I got the slippers. Of course, since they don’t have any holes (well, okay, just one hole, where I put my foot in), they feel almost too warm.

It’s been a few weeks since the new City Link toll road opened - without tolls until the government’s sure they’ve won the election, of course (ooh, what a cynic) and I’ve driven on it a few times now. The thing that strikes me about it, despite all the hoopla, the massive publicity and media coverage is… well… it’s just a road. A new and very expensive road. Big deal. And it’s only half finished.

My sister has just gone back to Sydney after visiting for a few days. While she was here she finally opened a package that had been waiting for her for a few months - a diploma from a course she did. When she opened it, she found that they had misspelt the title - wait for this - "Professisonal Writing"!

My birthday is next Friday, and this year I’ve found it necessary to ask for a new pair of slippers. All of us in my family let each other know what we’d like - because we know how hopeless we all are at buying things for each other. It’s not that I’ve asked for slippers because I can’t think of anything more exciting or dynamic or entertaining that I’d like for my birthday. It’s just come to the point where slippers are the thing I most need.

My existing slippers are an aging pair of "ug" boots. It is not exaggerating to say that they are more hole than boot. On cold winter days when I go downstairs to get the newspaper, if it’s windy I can feel a draft than enters the hole by what’s left of the heel and flows along the sides of my foot to another hole next to my big toe. I wouldn’t bother wearing them but they keep the bottoms of my feet warm.

Actually, what would make a great birthday present is to win the footy tipping. With one round to go next weekend, I’m just one point in the lead, closely followed by the cleaner, who is one mean-arse tipster. Of course, since I’m leading, I suppose that makes me a meaner-arse tipster. No, in fact it probably makes me the meanest-arse tipster.

The Micallef Programme, a kind of Australian A Bit Of Fry And Laurie but without Laurie has reared its ugly wacky zany head on broadcast television again, Friday nights on the ABC. I’ll be watching every show to (a) see if I can spot myself in the audience - we went to a taping a few weeks ago, watch out for the "Price Is Right" bit and (b) see the hilarious sketch comedy moment where the priest places a fallen crucifix back on the wall by nailing it up…

Today when I went to work, the work I went to was in a different spot from the work I went to on Friday. That is to say, the esteemed company I work for has moved offices. Not very far - in fact, such a short distance that you have to wonder why they bothered: just across to the other side of the street.

Actually, there is a very good reason why they bothered. The old office had become a very squished rabbit-warren of partitions, with the ever-increasing staff being stuffed into every available nook, cranny and crevice. A bit like Dilbert, but more colourful. One of my co-workers was fond of comparing it to the conditions faced by a fishing-boat full of illegal immigrants being smuggled into the country.

The new office is a generously appointed, wide, long, sprawling, spacious, open and almost luxurious space, with shiny new carpet, soft new telephones, and miracle of miracles, a staff room - somewhere to munch on your lunch other than at your desk.

After the surprisingly well-organised efforts of the last few days, the hope was that everything would be hunky-dory this morning when we all got into work. That computers would  work, phones would ring, file servers would serve, and work on the best new software development since sliced bread could continue.

Well, it wasn’t quite that successful. Big operations like this never are. The main thing was that the phones didn’t ring. Thank you, Phone Company people. Not that I can complain: my job in the company doesn’t involve the excessive use of phones. Oh, and a notebook computer went missing. Oops! Still, a pretty smooth and event-free move considering that the bulk of the equipment was shifted on Friday the 13th.

Noted outside Glen Huntly tram depot: A ragged, tattered, torn, bedraggled flag, proclaiming "A quality endorsed company".

The spring holiday plans almost got unstuck last week, when it became apparent that having left it until only a few weeks before departure without booking the tickets was a pretty stupid idea. Fact is, any school holidays you’d care to mention, some flights get booked solid. And when I waltzed into Flight Centre in Elsternwick on Thursday, it turned out that there weren’t seats available on the flights that I had so carefully chosen from the Qantas web site.

