Well it came and went and it did not hurt at all.

Yesterday I turned 50. Not something I have been looking forward to but its arrival of course was inevitable. Three days prior I decided I DID want to spend it with good friends and rellies so I promptly text messaged or facebooked my guest list and to my surprise everyone was able to attend especially as we live quite a distance from all the guests.
It was a great day, in fact one of the best birthdays I have ever had and not a drop of alcohol in sight. Mainly because it was lunchtime and also way too cold.
The day commenced with a low of -5c and the entire yard white with frost. The skies were blue and cloudless and it was quite pleasant sitting in the sun although the temp in the house never went above 10c.
I told everyone to rug up and I think almost everyone came layered and scarfed.
This is quite funny as this type of weather in Queensland seems quite obscure and surreal even though we do live in a temperate region. All my life (except for the last 18 months) I have lived in the
sub-tropics as have all of my party guests.
My two children were also able to attend so it was extra special. My daughter and SIL live 2 1/2 hrs away and my son a 6 hr drive in New South Wales.

Speaking of my daughter she made a beautiful ginger birthday cake (I chose ginger) for me and decorated it so sweetly. She has had very bad morning sickness for the last few weeks so lucky for me and her she was feeling a little better, enabling her to do so much cooking.
My DH did an excellent job on the BBQ.
I got the through the day better than I would have thought possible considering I am only 8 weeks into recovery from my Transforaminal Lumbar Interbody Fusion (TLIF). When someone asked me what I got for my birthday they were surprised to hear that it was the TLIF. Even though we have private health insurance and there is some Medicare coverage we were out of pocket $13,000. So there went my dream of a Western Australian pink diamond ring. I have been dreaming of one for about a decade. Maybe in a decade's time I might finally get one??? But the way the economy is headed, what with the Carbon Tax (weirdly announced on my birthday 10th July 2011), fears of rising un-employment,shares prices still not recovered from the highs of 2007, the rising AUD $, recessions and maybe even depressions looming, house prices receding, food prices increasing etc etc where will it all end up?