Nice hat

I left work early on Wednesday with a stonking great headache, and the doctor told me to take the rest of the week off to recuperate. I was happy to do so as this gave me the chance to spend more time with Michelle and Beth before flying out to the mother country on Wednesday. The headache is still with me (I feel like someone has spanked me on the forehead with a plank) but I am back at work.

As you can see, Beth is still astonishingly cute. She likes to pick up the phone and pretend to talk to various people, and it's great fun trying to decipher what she's on about. She's got a great range of facial expressions and can get quite passionate during these imaginary chats.

Two fast

Holy chuffing Nora, Beth is two years old already. I hate to descend into cliché but, gee, that's gone fast.

We were up at Avoca with Lari, Rob, Narelle, Stevo and Lachie. It was a bit rainy but we ventured down to the beach a couple of times nevertheless. Otherwise it was the usual mix of fine food, cultured wines and sparkling conversation. The camera has gone haywire, but you can be sure that we all looked bloody fantastic.

The centrepiece was Beth's present-opening/cake presentation ceremony. She's still a bit too young to really understand what's going on but she enjoyed it. Having spent hundreds of dollars it has quickly become apparent that her favourite present was a small rubber fried egg. Undeterred, the following day we went to a toy shop and bought most of her Christmas presents. Well, you can't miss a sale, can you?

Changing the subject entirely, you know that bit in a film where a body collapses to the floor and the transparent ghost rises from it while the corpse remains on the floor? Or the bit in the Shining with Jack Nicholson crashing through the door with an axe? Turns out they were both lifted from The Phantom Carriage. I only mention it in case you haven't caught any silent Swedish horror movies from 1921 recently.

Off to Blighty in 8 days!

Let's get this party started with some mid-tempo rock.

Most successful actor ever, in box office terms

We had a day off on Monday for the Queen's Birthday (Gawd bless you, ma'am) and it was the first sunny day for ages after some ferocious storms. Naturally, we elected to sit in a dark room for six hours.

It's that wonderful time of year when the Sydney Film Festival hoves into view. I'm booked up for seven or eight films and the first three were yesterday. The Walker was disappointingly bobbins and Bella was clichéd but okay, but the sublime I Served The King of England was magnificent - hilarious, sweet, profound, visually inventive, very sexy. I'll be pleased and surprised if I see a better movie this year. We were sat in front of Hugo Weaving for that one.

We had dumped Beth at Grandma's for the day (thanks Val!). She is improving massively in her verbal skills at the moment, and is happy singing the alphabet to herself or chatting away about whatever is on her mind. The only slight glitch is when she grumbles about "Noisy trucks" because the "tr" sound comes out more like an "f". We won't be bringing up the subject in public if we can help it.

I'm so tired of you, America

One for the librarians out there