Weekly round-up

Although there have been a few (largely food-related) posts recently, I just wanted give a round up of all the other things I've been up to and say a big THANK YOU to all my friends and family that sent birthday messages, cards and presents last week. I am very touched!

In the end I had a lovely birthday. After I welcomed Mary back from her adventure to Xi'an (yes, I was surprised as you are that she made it back in one piece!) I had a reasonably quiet day at work with a nice long lunch. When I got back in the evening, Mary had cracked open a beer and filled the flat with balloons and we had a mini present-opening session and a quick Skype with people in the UK before hitting the town.

The rest of the weekend was filled with shopping, eating (see previous posts!), manicures, pedicures, DVDs, hot tubs and reflexology - so all in all, a pretty good week!

Special thanks to Mary for coming all this way and, intentionally or not, being generally entertaining throughout!