Buon Compleanno to Ewan and Buon Appetito!

It has been a very pleasant weekend. James and I were in town on Saturday and had a wee lunch together in Princes Square, then in the afternoon Michael and Lil popped round and we all had a coffee in the garden in the sunshine. On Saturday evening Ewan treated us to a delicious dinner at Prezzo in St Vincent Place with him and Heather, as part of his special birthday celebrations. I say special birthday because it was a number with a zero at the end! I was very impressed with the restaurant, I haven't been there before but we'll certainly be back. I had my favourite starter of arancini, which I first tasted in Sicily a couple of years ago; they are rice balls stuffed with mushrooms and deep fried in breadcrumbs. And my main course of chicken ravioli was beautifully cooked, yummy. The others all seemed very happy with what they ordered too! We started and ended the evening in Urban, just a couple of doors down from Prezzo, and we had a great time talking and laughing. When we are out with Heather and Ewan we always feel that we can totally relax and be ourselves and have fun. Sunday afternoon was spent finishing off the timetable with Jackie while James moved slabs in the garden, then after tea a film came onto BBC2 which drew our attention because it looked quite interesting and also had an amazing cast including David Tennant, Christopher Lee, Julie Christie, Bill Nighy and many more. It was called Glorious 39. What a mistake - two hours of my life that I'll never get back! Implausible plot, wooden acting (although David Tennant was good, as always), almost comical when it was meant to be sinister! It just shows that a cast of well-known luvvies does not guarantee a good film. Today was my first "official" day back to work. It was nice to see the rest of the staff who work in the Base, and also my growing number of chums in the wider school, especially the people who were in Paris with me in June. The day flew past in a blur of meetings. This evening we watched another film, this time a DVD which I bought after David (our tour guide in Kakadu) recommended it. It's called The Castle and is quite an old Australian film (1997), a quirky comedy, very sweet and up-beat. We all enjoyed it, and after last night it restored my faith in films!