My header painting is of Woolloongong steel works in New South Wales. The beach adjacent is popular with surfers.

The Great Dane and I drove across to Dockside today to see the "Dawn Princess" across the river in dry dock going through a referbish. It leaves for a short cruise around NZ in 5 days time. I guess that will be a test to make sure all the repairs and updates are up to scratch for the long round the world voyage. We took a look at what they are doing on board on the web at the stage it was at 2 days ago and it's hard to believe it will be ready in 5 days time. It looks like a major refit on the computer and should look like new when it takes to sea.

A little pelican painting I did which now lives in Malaysia.

The weather here in SE Queensland has suddenly turned from mild Autumn days to cold winter days with temperatures down aroun the 3 degrees C. Being a coastal subtropical climate, that's cold. Even the Great Dane got his winter woolies out.

I've packed my suitcase for our upcoming cruise and think I might just be able to take all of what I had selected as my initial choice. May need a little refining after I weigh it as we have to travel by air to Sydney to embark and thus restricted by airline limits for luggage.

I enjoyed my usual game of cards yesterday, did a little shopping today and watered my plants.

I'm somewhat amazed that this "Swine Flu" had been officially called a pandemic. If it is as mild as indicated and people get flu symtoms and don't go to their doctor because they don't really feel ill enough then no matter what they call it, it is going to circulate.

Looks like another cold night tonight with the dusk sky almost colourless with a tinge of pink.

It's been a big weekend. I'm not going into too much detail as I'm feeling rather Sh....... with a cold.

Friday - Prepared for guests coming for the weekend, Lindy from the farm and her GB. We ate out at our local Thai which I wouldn't recommend to anyone, particularly anyone who likes real Thai flavours. They seem to be patronised rather well but I don't know why.

Saturday - While my Great Dane went off to work, our guests and I went to one of the local garden nurserys , going the long way. They used to live in the area and wanted to see the changes which are many, mainly new housing developments. While we were at the nursery we had a delicious coffee and cake in the morning sunshine. Picked up some seafood and headed back home for a long seafood lunch (prawns, crabs, bugs, and smoked mackeral with crusty bread) on the patio. For dinner my Gread Dane cooked a cut of venison - compliments of Lindy and her GB from the farm.

Sunday - Each year we usually have a gathering of friends and family who live close enough to celebrate our combined birthdays and anniversery. We have four Gemini's in the family and our wedding anniversery is in a few days time. It just so happend that this year it was actually on my birthday. We and our guest spent the first part of the morning setting up extra tables chairs etc. for a BBQ. I had a sore throat but kept telling myself that I must have slept with my mouth open, trying to ignore the fact that I was coming down with a cold, but by evening I couldn't ignore it any longer and excused myself after dinner and had an early night.

Monday - a holiday here in Australia - Slept late - Great Dane had breakfast on the table when I awoke. After breakfast our guests left to return to the Farm and I went back to bed and slept some more. My throat feeling like sandpaper on fire I took some medication and went back to bed - lunch then back to bed.

Feeling a little better this evening so caught up on reading a couple of blogs I follow and doing a few emails and then my post.

If I had gone to a Doctor with my symptoms he may have quarrantined me with all this Swine flu hype. In my opinion if they had given this particular strain of flu a number instead of a name that related to an animal, bird or fish it would have passed through society like any other flu. A few would die as they do with influenza each year and most would feel no worse than with any other flu and recover. Just one more thing for society to live in fear about.