I’m leavin’ on a jet plane …

OK, it’s a bit wrong that I’m excited that Husband has the kids for the first week of the school holidays and I get the chance to duck away for a mini-break … but, bugger it, I can’t wait.

I’m off to explore northern NSW for a few days with a foodie/arty friend.

I fly out at 11am after squeezing in a pump session at the gym at 8am (I’m not obsessed, nooooo). Lots of lovely friends and relatives have offered to drive me to the airport, but there’s a marathon (good luck to my amazing friend Suse who’s running!) so I’m avoiding the gridlock and catching the train.

My friend and I are kicking off our adventure with lunch at a place called Mavis’s …

How gorgeous does it look? I am HANGING for the crab cakes. Fingers crossed they’re on the menu.

Fingers also crossed that it’s warm enough for swimming because I’ve invested in a bikini wax (though I could have done without the beauty therapist finding not one but two strange groin lump thingies while she was savagely denuding me … yep, I’m off to the doctor again FFS). I also got the most AWESOME pedicure, administered by my new best buddy/nail wonderchild, Arwen (yes, named after the Lord of The Rings elf). Arwen and I bonded like nobody’s business and had a fabulously chittery-chattery time (she’s been added to the zillion people who know ALL my secrets … and I know quite a few of hers now too).

Arwen was also sweet enough to say lots of lovely things about me not looking 46 and having fabulous nail beds. Wasn’t that nice of her … whatever nail beds are.

Check out that awesome colour: oooooh, how I adore orange! I’m rather startlingly pale, though, aren’t I? Perhaps I should have invested in a Mel’s Tan as well?

Mind you, I have no idea how I’d have fitted it into my schedule, as it’s been quite the hectic weekend. Husband picked up the kids last night when he finished work so I could go to my Dutch gym instructor’s karaoke 40th.

I really, really don’t like karaoke.

Or at least that’s what I thought until someone put a microphone in my hand (don’t get excited Megz, it was probably a one off).

As soon as I clutched that microphone in my hand, I was like that bloke who woke up from the operation speaking fluent Mandarin, except with karaoke and completely off pitch.

Carly Simon’s “You’re so vain” started playing and I was OFF.

Although the lyrics are oddly hairy at the end when they get to this bit ..

Well I hear you went up to Saratoga
And your horse, naturally, won
Then you flew your learjet up to Nova Scotia
To see the total eclipse of the sun
Well, you’re where you should be all the time
And when you’re not, you’re with some underworld spy
Or the wife of a close friend,
Wife of a close friend …

You try singing Nova Scotia and underworld spy after a few glasses of champagne …

The song also reminds me of my dear friend Glen who has the most divine imagination (and fascinating way with words). He wrote this on Facebook last week …

Jan’s decided to put the Carly Simon mystery surrounding her to rest.
“Yes, I walked in to a party, like I was walking on to a yacht,” she confides, “My hat, from memory, was just on my head. It wasn’t strategically placed. As for my scarf, it was orange, not apricot.”
Jan goes back to hacking at her lantana while continuing with her musings.
“And I didn’t have one eye in the mirror, I had both, as I watched myself walk by. ‘Use your eyes’, I was always told”
Jan reflects on the progress she’s made with clearing her lantana.
“I’m not so vain,” Sonny Jim, she tells me, taking a breather from her hoe. “But I’ll tell you this much, and I’ll tell it to you for free, the song is about me. And you know it. Don’t you? Don’t you?”

I keep telling him he should write a book about Jan. Or at least give her a blog.

The microphone was finally wrestled from my hands 30 minutes later and I warbled my way off into the night. Thank you lovely Lianne, your 40th rocked!

Well, gotta go … bag to pack, armpits to shave, pump class to do …

Have a gorgeous Sunday.

Song of the day: Carly Simon “You’re so vain”