I am finally starting to get over my cold/flu episode. Thankfully!



On the bright side tho, in the hours that I managed to stay awake ... I read Harry Potter and the HBP.



Hmmmmm.... marginally better than the last one, but it just did not do it for me. I so wish that JKR had kept the original style and age demographic that she began the series with. I found the first three books to be a wonderful read, bright, witty, fun and interesting.



But the last ones have been dark, plodding and dreary. Yes, I will read the next book, simply because I need to know how it all ends, but I SO wish it still had the magical enchantment (no pun intended) of the original books.



I felt that the first three were well on the way to becoming children's classics. They certainly got the kids of the world reading again!



But, seeing how the series has developed, if my kids were around the 8-10 age group, I would not be buying them the HP series for their Christmas stockings!!!



You could almost think that someone else was writing these latest ones....

It looks like, in spite of all my attempts to avoid it... I am coming down with the "dreaded lurgy".



I've had my flu shots (I work in a hosptial, so we all get free flu shots each year!) but it does not seem to be protecting me from this particular cold/flu that is going around.



Terry came back from Jarrahdale, full of it, and there's heaps of people off sick from work as well.



I suppose it was almost inevitable.



I just hope like CrAzY that I'll be over the worst of it by next weekend. I've got a full performance weekend lined up - The Kismet Tribe have a performance for the Rotary Club next Saturday night, and then Wasamba have a gig on Sunday as well!!



I can sniffle and cough my way thru classes and rehearsals this week, but I'm not looking forward to being all clogged up with a cold while performing.

My fingers are sore from too much hand sewing! Ouchy!!



The new Wasamba season starts next week, and we kick off with a gig in Mandurah next weekend. I have been glitzing up my samba costume - trying to make it even more orangey and sparkley.



I scored an absolute bargain at a local sewing shop - they were selling off their sew-on "jewels" for just 2c each! Good grief... they normally cost 15-20-25 cents each depending on size.



So, I bought all the orange ones they had (about 160) and have been busily sewing them all onto my costume, and adding even more sequins! A gal just can't have too many sequins now can she?



I'm probably going to have to buy another length of orange feather boa too. The old one is looking a bit ratty in places - I have the boa attached to the hem of my costume, and as my top swirls, the feathers sometimes fluff out onto the top of the drum (which I wear at my waist). And of course, they then get wallopped with my drumsticks - hence the "rattiness"!



We are all working hard vamping up our cossies for the big Sydney gig in October. The emphasis being on sparkle, beads, sequins, glitter, feathers, bright colours, ruffles, flares, lights, etc. I'm so looking forward to seeing what all the others have done to their costumes during the winter break.

I only have so much will power. I have tried. Honestly... I have.



But we bought Harry Potter on Saturday, and on a well-meaning but not well-thought-out impulse, I told Terry he can read it first.



It is now Thursday and he has not opened it yet. Waaaaaaaaaaaahh!!!



OK. To be fair, he's not here. He's off on one of those work "team building" workshops things in Jarrahdale. And he has left Harry behind....



So, I'm just gonna go log off the computer for a bit... and... ummm... tidy up the house... err... practice a bit... well... perhaps maybe.....



Anyone got an invisibility cloak handy???



*evil grin*

On the spur of the moment ... my hubby has decided that a week in Kalbarri might be nice!



Of course... it has absolutely *nothing* to do with getting up to a car windscreen totally covered with ICE, and the grass all crunchy underfoot!



So we've booked a unit up there and will be heading into (hopefully) some warmer weather in a couple of weeks.



We've not been there for ... ooh... 10 years at least. The kids were both still in primary school then. I'm really looking forward to some relaxing, fishing, boating, rock climbing, rambling, etc. Even visiting that dorky museum again! *LOL* I wonder if it's gotten any better?



Hmmm.... I wonder if they have any abseiling (rappelling) up there in the gorges? I'd LOVE to have another go at that. I did a bit of abseiling a few years ago and totally enjoyed it - my highest abseil being a 65metre rockface in Boya quarry. That would have to be THE most personally challenging, yet liberating thing I have ever done in my life! And it totally cured my vertigo. *LOL* Scared the begeezers out of it more likely!!!