Nothing novel

Bit of a nothing week. I really mean it, too. Sometimes I think I have a nothing week and it turns out that it's because everything cool was focused at the weekend.

This week, however, consisted of reading 'Harry Potter' (book 5 and 6) and hanging out with family over the weekend.

My sister came up from Canberra on Friday, with her new boyfriend Ben. She recently broke up with Anton, who she'd been with for more than four years. They were living together in a flat they'd bought, so now she has to extricate herself from the mortgage and the title.

Anyway, she went with Ben to her friend's farewell while I finished book 5 and then on Saturday we went to my parents' place. My dad has gone to Asia for five weeks, which was a trip he'd planned when he and my mum were fighting. It's my mum's birthday next week so since my sister had come up we decided to take her to dinner.

My mum booked for Trellini's, which is a pretty average restaurant in Castle Hill. My sister and I ended up spending much more on our meals and drinks than my mum because we decided to have cocktails AND tea AND dessert.

We then tried to entice her to a movie - GOLD CLASS - because we felt cheap for spending so little on her (and so much on ourselves) but she refused and we ended up going home and watching 'In Her Shoes' on DVD (don't see it if you can help it...).

We also had a little fiasco with the webcam attempting to commuinicate with my brother and my little niece where only one webcam could be on at a time or something (damn Yahoo) so I downloaded Skype for mum, though haven't yet taught her how to use it.

On Sunday Rach went to her boyfriend's place for lunch and I went out with my mum and my aunt's family to Denistone Sports Club, the height of glamour... They know the chef so they often turn up there. My cousin, learner's driving licence not even a month old, drove us there. He's a really good driver, much better than me even though I've had my full licence for more than a decade.

We also dropped in at Ryde-Eastwood Leagues Club for coffee where we accidentally met my dad's brother playing pokies in the outdoor pokie den. Can it be called a den if it's outside?

That was really all the notable incidents of my week, told you it was a bit nothing. Good though, feel like I have saved a lot of money, which I will promptly spend on the astronomical electricity bill I just received today, almost twice the value of the bill I received for the same quarter last year. This is what happens when you're good to the earth and buy GreenPower. And the price of electricity goes up. And you inexplicably use 10% more than you did last year even though you've used less heating and have taken shorter showers.

The other thing I should note is that my writing group is doing an early NaNoWriMo, which is usually in November because it's an otherwise miserable month in North America. However, November is quite the social month down here as summer ramps up and we start tying up our affairs in anticipation of the holidays so we decided August was a better substitute.

I'm supposed to be doing 1000 words a day but to be honest I'm so close to the end of my novel that I'll be done before the month is up at that pace. Before the week is up. And there I shall leave you, the ending awaits.