An uncommonly late night for us on Friday, having spent a pleasant evening at the ACT Sport Stars of the Year Awards Dinner. We chatted with some running luminaries (by my estimation), like Trevor Jacobs and Emma Murray (gasp!). Oenene Wood isn't too bad on the bike either!

It was a pretty good night, although getting to bed so late meant that we were behind the eight ball for the rest of the day. We figured that we could catch up and nap in Sydney before the party. This didn't quite come to pass, so another day without exercise and going into the evening tired. Luckily, my body held together and it was a great night! Too much food, but it was all good, and further supplemented my Claire's boyfriend's mother homemade houmous, kofta and kibbe (which I missed out on, damn!).

To fit in with the Garden Party theme (lots of fairy lights, cucumber sandwiches and floral dresses) Claire opted for lolly-pink iced cup-cakes. The speech made by her best friend from school revealed some things that perhaps a mother shouldn't know. When these friends put on the greatest hits of 1984, I was amazed at how well I knew them. I then realised that I was Claire's age (20) in 1984 (it was still a few days to her birthday) ~ when I told her this she was as disbelieving as I was (Thank goodness) . . . after we did the maths, she said kept saying "but you're my age . . ."

Although we were both really tired and didn't expect to stay for long at all, we left after 11:30pm to walk back to our hotel. Another v.e.r.y. late night. this was to tell on us later.

We had organised to meet a friend of Bob's from Queensland Uni (during the Punic Wars methinks), who has been an academic in Vermont (USA not Vic) for last many decades. He has a habit of coming back to Australia regularly for his sabbatical, so we keep in fairly frequent contact. Although not meeting until midday, there was no way I could get for a run that morning; my head was suffering terribly, sinusitis raging throughout the bones of my head and neck, which stopped me getting out of bed and I spent the morning in bed and asleep.

I stumbled downstairs and joined Bob and the Prof for a cup of coffee and glasses of water before stumbling back up to our hotel room and crawling into bed. To everyone's surprise, Bob woke me up when he and the Prof returned to our room at 6pm. While they retired for yet another cleansing ale at a nearby pub, I got up and groggily had a bath and dressed. Still tired and sinusy (the pain, the pain), I met the boys and we had an excellent Thai meal of Chilli Basil Kangaroo, Chilli Salmon, Jungle Curry Vegetables and fresh Spring Rolls. It's great to eat, but I wish that I was running too!