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Published: December 15th 2006
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Well, here it is. My 31st year on the planet. It's not as bad as everyone said it would be to be honest. I don't feel old and I'm having a massive adventure so as far as milestones go, it feels pretty goood.
By a strange quirk of fate, my birthday fell on the same day as Melbourne Cup day. The Melbourne Cup is basically the biggest sporting event in the country. And this is a pretty sports-mad country. The state of Victoria gives its citizens a day off work for the races and the rest of the country pretty much grinds to a halt as well. The Grand National is nothing compared to this. Since I'd heard that my birthday and the race were on the same day, that was how I wanted to celebrate it. I told David and Nerida about this and they were already going to the races but they were going to Derby Day, which is on the Saturday before the big race and is much more fun apparently so that was the plan sorted.
Lee got on the net and found a kilt hire company in North Melbourne that was run by a
Scottish couple and they were great in getting me measured up and kitted out at fairly short notice. Appparently Dove's can wear either the Buchanan tartan or the Davidson tartan, just thought you might like to know that.
We had an absolutley brilliant day at Flemington. Top notch from start to finish. There was a group of about 8 or 9 of us all going and we met the rest of them in the racecourse. You get the train straight to Flemington and before you even get to the station at Flinders Street, you get an idea of the scale of the thing. The only people on the streets are all dolled up to the nines because all the rest of the city is in the pub. You get on one of the trains that goes to Flemington and you are surrounded by all theses dresses and suits so you can imagine the looks that the two guys in kilts were getting. Bear in mind that everyone was more or less sober at this point, so we were fairly safe, this would change as the day went on.
The crowd at Derby Day is normally about 110,000 but
this year they had a record crowd of about 140,000. The place was absolutley mobbed from the moment you get off the train. We managed to find a good spot in the middle of the stables, so you could see all the horses before they were led out to race. And it was close to the bar as well which was fairly handy. You buy champagne by the bottle here (plastic bottle I may add) which gives you an idea that this is not the most high-brow of race days, but this is good as it means that everyone is just there to have a good time. Courtesy of the gang back home, we had a few dollars to spend on betting and champagne tokens, so to everyone back home, you all contributed to a brilliant day, so Lee and I would like to thank you all. Now for the bad news. It's all gone. We won absolutely nothing. Not a sausage. I think that for the main race, Lee nad I had money on about 4 horses and not one of them was even placed. I don't see a big betting future for either of us to be honest.
Now the day at the races was a magic start to my birthday, but the best part was still to come. I got up on the Tuesday morning, and as a birthday present, Lee sent me off to the shops. Nice don't you think ?? Turns out that in my absence, Lee had decorated the house in party stuff and got all my presents laid out for me. Lee's card was about 2 foot high so I was already wondering what was inside it. I opened the card and inside were various pictures, some of which you can see here...
http://www.divingcairns.com.au/packages4.html
Lee has booked 2 nights and three days on board a boat on the Great Barrier Reef plus 2 nights in Cairns to recover. It means that we can do our Advanced Open Water Scuba course which is the one up from the course we did in the Perhentian Islands. It means that we will be able to dive to 30 metres instead of 18 and we will also have the opportunity to do a night dive. It is probably the best birthday present I've ever had and we both can't wait to get up there.
I'm sure there will be a seperate blog for that trip as we also have the chance to do a bit of photography while we're down there, it's on the 18th January and it can't come soon enough.
After I'd gotten over the shock of my pressie, a joint 30th birthday/Melbourne Cup barbecue had been organised and a few of David and Nerida's pals and neighbours came round came round. The boys decided to disappear for a game of football (proper football mind, none of this egg-shaped ball rubbish you get here) so David and I got the old scotland tops and flags on and showed them how it was done. I say show them how it was done, we were doing fine until Dave had the old rush of blood to the head and thought he would show t everyone his re-enactment of the ending to Esacape to Victory (with myself playing the Stallone role naturally). Queue football disappearing over fence and end of the game. Once we got back, Lee then brought out the worlds largest birthday cake for me. It was massive. Apparently Posh and Becks kb'd it for his birthday as it was a bit
A Horse
Just to prove we were actually at the races too flash for them !! A good time was had by all.
So that's my 30th birthday, a briliant couple of days with another week of brilliant days still to come. Can't be bad eh ??
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Lynn
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Billy 30 never !!!!
Hello, Happy New Year.XX Wonderful photo's you both look amazing, Lee you look fab at the races darling, love your hair thingmy. Billy you have great legs for a kilt ! You look like you had an amazing time and from the sound of your pressie more to come, enjoy. Hope you had a lovely Christmas and new year. We had horrible weather here went out to the pub on hogmanay expecting a good party and when we arrived there was a power cut, the landlord let us in to wait for scot power to fix it(ha ha) he then had togive everybody free drink as his till wasn't working, shame eh, anyway we waited until 10.30 in candle light and then he decided he had to close due to health and safety. We all went o Morag's and had a lovely night anyway. Please don't tell me how sunny it is..Love XXX Take care of each other Lynn