tramps like us, baby we were born to run

July 26: Today was my Stepdad's birthday. Lunch at a local country pub was followed by a family dinner of birthday nachos.

Happy birthday to Ned!

PS. There are pics here of little Noah celebrating his Grandad's birthday. Noah enjoys "helping" now - helping to cook, to eat our dinner, to dry dishes, to put candles in the birthday cake, etc. Note Noah's first black eye! He fell into his Mum's bed frame, poor chook. July 25: We attended a wonderful lunch today at Dame Sybil Von Thorndike's home. Dame Sybil is a 70 year drag queen named Laurie. Zanne became acquainted with Laurie and his partner of 30 years, Wayne, during her organising of the inaugral Queens Birthday Community Awards. The Community Awards were borne out of the Queens Ball, an annual Brisbane Ball established almost 50 years ago by Laurie and Wayne.

We were invited to lunch, along with Martin and Gary and another lesbian couple, Carol and Annie. Carol was the lead singer of local band Railroad Gin in the 70s - my Mum was impressed by this! Laurie and Wayne have a wonderful home, complete with two chandeliers, and were perfect hosts. Considering we were seedy from our night out though, it was a bit of a struggle to keep up, especially when we were handed a margherita almost immediately upon arrival!

We particularly enjoyed the conversation during lunch... The other guests were a generation or two older than Zanne and I and recounted tales of the "old" days (only 30ish years ago) when homosexuality was underground - the Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen days, the days of police informants and poofter bashers - stuff that, thankfully, we have no experience of. And I'm so grateful for that.

So what has a picture of a cat got to do with any of this? Nothing. But our camera died after taking this picture of Zanne's workmate's (Dave) cat this morning.

PS. Thank you to Dave for letting us stay the night!

July 24: Zanne's workplace had a picnic in the park this Friday afternoon, which quickly became a very drunken and fun night out. Here are various pics of everyone in various poses and states of soberness. Such fun peeps!

Shan