Here she is

My niece, Cecilia (awww). It only took three weeks for the photos to get to me...

This week involved a lot of meetings with various people, some to consolidate relationships, others for interviews.

I found out the 'throat thing' I had was actually extremely mild hayfever. I get hayfever when it's particularly dry and/or windy and it has been both lately. However, my previous experience of hayfever was itchy, watery eyes and a running nose. Due to the fact I've been taking vitamin C, the only symptom has been the sore throat, which I mistook for the beginnings of a cold or laryngitis. One day, when I was walking to work, I had to pass two gardeners mowing lawns and I started to get the itchiness behind my eyeballs so I took an antihistamine. When my throat cleared up as well, I realised my mistake.

Anyway, I'm now taking a herbal remedy as it's too expensive to take an antihistamine every day (it's more than a $1 a tablet) and my symptoms are so mild I don't think it warrants the full service antihistamine.

So the NSW Export Awards presentation went well, I didn't screw up despite being handed the name 'Vasquez' (pronounced var-kez, not vas-kwez). Most of the table, including the four others from my work, left before dessert, leaving me with an exporter called Daniel and an Arab Bank employee, Claudio. Daniel, despite not winning an award, wanted to get a photo with Premier Nathan Rees but wasn't sure how so I said I'd help him. The two of them lined up with the winners while I worked the line giving out business cards and congratulating the various businesses, and then the three of us shook hands with the Premier and had our photo taken.

The other good thing to happen was finally meeting Rachel from Westpac, who we'd heard was not happy about the way I handled the whole export partnership deal (I was told to kick them off the export panel but keep them happy so I handed her over to Jen on the business side as the international banking expert). I felt I did really well, telling her that the reason we did that was to highlight Westpac's role in educating exporters, rather than having them compete with the other banks. Which is entirely true, we just haven't sorted out how we're doing it so it's taking a little while longer to actually show them how it works in their favour.

Other things, just quickly as I'm getting ready to go see Tete at the Opera House:

An exchange from my favourite Muppet Show episode:
KERMIT: Sam, Elton John is a very important musician.
SAM: Then why does he dress like a stolen car?

Gave blood on Saturday morning. I've gained a little weight but my blood pressure is good and my haemoglobin is steady at 131. However they couldn't hit the vein in my right arm so they tried my left and got a small one that took more than 12 minutes to give 444ml (for reference I usually give 470ml in about 6 minutes). Eventually they stopped because the flow was too low and now I have a massive bruise on both arms.

I don't know if I mentioned, but I've finally prepared my tax and my accountant is probably doing my return as I type.

That's about it.