I’ve discovered that I like flying Qantas. It’s not just that I know their service is great. It’s not just their unrivalled safety record (we all remember Rain Man, right?). It’s not just that they’re paying me huge amounts of money to give them good publicity. (If only. Hey, John Laws I ain’t.)

Last year in Europe I discovered that the great thing about travelling Qantas is getting to the airport at the tail end of a great holiday on a far away continent, knowing you’ve had a terrific time immersing yourself in the local culture, but that you’ll be glad to get home. You look through the departure gate triple-glazing and see that big white kangaroo on the red tail, and it’s as if somehow they’ve brought a little bit of home out to meet you.

So, what to do? We pondered about flying with other airlines, and eventually decided on Saturday afternoon to ring and book onto the alternative suggested: Cathay Pacific. That wouldn’t be bad, and I’d still earn frequent flyer points. But I decided to ask for Qantas anyway initially, just in case some seats had magically made themselves available. The girl on the phone was determined to wangle something, and after some fiddling with dates, actually got us onto almost all Qantas flights to and from Europe (with just one sector on BA instead). Cool.

So, in about five weeks, we’ll jet off for about a week in Rome, followed by a fortnight in England (or wherever in the UK we decide to go). Goody gum drops.

And if anybody’s got any messages for us to give to the Pope or the Queen, just drop me an e-mail.

We spent some of the weekend down at Phillip Island. Why? Well, to get out of the city, see some countryside, watch the famous penguins waddle up the beach, that sort of thing. Also as a practice run for being away from home with the kids - we’ve got a three week family trip to Europe planned for next month. A short trip like this could provide a preview of the misery ahead!

Zooming down the South Gippsland Highway after lunch, we were soon out of Melbourne. We stopped for a break at a little town with the very wacky name of Koo Wee Rup. There didn’t seem to be a great deal there, but there was a small playground, which was enough to keep the kids amused for long enough for me to stretch my legs and get some feeling back into my posterior.

After another brief stop at the very Italian-sounding San Remo, we headed over the bridge to Phillip Island. It’s not a tiny island - not a tiny desert island like the ones you see in The Muppets and Sesame Street, with stranded Muppets and celebrity guests counting bananas. No, it’s a whacking great big island, maybe 20 kilometres across.

(Hey! My spell checker knows about Muppets!)

We found our abode for Saturday night, the Amaroo Park Youth Hostel. ‘Cos hey, you don’t have to spend a bomb to stay overnight somewhere. In fact, $45 got us a family room to ourselves, with plenty of beds to sleep all of us.

Then we set out to find the Penguins. Every night they stumble out of the water, up the beach and into their burrows, looking a little like a large group of commuters swarming out of the station during the evening rush hour. But commuters don’t have a huge audience of people who’ve paid $10 each to watch and take pictures.

I fail to understand how, after repeated requests in many and varied languages, some of the aforementioned audience could be so selfish as to continue using the flashes on their cameras. Maybe corporal punishment for the offenders could be the answer. And the Rangers could stomp on their cameras.

After dinner, we headed back to the hostel. The kids and L went to bed, and I sat in the lounge reading the paper and slurping down a VB - the beer, not the programming language. In a discussion with a visiting American watching the footy on the telly, we came to the conclusions that (a) NFL is a rather plodding game in comparison, with 10 seconds of play and then 50 seconds waiting around before more play; and that (b) maybe soccer hooligans act that way because they’re extremely bored while waiting for someone to score.

In the morning after breakfast we headed back towards Melbourne. We stopped at the Giant Earthworm display, intending to discover what fascinating wormy facts we could discover there, but it was too early, so we pressed on. Turning back onto the main road I timed how fast the car got from 0 to 100Km/h, which was 25 seconds. Okay, so our Magna may not be a Porsche 911, but that’s probably not bad for a five year old four cylinder family car once described as "a bathtub on wheels".

We also stopped at a roadside market near Tooradin, to pick up some bargain fruit, veg, fish and eggs, to eat doughnuts and climb the observation tower, which had a quite spectacular view of the surrounding swampland. We were back in Melbourne by lunchtime, almost 300Kms on the clock, and a stowaway penguin in the boot.

Nahhhh….