Bronwyn's dad is turning 70, so we had everybody round for a birthday party. Claire made a cake. She's definitely getting better. This one had two round tiers decorated as paddocks, with the hay barn on the top. She'd made sheep, a cow, several birds, the dam with water lillies, fences, straw and even a smear of brown colouring for some mud. Only room for four candles though!

We still had a couple of tents with broken carbon fibre poles. Apparently you can get new poles to repair them with. So I finally went in and bought some, and then spent a couple of hours with a hacksaw cutting them to size. Not as hard as I'd thought. The hardest bit was threading the elastic string all the way through them again. So now we've got a couple of decent tents, and a few leftover poles. I think I'll bring a hacksaw on camp next year.

Sarah fell while doing cross country, and it looks like it triggered off the concussion from a previous couple of bumps. So now she's banned from sports at school for a few months, and has tablets to try and reduce the inflammation. But otherwise she's fine. Rachael's in fine shape. Plenty of homework though.

I've been busy this last couple of weeks. I've been working on three different projects, and managed to finish two last week. The third, which has been going on all year, is due to be demonstrated at a conference tomorrow, so our customer is busy checking it all out, and we're on call to fix anything he spots. He's currently in Mt Isa. This is a small mining town in the back of western Queensland. Internet is not good. So he's been working from a coffee shop. Except they don't provide mains power, so he's been going back home to keep the battery topped up! It's a website for home buyers, helping them to identify the services they're going to need, and linking them with providers. It's also got quite a sophisticated search facility. My favourite is the owner search. Type in someone's name and you can find out what properties they own. I wonder how long it will be before someone complains...

Bronwyn's been busy with work and various courses. Sounds like she's been popular at the childcare centre. She does her best to bring in lots of different activities. Especially ones that involve scaring the other staff! Meanwhile, I'm off to Waitangi in a week for the youth work conference. This will be my fourth conference, and the first one was at Waitangi too. It's the place where the treaty was signed between the British and the United Tribes. There are plenty of long stories about that, but it's really quite a special place. I'm looking forward to going back.

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