It was a difficult week for the Hawks last week. Roughead had a relapse of his cancer and on Friday night when they took on the Swans, many thought it would be a gigantic battle to lift themselves off the emotional weight of their much beloved colleague’s battle. They worked hard, but Sydney was very good and it was difficult to find that edge and so went down in a low scoring game. Tress and I watched it at home as I was really tired from the week’s activities.
After the game I sort of slumped into the couch and just felt like lying there – the level of tiredness, the low energy level – I was really under.
On Saturday morning after a bit of a sleep in we did a quick house clean before heading off to Madam K for lunch as usual. We then dropped by a housing development project site – we wanted to check out Uncle Seng’s latest project in Burwood.
When we caught up with U Seng and A Anne the previous weekend, they had talked about their latest project. They asked us to also consider sub-dividing our home to build two homes – occupy one and sell the other. While I said to them I’d not presently do anything like that – it changes the character of our street and I disliked the overbuilding, the ever increasing density and the ever decreasing flora and fauna – we really have been thinking about our home. I had even checked out re-development/re-building our home on a 1:1 replacement basis, ie demolish and rebuild a single home.
After checking out the Burwood site, we went off and got some stuff to cook. I was going to cook the week’s lunches and Tress was going to make a fruit platter for Alex’s birthday party later that night. The little black jedi had an extended walk and after that I started cooking and Tress did her fruit platter.
At Alex’s, we caught up with some acquaintances and made some new friends. There were at least half a dozen other families there, none of whom we knew well. In fact more than half of them are people we wouldn’t have recognised if we bumped into them on the street. It’s often like that in Alex’s home. I said to Tress there were a couple of blokes I could at least have proper conversations with so it was good. It was in any event, always very good to be able to catch up with Alex and his family, and friends.
At about 3.30am on Sunday morning, a little buzz went off on my iPad and I got up and about 15 minutes later, got myself out of bed. It was the one chance Man Utd has to win a trophy. They were playing Crystal Palace in the FA Cup Final and it was already the second half. United had been lethargic for much of the season and the first 60-70 minutes were the same. I had not been following their season too closely – other than their very ordinary games under Louis Van Gaal, it has become increasingly difficult to follow games half way across the world, with such unfriendly hours for us Down Under.
United triumphed after extra time – Lingaard’s winning goal in the second period of extra time was like a missile arrowed with great venom into the top right hand corner of the net – and Tress and I went back to bed at about 6am (she had joined me just as extra time began).
Peter started a new series in church on Sunday – it was about being fruitful on the “frontline” and was based on Gal 5:13ff. I had wanted to stay behind for the “Faith Effect” session by Manna Gum’s Jonathan Conford but the half hour wait, and the general tired sense didn’t help so after chats with a couple of people (Warren and wife, Mark Sneddon) we left and went to Westfield in Doncaster. Tress had wanted to check out a lego set of the Millineum Falcon for Zack, our nephew in Klang as well as try and get Kiddo’s phone plan changed to give her more call time.
We had lunch in a Japanese ramen place and maybe due to my general sense of tiredness/lethargy the very rich soup made me unwell and it took a bit of walking around before I felt better. The Falcon was too big to send by parcel so we parked the idea and the phone plan for Kiddo was also a bit tricky as she was on a plan which was a sort of one-time offer so any change would mean she goes off that special feature… yada yada… Kiddo probably just have to manage her calls better or work harder to pay off bigger mobile phone bills I guess.
We got home, walked the little fellow and then went home to cook some soup for the week’s dinners. Tress looked at a job much closer to home and put in an application. We settled down just before 6pm to finally put our feet up…
As we were driving in to work this morning we talked, as we have for a bit recently, about Kiddo. It would be a selection day of sorts soon for a teaching program she is considering, I think it was going to be tomorrow or Wednesday this week. She has also put herself up for more studies for a teaching qualification in the Australian Catholic University. At the same time she is also looking for a job, mostly with the APS. All these, as she clocked up increasingly busy hours with tutoring and RA work with her professors as well as plan her future with Mic.
Not for the first time, I wished she was going through all these in Melbourne – where she can be home with us, where the meals we cook will include her and our walks, our social interactions, our church life can all include her. Also not for the first time, I wondered what would have happened if she had remained in Melbourne and pursued the BA/LLB course she was offered for Monash University here in Melbourne, instead of going off to Canberra to do that PhB in ANU.
Our nest has been empty for well over 4 years now but I’ve never ceased wondering.
This morning as we were about to leave for work I asked Tress why she closed the door of Kiddo’s old room. She said it was to keep out the cold. I wonder how much warmer our lives would be if she never left Melbourne.
Ante 