Tress’ new workplace is in a really nice area. On Friday night we had dinner at the Café Oggi, which is in the commercial corner of Springvale and Burwood Highway. As always, it was lovely to just sit and talk over some good food and a bottle of wine to finish the week.
It has been a big week of sorts again. We signed up to purchase that townhouse Kiddo liked, which is only a 5-7 minutes’ drive to the Caroline Chisolm secondary college. This means our back burner plans of getting a smaller property – ideally a 3-bedroom unit in a 2-unit development – is taken off the stove altogether. This purchase completes in 60 days so a couple of weeks or so before Christmas, Kiddo and Mic can start to plan their new abode and we’d have a temporary place to stay if we visit before April next year.
With that big week sort of tied up, we took out time on Friday night and after dinner we walked through the pathways along the lakes and ponds surrounding the Vic Roads, World Vision and various other offices.
We did a bit of gardening on Saturday morning. The tiny bits of hedges on our eastern side of the property had grown terribly tall on the neighbour’s side for a while now. So I took some tools and asked permission to get into the neighbour’s backyard. Sharon was not anywhere to be seen and her daughter looked like she was in a hurry to leave the house but she worked out how to open the side gate eventually and so I didn’t have to go through their lounge and dining areas to get to the backyard.
I later said to Tress I wonder how one can accumulate so much stuff and leave so little real estate to walk through. The house is teeming with clutters and they even had a little rabbit in the lounge, all kitted up with a rabbit home and fence around him, all in the middle of the lounge. In the backyard, I had trouble with finding a footing for the ladder as again it was littered with stuff. I did what I could and got most of the overgrowth trimmed. I later did the front hedges on the western side too. It was a warmish blowie sort of a day so just around noon, having put in a couple of hours of work I decided it was enough so we cleaned up and headed to Madam K’s for lunch.
After lunch it was grocery shopping. We took our time. Back home I marinated the chicken which I’d cook the next day for the week’s lunches for both Tress and I. I then took the little black jedi for a walk – it was still very gusty but it was warm and a bit sunny so the walk was nice. Later that night we watched a Netflix documentary. It was about an old Japanese sushi chef named Jiro. His story is a reminder that expertise and perfection is often a result of repeated detailed practice of one’s craft or work. Too often we ask what appears to be important questions – about making a difference, about passion, about chasing one’s dreams – when the truly important thing is probably just putting your head down to get on with the work, day in and day out, week in and week out, and year in and year out. Honest persistent work appears to have been traded in for the promise of passionate excitement of chasing one’s dreams.
We went to bed early as the day’s outdoor work made sleep a very welcomed activity.
On Sunday it was an “all-age” service and after the service we caught up with Stephen Sim who had been unwell but showed up in church anyway. Stephen again said to some people (Peter Fagg and Tanya) that we helped him by mentioning St Alf’s to him when we first met a few years ago. He had also said this to Peter MacPherson before and Peter mentioned it to us. I honestly do not remember that but if that is the reason he has been to church then I guess God does work without us knowing about it or being conscious of it. We then sat in for a Q&A on some proposals for joint activities with another parish (St Luke’s on Canterbury/Mitcham Roads). When that was done we caught up with Jason and Mel at Wai Heng’s and spent a couple of hours over a very delicious prawn noodles by Wai Heng and we talked. It was very good catching up with old friends and listening to their experiences and their acknowledgement of God in their journey.
When we came home I planted some iris which some folks had left in church for anyone to pick up. The front eastern side had a couple of dead plants and we have been thinking about replacing them so the iris looked like a good option. We later learned iris needs lots of sunlight and that front side of our house doesn’t have the best light so we’d have to see how the plants go. Plants in the ground and watered, I went in and we did the cooking for the week’s lunches. We later watched some TV (The Block) before going to bed, early again. I think all week we have been going to bed around 9pm. I wonder if that has to do with us getting older or simply grinding through each day and feeling the need to hit the sack as early as possible for a good shut eye.
Ante 