Under my umbrella-ella-ella

Thanks to my wonderful musical friends for the perfect SingStar birthday party.

Hey you kids, get off my lawn!

The invitation said the dress code was: Hobo Chic

The birthday boy

It was a recessionista party in honour of the 30 year old birthday boy and the very hard to avoid Global Financial Crisis. So the hobos turned up to the party and drank champagne while eating canapes, made by the chef in the kitchen and served by the very good waiters. Rather than looking at this as a little insensitive of the times, we'd rather aimed for irony.

The chocolate, siena and gold balloons decorated the room while posters saying "We want to be citizens, no transients" covered the walls. A projector displayed huge images from The Great Depression on the walls. More pictures from the night are on Giles' flickr page.

I went more for chic than hobo

My 2^5th Birthday

omg I'm nearly 32!

Yes, you read it wrong. It was in fact my 32nd birthday and in the tradition of birthdays in G + my lives, we had a whopping big party. It was the closest party I've ever had to a rap video. There was barely standing room, lots of champagne and it went for a very long time. To some this may be a problem. As my friend Alice says "these are what we call Champagne Problems" and of course, she is right.

The invitation said to bring a flower for entry and that was interpreted by my lovely friends as "bring Damana lots of flowers" and they did. Again, not complaining. All the presents were delightful. Now I remember why birthdays are so much fun. Thank you, beautiful people!!!

Here are a bunch of awesome photos taken by Giles. You can find better quality ones on his flickr feed.

The party table before the party

64 delish cupcakes from cupcakes on pitt

The rest of the room before the rap video

The cheese platter at the end of the maze

The leftovers

The famous palm tree esky

M&Ms

Caught stopping to smell the roses

Floating around and recovering

A balloon lands on the ledge of the mezzanine

2007 TorchWood Christmas Party

Saturday night was the a night of big celebrating for several huge reasons. Firstly, it was the Thoughtworks Sydney + Brisbane 2007 Christmas party which was held on boat called the Vagabond Princess on the harbour. The second reason is that Australia tossed out that bloody tyrant gnome John Howard in such a final way that he will not be showing his nasty little face around here forever more. Yay!

Sitting down for dinner

The Christmas party was 5 hours on a harbour cruise with Brazilian dancers, laser shooting and lots of drunk ThoughtWorkers :) It was fun! The food was good. The shooting was fun even though I didn't hit a thing and the people were lovely.

Boys shootin' stuff



The obligatory conga line

I'm Queen of the world! Thanks to Giles for helping me break in to this area of the boat

Giles with the city in the background

Happy Birthday to Me

Giles took me to have a lovely lunch at Wooloomooloo (I love typing that). We sat and ate and drank for hours. It was an overcast day but with the outdoor heaters, it was perfect. This was my first birthday in 8 years where the temp was above 15 degrees C. Yay!

Wooloomooloo wharf from out table

A sticky and some water, just before dessert came

Now I am 31 years old... so old

The boats for the rich people

The best view of the city

A Prime Year is 31

An impromptu gathering was organised by Mei on Friday evening to celebrate my 31st birthday. It is not usual for me to celebrate birthdays that are prime numbers so it was a small yet rowdy crowd who turned up for drinks at Sydney's awesomest cocktail bar, the Hilton's Zeta Bar.

Mei attacking Giles

Talking with the newly engaged Liz + Jules

My usual drinking buddies, the gorgeous and funtabulous Mei and Irene

A wall decoration at the Zeta Bar

Chiara who sang karaoke at my 30th, joined me again for this birthday

Giggling

The bar food is really good and the service is great!

Everyone but me (taking pic)

We were tired at this point :)

The girlies

Thanks guys. Thanks Mei. It was a fun night!

PS David K was here but left before the drunken camera came out.

Bon Voyage

Annabel is off to Paris. Dave is moving to Sydney to work. They had a party to farewell Canberra. For me it was more of a celebration of the great escape. There were fireworks, half 44 gallon drums burning house building off-cuts, toxic green cocktails and comatose cheerleaders.

Good fun was had by all.

Annabel & Dave

Fire pits

Me all rugged up

The A-Team