Where Life Begins (So they say) and Skype

Today is my birthday apparently life begins at this age - but I don't feel like I've begun anything new.

We had a party last night and all the friends we invited turned up and everyone seemed to have a good time. We had food upstairs and the game Dance, Dance, Revolution downstairs, we were all game and some of us (J!) got the hang of it really quickly. I suck at the game, although I use the workout mode every day. K had been practising and pretty much wiped the floor with all of us. H & J snuck out and bought a couple of cakes and a candle and everyone came upstairs and sang "Happy Birthday" I was really touched and I admit I had a wee teary.

Pressies!!! which I love were very imaginative, I got CD's, a handmade bracelet, a watch from hubby amongst a ton of other things from him, cosmetics, enough Berringer to bathe in oh yes and a pair of granny panties (courtesy of M,L and J) with "this way up" written on them. By the time I opened my pressies I'd had a bit to drink so had no trouble in putting them on in front of everyone. C has the pictures to prove it!

This morning I opened the other pressies. M bought me the Maroon Five CD, I've got books about everything from Alias to Crosswords and Cats. We went to REI this morning and bought a mattress pad and a pillow for my Yurt trip next weekend. We had come home and were having lunch when the phone went and it was my cousin R in England. We had a nice chat and I congratulated him on his engagement to T (about time too!)

The only downside to the whole party thing was that Dory's routine was shot to piecies, she took ages to get in last night and then woke me up at 5.30 this morning mewing so I let her sleep with us and she was curled up under our bed when we woke up this morning.......

Skype - this is an interesting piece of kit. You can use it to make internet phone calls all over the world - for the cost of a local call - using VOIP, that's Voice Over Internet Protocol. We heard about it a couple of years ago and when C's Dad upgraded his PC the plan was to get him to use Skype to communicate but it never materialised. Then yesteday morning the phone went and it was D, from England. He'd been tinkering with Skype and called us. It was a looooonnng conversation and we exchanged several files while we talked. So we've now seem their new canal-side house, complete with balcony and they've seen our walk-through. It's a great way to keep in touch and I'm thinking of trying to use it with M, maybe.