Today started off really nicely, I woke up early and opened my Birthday cards, my brother, Chris went to an extra special effort as usual, he sent me some balloons (the ones you can make animals out of) but the best thing was the photo of all my friends back in Munich (who I really miss). He always does something really nice for me ;o) That made me feel pretty emotional (I am a bit of a blubberer at the best of times!) then I had the loveliest surprise, Chris and Martina phoned my mobile singing Happy birthday, well that set me off even more, not cos I was sad, but because I really miss them and I’ve spent my last 4 birthdays with my brother so this is the first on my own for a while. Anyway, so I came into work and Mum had stayed up especially to phone me this morning which was lovely, we had a nice chat, then it was back to work. My last day today, it hasn’t been so bad, just getting some loose ends tied up. The people in my team signed a card for me, I was really surprised Danuta (dragon) wrote a lovely message saying she’d miss me being around…ahhh! We were talking about my travels in a couple of weeks…they’ve all been winding me up about the dangerous animals in Queensland, brown snakes, cane toads, leeches, ticks, crocodiles etc…do I really want to go there??!!
It does feel a bit weird that this is my first Birthday in wintertime, I’m used to having lovely sunny weather…..but it’s the worst day that I’ve seen since I’ve been here, really, really windy and the rain hasn’t stopped chucking it down, I can’t actually see out of the windows it’s so bad! You can’t even put an umbrella up as it just gets blown inside out, I've seen so many broken ones on my walk here!

There are a few of us going out tonight for a meal and some drinks, I hope the weather calms down a bit before, otherwise we're all gonna get soaked!!