The days are longer now, with sunset happening well past 6pm, inching towards the 6.30pm mark. It has become a little warmer but it stil gets chilly in the morning.

Last Friday, as Victoria and Perth warmed up to see which teams end up with the big dance, the office had its monthly Friday drinks and nibble. Staff were encouraged to come with their team colours but the only colour I was interested in was red, as I finished my two glasses of red fairly quickly and got out to leave for home and catch up with Jason and Mel for dinner at a restaurant where there will be a big screen TV for the first match up between the Tigers and the Pies.

It was good as usual, as Tress and I got to the restaurant and Jason and Mel joined us a little later. We ate and talked and caught up but to all of our surprise (including the group on the table next to us) the Pies swamped the Tigers and by half time, the lead looked insurmountable. We watched the second half at home and tried as they did, Tigers couldn’t reverse the outcome and Pies got up. Some even started saying they’d be favourites for the flag this year. What a reversal of fortune for Buckley their coach, and the rest of the team.

Collingwood (Magpies – “Pies” – are their mascot bird, the black and white team colours reflecting this) is to the AFL what Man Utd is to the EPL. It’s the team everyone loves to hate. The “ABU” – anyone but United – probably has its equivalent here as the “ABC” – Anyone but Collingwood. When we first got here, some colleagues in my earlier workplaces tried to convince me to go with them. We were living however, where most went for the Hawks, and I quite liked their more low keyed DNA. Having “adopted” them not long after that, the 2008 flag and Crawford’s “That’s what I’m talking about“ at the medal presentation sealed it for me. Collingwood has Eddie McGuire as it’s President/Chairman and McGuire is a local TV player and star. He presents popular shows like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, and started the Footy Show which for many years, was the only show of its kind for AFL. He also ran Channel 9 for a while and remains an influential personality in many Melbourne circles.

On Sat Tress and I went and looked at a couple of units. One was in Croydon East, which was a bit small and has a very large tree in a corner of their backyard. The other is close to our home and is larger but costs more. We liked the second one better but we’ll see what happens. We went back home around 11am and started to work on the outside of the house. I did the usual hedge trimming/lowering, mowing, tidying etc while Tress did a truckload of weeding. We finished up after 2pm, cleaned up, and went for lunch at a really nice Vietnamese joint. Then it was back home for the second preliminary finals game between Eagles  and Demons. The Dees crumbled and it was all over by half-time, with a deficit of 10 or so goals. I said to Tress we could do our grocery shopping then, no point watching the second half. But we soldiered on and finished the game, with West Coast Eagles thumping the Demons to meet the Pies this Saturday – the One Day in September.

Sunday after St Alf’s and lunch, we headed into the city to catch the double billing of the VFLW and VFL Grand Finals. The former is the women’s competition and the VFL is the “reserve” teams competition. Often, AFL first team players would use this forum to test various aspect of a player’s readiness. The quality is reasonably high and nearly 13,000 of us rocked up at the Etihad (now renamed Marvel Stadium) to watch the Box Hill Hawks get up against the Casey Demons. It must be hard for the Demons to lose 2 games on the trot like that but Hawks got up for the women’s competition as well so that was a great afternoon for Hawks to end the season. Hopefully the senior team follow suit in 2019.

Back home after the game, it had gotten a bit dark and I hurried with walking the little guy as Tress prepped for this morning’s brekkie and I made my sangers when I got home later.

At St Alf’s Peter had spoken on Ecclesiastes 11. The message  was one of “getting on with it” instead of waiting for God to perfectly align the stars before making the first move. Do, not wait, appears to be the mantra. But at the same time, that passage extolled the virtues of prudence, of spreading the risks, acknowledging the place of wisdom and contemplation. It feels funny because that has how I have always moved on. And yet, I often feel I had to wait for more stars to align – not necessarily requiring all stars – before making the “big” moves. For now however, I am merely waiting on Him. After the service, Shirley came up to Tress and I to speak about a young couple with whom we have been coming alongside for their work in northern Thailand. They’re finishing up the end of this year and I’ve been thinking about what to do with them going forwards so it was good Shirley approached us to discuss. Maybe this is one star I was waiting, so I’m thinking we move with this for now…