had a picnic on the Gold Coast

At the risk of being repetitive, I present to you this weekend's food, drink and social events.

Firstly an event with my Broadstrokes friends. The name is such because we're 6 broads who indulge in creative endeavours. The word strokes refers to the possible painting brush strokes or the positive strokes we afford ourselves in encouragement as we indulge in arty challenges.

We also believe in good food and drink while we're reviewing and critiquing.

On Sunday Paul, Myles and I headed south to the Gold Coast where Dave, Jen, Colton and Jen's parents were holidaying.

We picniced. It's been some time since we've done this so we were a bit rusty.

The first challenge was to convince the dog lover (pictured here)..... no not Paul;

that we really didn't want his dog to invade our picnic space.

Fortunately that turned out ok and we enjoyed a lovely social time. Mental note to pack our picnic chairs next time.

It's really important that we get used to dining in the open spaces as we've learned this week that Nick and Mey are moving to Uganda, so Mey can fulfil a 2 year Fellowship she's been awarded.
We've been invited to visit of course. I think we'll have more than wild dogs to worry about there.

I wonder if the service we received from the bar staff here can be replicated.

After the picnic, we moved to the Sheraton Mirage hotel where Colton held court

and we had a civilised cup of tea.

Just another weekend with the Marshall Coopers.

.....but before I leave you, la fleur du jour.

Fraser Island creeper (Tecomanthe hillii) currently flowering in our garden.