We had what was probably the wettest weekend this summer. It was raining and stormy on Friday arvo and to risk manage the MX5 which was parked near trees in the station, I left just around 4.30pm and headed home.

Car undamaged and home a touch earlier, Tress and I then headed out to a Korean restaurant for dinner. We had neither been to this part of town nor had Korean for a while so that was sort of an unusual Friday night for us. After dinner we went home and looked for something on Netflix. We settled on that awful “Daddy’s Home”. That was probably one of the worst way to waste 2 hours of one’s life.

Saturday we slept in, lazed around and then drove out to Ringwood. I had an appointment with the Blood Centre – it was the first time I gave plasma. The last time I gave whole blood (back in Nov last year) I was asked to consider giving plasma as there was a severe shortage. Incidentally, that morning we read in the Oz that Australia spent a truckload of dough last year importing blood products that could not be made locally as there was a shortage of plasma donors.

Tress had a wedding to attend in the city in the arvo so after Ringwood I dropped her off at the station and headed home. Later that arvo I trekked into the city and the both of us then had dinner in the city. We had wanted to visit a famed Michelin Star hawker place but it was bucketing down so we decided to stay in the Melbourne Central area and went for a famed Taiwanese place instead (“Din Tai Fung”). The food was really good and we sort of lazed the evening away in the shopping precinct before going home. We looked for something on Netflix again and thankfully, the Robert Redford/Nick Nolte double act in an Appalachian trail adventure was better, albeit equally lightweight.

Sunday we were on communion duty at St Alf’s and I felt uncomfortable being assigned next to Peter out on the front area, so I sighed a big relief when it was all over. We headed to our usual Sunday lunch spot on Doncaster Road, caught up with our grocery shopping and spent the arvo doing my usual cooking.

Sunday arvo remained cool but the rain had abated and it was gloriously sunny so we took the little fellow for a lovely walk as well as stopped to watch the cricket on the oval. The dog walkers who use the oval as a lead-free park often bemoan the cricket games but on occasion – when we got to somehow get on the periphery of the game (we watched and played with the kids of the players/support staff) – the sense of sharing the park so that a bigger group of people can enjoy this wonderful spot right in front of our home, was quite heart warming.

We ended the day by watching the doco on Diana. As I kissed Tress goodbye, as I usually do, this morning when I left home, I thought about how lucky/blessed I am. I am blissfully happy to be married to Tress – 26 years this year – while someone like Diana endured such an unhappy time when she was married to a prince. What irony and sadness. I wondered if she had really happy moments in her marriage.