When you mention the words “Dancing” and “Columbian Hotel” in the same sentence, you don’t immediately think of ballroom dancing.

But that’s exactly what my friend and I saw when we had a late afternoon drink at The Columnbian.

Downstairs we were chatting with a transexual women about her life. Upstairs, they were doing a bit of ballroom dancing. I’m ambivalent about which was the most interesting.

On two occasions today I was asked “what did you do for your birthday”? The first answer I gave was “Absolutely nothing. I hardly left the house…” The second answer was in response to my blog… “I read your blog and so I got the sanitised version of Friday night, but what really happened…”

The short answer is Friday night was as described, and Saturday was also as described. I didn’t do much at all.

But on Sunday I went out for lunch with my friend, Michaela. We went to Four14, a restaurant on Fitzroy Street, Surry Hills, where we enjoyed, really enjoyed, like really, really enjoyed, their roast pork. It was excellent and we had a lovely time.

After lunch we wandered upstairs to Somedays, the Swedish clothing store in Surry Hills I’ve often blogged about.

There wasn’t a lot to interest me this time, aside from a brief chat-ette in Swedish with the owner. Like most Swedes in Sydney, he probably thought I was a bit of a freak, but I figure that’s his problem, not mine. Having solidly convinced Michaela of the extreme value of Swedish jeans, she’s due to return there in a week. Instantly, the owner recognised I was buying a pair of jeans from there also. Honestly, Swedish jeans are the most comfortable, best fitting jeans I’ve ever worn.

Later, we had a drink at The Columbian. What better way to spend my forty-somethingth birthday?