Bruce and I went to the 'Puddler' Restaurant last night for dinner. It was my birthday, so we decided to go all out and have one of the more expensive items on the menu, which was an ocean platter. It was the most delicious meal we have had out in a long time......a platter for 2 which consisted of a fresh whole lobster, crab, Moreton Bay bugs, oysters and king prawns. There was a seperate bowl on the platter which held a cream, wine and garlic sauce with mussels, scallops and calamari strips in it. This all came on a bed of salad with home made tartare sauce, limes and lemons. Fizzy finger bowls, excellent service, and the best palate cleanser I've tasted in a long time....fresh passionfruit, pulped mango, and champagne in a shot glass, just added the final touch. I could become quite addicted to the palate cleansers...YUM!!!
We were totally decadent with a home made liqueur chocolate pudding with melted chocolate sauce and ice cream for dessert, followed by very good coffee.
The waiter and waitress must have thought I was a total idiot because I took so many photo's while we were there. My excuse was that the photo challenge this week is titled 'dinner time', so I was snapping away trying all sorts of different shots. LOL!!!!
Here are some of those pics.....
Bruce having a wonderful time.

Sorry, I ate it before taking pics........
ooops, and again......
All I can say is it was too good to spend time taking pics when the plates, bowls and cups were full......

Today was a terribly hot day - 46C . There has been a lot of dust in the sky today, so much in fact that at around 3.30 today it looked like a grey overcast day. We have had quite a few grass fires around our area, and at 6pm tonight the big water helicopter flew very low over our house and filled up at the lake. I didn't have time to go and grab my camera, it all happened so quickly. Boy those guys are BIG.

Here are some pics of the sky full of dust........

At about 6.30 tonight the wind turned and brought with it lots of smoke from the fires. The smell was quite overpowering and made our eyes sting. It was so bad at one stage that while I was cooking dinner I got these photo's from our back door. You have to remember that even though this is 6.30pm, it is summer here and we have daylight saving, which means it doesn't get dark until around 9 to 9.30pm. The red ball is the sun poking through very thick smoke. The photo's are a bit darker than it actually was, but if I try to lighten them they lose clarity. This is how they came off the camera on a normal scenic setting.

This lasted for less than an hour, then we got the dusty, light, sky back again thankfully. It is now after 11 pm, and the air is still slightly smokey, but nothing like earlier today.

I just keep thinking about all of those poor, poor people who are experiencing devastating bush fires at the moment. Just horrendous! Our thoughts are with them, and those very brave souls who fight these awful fires......most on a voluntary basis. They really do the most amazing job.

We are hoping there may be a cool change tomorrow, but at this stage they are saying it will still be around 30C, but with cooler weather Monday and Tuesday....we sure do hope!!!!!