Several colleagues from the Sales team have been chasing a new business in Sri Lanka. So when Tress, Kiddo and I were at the Sri Lankan restaurant on Mahoney Road on Friday night I was thinking we’ve been engaged in Sri Lankan stuff of late. 
The dinner with Kiddo and Tress was very good but my mind was on an appointment we had the next morning. 

There has been a problem with the plumbing at home for a while now and the effect has started to become more audible – gurgling noises appear constantly and it had got to a stage where we needed to get the plumber in. 

We’ve heard the “drain man” ad on the radio for a while now so we teed them up for Saturday morning. The drain man showed up, did his thing and gave us the bad news. The plumbing needs urgent – and expensive – work. That plumbed my mood somewhat but I decided to park the issue on a to-do list and instead of worrying about it, make a plan to stomach the pain and mentally, financially (amongst others) prepare for it.

With the drain man’s quote sitting ominously on the kitchen bench, we went to an auction behind our house (which saw a humble home fetching well over a million), and lunch thereafter. 

After lunch we got home and I spent the rest of the arvo mowing, tidying the outside of the house as well as gave the cars a wash. Tress gave the house a very good vacuuming and at the end of all that as I sat having a couple of beers Uncle Seng rang to ask about Kiddo’s wedding dates and then asked if we’d like to join them and Uncle Jin/A Hooi for dinner.

We spent the evening with them, first in a restaurant in Box Hill and then in Uncle Seng’s home. It has been a while since we spent time with them this way so it was very nice. We did however, have to be witnesses to some ageing tension – Auntie Anne and Uncle Seng both looked tense and they confided later, that there were menopausal issues to deal with. I think that made the family get together even more meaningful somehow and I was again very grateful for such family presence here in Melbourne.

Sunday we did our usual thing except Kiddo was hanging around the home too – prepping for her Deakin TFA training which starts later this week. She’s been discussing with us her thoughts about driving there so that she has access to a car for the 5-6 weeks she’ll be there. She’s still a relatively novice driver so Tress and I have decided we’ll go with her, with one of us driving another car in tow. Tress and I will then make the drive back to Melbourne once she’s settled in Warnambool. 

It feels like our roles as doting parents are ending soon, as we begin to hand over the reins of looking after her. I had talked to Mic the day before too, to check out his views of Kiddo driving to Warnambool. That’s part of the handing over process I guess.