Melbourne Cup Day 2011

Where were you while the nation stopped at 3pm today? At Flemington in stilettos and a Phillip Treacy hat sipping bolly in the member's enclosure? No, me neither. I was on the couch at home with my man, sipping Tempus Two (a rather nice Hunter bubbly) and wearing thongs. On my feet. Earlier the silver fox had visited the sophisticated, cosmopolitan splendour of the Black Head Bowling Club and placed our bets. He had money on Glass Harmonium, and I had a trifecta with Lucas Cranach, Precedence and Niwot. David's horse was last into the starting box, so energised and raring to go that he had to be held back by the jockey until the last moment. It all looked so promising. So there we were with great expectations and a massive $13 at stake, shouting at the TV as if we had "connections".  If you are a proper Strayan, you would know by now whether we are rich.  But in case you have been hiding under a rock in, for example, Geraldton WA I can tell you that my trifecta was a defecta and Glass Harmonium made a red hot attempt for the wooden spoon, only to fail in the last furlong when he surged into second last place. What an exciting finish!

Apart from being Melbourne Cup Day, today was the first day in the life of my new camera. Yes, David came through with the goods and bought a Sony DSC-HX9V for my birthday. It's a little dynamo. It has all kinds of clever tricks up its little black sleeve. For example, it can detect smiles and selectively snap the photo at that moment. And it can take still shots at the same time as taking movies, while looking for smiles.  So there you are, filming the grim family get together, and the photographic record will show that it was in fact a hilarious and enjoyable frolic for all concerned! Anyway, here is my new camera's very first photo, taken this morning. I was I confess, still in bed at the time. On Picasa, you can read every word of that brochure.

And here is the second photo, the silver fox himself. He is feeling somewhat better and his energy levels are slowly improving.

 A game of Scrabble is underway as we now have special Scrabble themed mugs and scorepad, courtesy of Wim!

Late afternoon, a walk. This is Darawank Nature Reserve. Nice bit of forest and we saw a white tailed swamp wallaby cross this road, apparently out-running a pursuing fox that was so startled at the sight of us it went in completely the wrong direction.

The road comes out onto Back Beach, a very pretty beach just south of Black Head beach. Signs indicate it is permissible to drive on this beach, it seems people can put their boats in from here.

 No one else on the beach today, though.