BB turns 31

and weirdly, I end up on row BB, seat 31 to see Ross Noble at the QPAC concert hall :)



I had a fine birthday, doing some of the things I love most: surfing, laughing, and nothing. We were due in Currumbin saturday lunchtime for a friend's 2 year old's birthday party, so we made a weekend of it and booked a couple of nights accommodation last minute and took the monday off work. The accommodation (The Hill Apartments) turned out to be excellent - we had a top floor apartment with full panoramic views over The Alley and all the way out to the far end of Palm Beach, with Surfer's Paradise in the distance. Very very nice.



I surfed loads, but The Alley was so busy throughout the weekend that despite the excellent conditions I didn't catch as many waves as I would have liked. Sunday afternoon I was sitting up on my board wide of the pack on the point, and counted 35 people inside me. And then there were the same number again strung out down the line ahead of me - crowded. Unfortunately, that's the pay-off for excellent conditions. Whilst sitting there hoping for a wave to magically present itself to only me, a dolphin popped up just a few metres away from me - between me and the next surfer. Fantastic! Then another four popped up, and the pod hung around us just lazily cruising along. It's so beautiful to see them in the water, and to be so close is just breathtaking. Later that afternoon, from our viewpoint on our balcony, we saw whales spouting further up Palm Beach - just lovely.

It was really good to get my board back in the water, but it took me a while to get used to it again. With virtually no green water on the waves left un-surfed, I started catching the white water just inside the surfer to at least get some time riding and getting my feet used to the right position on my board again. Once I'd worked that out, I got much more quality time upright :)

I've never quite understood people who live in Brisbane spending a week's holiday on the Gold Coast, just an hour's drive away - but being able to check the surf from my balcony, and then be in the water 10 minutes later, and just being away from the clutter and distractions of home to unwind is good value. And after all, it's only an hour's drive home at the end of the holiday :) That Sunday we did so, so little. Apart from surfing, we just relaxed in the apartment, had a mid-morning nap, watched the view, and picked through some music to make a CD to take to the hospital with us.

Monday was actually my birthday, and it started well with less than 20 people in total out at The Alley. I was in the water at about 6:45, and caught a few waves - but I kept finding the wrong current, the one that pushes me back into the impact zone while I try and paddle out behind the waves. Nat joined me in the water about an hour later, and we hung out at the edge of the current away from the pack. Nice and relaxed, despite the overcast and drizzly weather. I helped Skye pack up back at the apartment, then we went for a nice slow breakfast and I opened some of my presents (M&S socks from my Mum!). The rain was pretty constant, so we cruised back up the highway into Brisbane, and had an afternoon nap at home (more presents - Black Books series 1, 2 & 3 from my mother-in-law).

And then we went to see Ross Noble in the evening. He is possibly the best stand-up comic working today, and this was the second time we've seen him in Brisbane. Luckily for us he has an Australian wife, so he includes Australia in his tours. It was only by chance that I picked up tickets for the show, and pure luck that he happened to be playing on my birthday. To top it off, our seats were just 5 rows from the front in the massive QPAC concert hall, and at $40 a ticket it was just too good to be true.

So - another year wiser, as they say. A lot of change in this last year, and plenty more to come in the next!

Yoda visits Brisbane

..and we went to see him. Well, he might as well be the real-life Yoda - old, wise, friendly, amusing, powerful. I'm talking about the Dalai Lama, who stopped in Brisbane to give a talk at the convention centre (which is where we saw Eric Clapton).



He's really quite something, the Dalai Lama. Any person who has spent their entire life studying and meditating is worth listening to, and on top of that he's had a good deal of both good and bad personal experience, travel, meeting important and interesting people and writing a couple of books. It all adds up to a worthwhile hour having a listen to what he's got to say while he's in town. It was entirely unreligious, and extremely informal. His topic was kindness and compassion, which he said where vitally important human values to be encouraged. Some of the points he made that made me think a bit were:

* I've met George Bush, and actually he's a nice man
* when I hear sad things it goes in one ear, then soon it goes out the other ear
* when you hear sad things. it should be like the waves on the surface of the sea - below the surface, all is calm
* it's possible to oppose an act, but forgive the person who carried out the act through compassion for that person's well-being.
* before external disarmament, there must be internal disarmament
* this century has started very well, and it's up to the next generation to really see it through (he mentioned that nuclear threats of the last century are largely defused, which is a huge step forward)

Those points might sound a little unusual as paraphrased by me and taken out of context of the talk, but you'll have to take my word for it when I say that his perspective was refreshing and inspiring.