anyresemblance

In transit

Melbourne has many things to recommend it if infinite superiority to Sydney but sadly the airport is not one of them. I'm on my way to Bombay (Mumbai is a city but Bombay is a state of mind, a friend posted on facey). I have to go via Singapore and the flights via sydney were all full. But given it was Sunday there are not so many domestic flights so I had to get the 6.30am to get a 12.15 flight. Urgh. Way too much hanging around the airport. I'm willing the Qantas wifi to speed up so I can download season 6 of the good wife to watch from Singapore to Mumbai.

Anyway, it was pouring when I left home which is a GOOD thing as the garden is parched. Serious garden over haul when I get home.

See you in another time zone.

Stepping up

L
ately, I feel like I am surrounded by such negativity and I'm tired of it.  I'm embarking on days of grateful as the whining is sucking my soul away.

On the good side, I've been running 5 days out of 7.  Running is a grandiose term for my walk some, run some approach but it is working for me and certainly gives me way more aerobic exercise than my walk.  I'm supplementing that with walking up the hill so I get heart starters and nature in abudance.

I was watching some videos at work.  We've been trying a new approach and getting some of our sales guys to record their pitch on their smart phones and post them for general feedback.  One I watched started with a great story, personal, on topic, authentic, relevant but even sweeter was he recorded himself outdoors with the sweet song of magpies in the background.

I went to Bunnings to buy something which I failed to find.  I thought about buying tomato plants and then realised the kid would forget to water them while I was away (see also, dead lawn) so put that off.  I was loathe to leave empty handed so bought a shell like paddling pool for $12 which I then proceeding to fill for the dog.  He would only venture in if you threw his ball in but he and the cats all like drinking from it.  Another upside is that after  he bolted for the slimy storm water drain in the middle of ball play last night, I was able to sluice him off in the paddling pool and then empty it on the lawn for its revival.

When I set off for last night's walk, the local kids were still playing their cricket game (as an aside, my friend whose son plays at this time tells me the school strongly discourages parents to bring alcohol to the games, sounds almost unaustralian to me) so I took Charlie on a walk past their play.  Three small girls were in the outfield playing and Charlie, completely against his usual behaviour, took his ball up to them so they could throw it for them.  They were utterly charmed but so was I to see them hard at work cooking up a "disgusting potion" (their term) from bits of dead grass and the burrs stuck in Charlie's fur.

I got through a bunch of tedious tasks today (like refilling the gas bottle for the barbeque, buying dog biscuits from Costco, getting new ink for the printer) by making a list and just going through it.  I told my daughter she could take the car to work but she wanted the company so I drove her and she rewarded me with a free coffee.  I came home and made rice pudding.  I don't know, I liked the idea of making it in a saucepan but it didn't have the creaminess of rice pudding cooked in the oven like my mother made it and adding condensed milk and a praline sauce just seemed like a sugar shock.  I wouldn't make it like that again.

 

Plod

Yesterday, I hauled myself out running. Although I've been diligently doing my daily walks it's been a while since I actually exerted myself. Of course, I chose the day when it got above 30 but I went reasonably early. I eased into it with a run one minute, walk 90 seconds routine and was pleasantly surprised that while slow I covered the 5k plus on not too shocking a time. What was shocking was that I only did 7000 steps - which makes perfect sense as even if a short stride is only 75cm you're going to have to do 7.5km to get your steps in and since I set my daily goal at 15000 steps, that means 11.25km. Gulp.

Heresy

In tidying the house to unnatural minimalism for the open houses, I packed up 5 bookcases and 25 boxes of books and carted them to the garage.  I still had these books on the fitted bookcases in the sitting room (A-M in the detective fiction collection).  To my surprise,  I have discovered that the absence of the bookcases wildly calming.  If I were to describe the ideal, it would be to have a library with fitted shelves but I don't feel any need to move the book cases back in.  Mind you, when we look at houses, the first question we ask is "where would we put books"?

I spent hours cleaning the house yesterday.  While it was being shown to the public it was scrubbed to within an inch of its life but standards have slipped a little in the last two weeks.  Yesterday, I put it to rights while listening to 6 episodes of serial.  So.compelling.  Thanks to Shauna for telling me about this.  The house is super sparkling as well.

Before all this, I trekked up Red Hill with the dog.  A storm was coming in and it was all very broody and dark.  All day, we waited for the rain and were rewarded with about 17 drops just after lunch.  I see giant water bills in my future again.  I made lasagne for dinner and a rather unsatisfactory cheesecake.  It was very grainy which I think was a function of a) using cream cheese which had been in the freezer and b) doing it in the food processor rather than the kenwood.  Whatevs.