day soon, especially during the colder months. We will look forward to August when Rene and I travel to Cairns in Far North Queensland for the Second Indigenous Arts Festival. He is looking to expand the art on sale here from just Central Desert art to also include some artists from North Queensland. A bonus is that Cairns is around 29C every day in winter (we average 20)

The 60th has been and gone...no pain, only happiness.

Deep in conversation on the second night at Straddie. Lots of food, wine and jolly good company. We converted the larger of the three houses we rented into the party room. We brought Asian themed food to the island plus on the first night a birthday cake and on the second night a wedding cake.

The birthday cake was a delicious Italian confection from a favourite Italian shop here in Brisbane.

The wedding cake was a heavy chocolate affair made by one of the school officers where I work.

We were surrounded by bush but just five minutes walk to the beach. I had stayed in the main house before with two friends from Copenhagen around ten years ago. The Straddie Pub was just eight minutes away. We had dinner on the first wet night there.

After a weekend on Fraser Island with just the two of us we had the following weekend on my absolute favourite island in the whole world - North Stradbroke Island ('Straddie') - with family and friends. There were 19 of us in three houses celebrating not only my birthday but also the wedding from last December. Although it rained on the Friday, the rest of the weekend was sunny and bright, although a little cool.

Rene (above) is climbing up from having watched the blow hole working a treat due to the heavy swell. Earlier we had watched four whales cavorting out to sea whilst we had breakfast at a cafe. They were the first of the season - running from June to November.

Here we saw a pod of dolphins (actually, very amorous dolphins) plus a couple of turtles and a few rays. This island is just 50 minutes by barge from Brisbane. Heaven on Earth!

My lovely sister in law Adele 'on the rocks' at Straddie. My brothers Steven and Mark plus their wives joined us for the weekend and helped make it a very special occasion.

This is Fraser Island, three hours north of Brisbane, and the world's largest sand island. Rene and I spent two nights in Hervey Bay for my real 60th birthday. It is most impressive, and now preserved and protected after a century of being plundered for its sand and timber. Rene is wading along a creek. Even though just on winter, it is really quite mild and the water around 20C.

An aircraft lands on the beach, providing visitors a birds eye view of the lakes and forest.

This is all that's left of the 'Mahindra', a large cruise ship, that was sold for scrap in 1935 and foundered on the beach whilst being towed to Japan during a storm.

We had a one day tour with 37 other people, so we couldn't really escape folk - but it was really very pretty and spectacular.

Rene walking along the edge of an enormous fresh water lake in the middle of the island.

Fraser Island supplied all the timber for the building of the Suez Canal plus Tilbury Docks in London. A hard wood tree that was impervious to borers made it popular for use in water. There are some preserved, but not many.

Our friend, Di MacDonald, standing in front of a row of pictures done by her students for the opening of the new parallel Gateway Bridge. Incidentally, they have been renamed the Sir Leo Hielscher Bridges, in honour of the recently retired head of the Queensland Treasury and investment corporation. Sadly for him, nobody will change the real name of the bridge. It is THE GATEWAY BRIDGES on the Gateway motorway - sort of how the Sears building in Chicago, although renamed the Willis Building for many years, will ALWAYS be the Sears Tower.

Yes, I wuz there! No, the children aren't mine, although I do know the lovely lady on the right.

I heard on BBC World Service a Greek journalist who said that Greece would be charged something like 8% if it could borrow funds. Germany can borrow at 2-2.5% yet loans it to Greece at 5%. Germany stands to make a lot of money for standing guarantor for Greece, and I'm waiting to hear from another 'expert' as to how all this makes economic sense. No country these days can afford state pensions at 58; yet banks will burn and people die in a country where only 40% of people pay any taxes, and those that do are pilloried and ridiculed for doing so. I did economics at university many lifetimes ago, so I guess my learnings and understandings at that time are severely out of date? Or are they?

Monday June 7, the day after Queensland Day (6th)

Where has the time gone? A month since the last update has simply flown. We have been as busy as ever, and I think we are averaging three nights out a week. The crowd on the bridge (above) is made up of some 170 000 Brisbanites who ventured onto the new Gateway Bridge before it opened to traffic a week later. Yes, we were there, but really it was more to tick off the experience since standing in the middle of a road with high fences either side on top of a bridge is little different to standing on an overpass anywhere on the planet. Still, it was well organised and got us out early on a Sunday morning walking with several friends.

Love the 'Courage' picture. The Arizona cartoons are not so lovely.