Thank you Nilly, and yes your birthday wishes have been seen on time as there is still half an hour of my birthday to go here in down-under time.
My day was quite good considering that I had to prepare and present a report on the teaching practices of all the teachers at one of the schools that is under my wing - which as you can imagine, is not necessarily the most pleasant task when some of their results don't tally with their own opinions of themselves.
BUT at my base school I got flowers, chocolates, lollies, three hand drawn cards and a hand made party hat from students and chocolate cake covered with marshmallows from the staff.
And jimi remembered my birthday this year and bought me a new mobile phone (with accessories) and took me out for dinner.
So basically I'm a very happy birthday girl.