The familiar combination of long summer days and the tennis grand slam event that takes over the city this time every year, makes for a lazy, holiday like feeling. The long weekend (Australia Day), which is just a day after the Lunar New Year, made the occasion even better.

We were with Jason and Mel at their home on Friday night, for a Lunar New Year eve dinner. They put on a hot pot (“steamboat”) and we brought some stuff along (some pre-cut pork belly slices and fish ball/fish cakes, and some kimchi) including a couple of bottles of wine. It was nice spending the evening with their family.

Unfortunately for some reason or another, a photograph of Tress and I that Jason took that night in his home, ended up with Ruth and Jonathan, my cousins from an opposite end of Melbourne. This haphazard sharing of photos through social media like WhatsApp for no cogent reason, is thoroughly annoying, so I decided to exit a number of these chat groups – a risk reduction measure, I guess. Now, I’m only on chat groups with immediate family members.

On Saturday, we slept in and then drove to the beautiful Yarra Valley. Every time we make our way to this part of Melbourne, I wonder why we don’t do it more. It’s only a bit over half an hour away and we’re in beautiful vineyard country. I had made a reservation at the Mandala vineyard restaurant (“DiVino”) and we had a beautiful lunch there.

After lunch, we drove around, and dropped into the chocolatier and ice-creamery place, which was jam packed. The summer holiday feeling was heightened and by the time we got home late arvo, I felt rested and had loads of fun. Even when I had to wash the cars later that arvo, those feelings didn’t abate.

Melbourne/Victoria has undergone some pretty trying weather conditions. The fires had created a smoky and dusty atmosphere and a few days earlier, a thick brown fog of dust descended on the whole city and left orange/brown dust all over. The cars were covered with the stuff, as were our deck and driveway.

So on the way back from Yarra Valley, before I took the cars out to wash, we dropped by Bunnings and we picked up a high pressure cleaner. On Sunday arvo, after St Alf’s and lunch at a usual spot, I gave it a red hot go to clean the driveway and deck and while they are now much cleaner than before, it’d probably need another round of efforts.

St Alf’s on Sunday was special as it was a farewell service of sorts for Jordan Hitchcock, a minister who had responsibility mainly for the young adults and families. He had been there for 7 years and they are prepping him for a more senior role, probably in a leadership capacity in some other parish. I have always enjoyed his sermons, which I thought were always very well crafted. His core points were always solidly grounded on sound theological footing and delivered in great style. He is very good with his preaching ministry.

Monday (yesterday) was a public holiday and we drove down to the beach at Chelsea. Auntie Hooi and Uncle Marloney had bought a beach apartment a few months back and furnished it over Christmas. They invited us to come around and so Jason and Mel and us drove down there separately, and met up at the apartment. Tress and I arrived some half an hour earlier, and walked on the beach. I couldn’t believe that was the first time I had been to the beach this summer. It felt very nice. Later on, all six of us walked to a nearby café and got some lunch, before heading back to the apartment for drinks and nibbles and chats. We left a few hours later, and arrived home to walk the little fellow.

Later that night, there was the little event of the Australian Open tennis highlight match of the world’s number one player taking on what is hopefully Australia’s ex-brat. Nadal and Kyrgios hadn’t seen eye to eye but Kyrgios appear to be more serious at giving his tennis better effort. I guess he’s growing up now and while he lost to Nadal overnight, I think more Aussies would be prepared to back him now.

I saw an advertisement by the Salvos this morning. It was for a legal role and it’s based in Blackburn. That appears to be a no-brainer so I responded. Let’s see if anything comes out of t hat.

Another busy weekend passed. The busyness was entirely to do with the domestic front. The dirty week, weather wise, meant the lawns, flower beds, etc require another weekend of work. The wagon also needed a service and I had booked it in earlier in the week so that was what we did first thing on Saturday – dropped it off at the mechanic’s.

The night before, we caught up with J & M again for dinner. This time it was at a Malaysian joint in Mount Waverley. We thought we’d let them pick the place for a change, as our Friday night catch-up dinners are usually our pick. As usual, it was a good time of just chatting away. When we got home it was close to 10pm and the conditions had cooled and before long, I felt I was crashing out as I struggled to keep awake while watching tele on the couch.

After dropping off the wagon at the mechanic’s we went home and Tress did a whole lot of weeding while I tidied up the lawns etc. I had the blower on, turned on the vacuum function, and kept it going as much as possible, until it was time to pick up the car before the mechanic finished up on their usual Saturday 1pm close.

We then had lunch in a lovely Japanese café in Ringwood, then did some quick grocery shopping after that and before heading to our usual shopping centre to catch a movie.

“1917” has received really good reviews and I have always been a fan of Sam Mendes so it was a no brainer and Tress had booked the tickets earlier in the week. It was a really good movie.

I often say to Tress one of the really enjoyable things of summer is how late the sun sets. Long days let you do so much more and you just feel better for them. It was nearly 7pm when we finished the movie and got home and there was still plenty of time to walk the little guy for a bit.

On Sunday, Mike continued with the series on 1 Kings and I continue to wonder what I needed to do with my faith journey. Like other aspects of my life, that has settled into a routine, a rhythm, that sometimes makes me feel like I’m not sure where the direction or purpose is. I just “get on with it”, not really knowing where I’m heading. After lunch, we went home and I did the week’s cook, which included roasting some meats on the weber, cooking some cabbages and also doing the little guy’s meals. Towards the end, the forecasted storms made their way in and while it was lovely to see the rain belting down, elsewhere in the surrounding suburbs, there were reports of large hailstones pelting down. It wasn’t until about 6pm that everything was cleaned up and packed away and Tress had also done the breakfast smoothies so we could put our feet up again.

We had been receiving social media and messaging clips about the coming Chinese New Year. A part of me feels glad and relieved that we are not in a community where loads of chaotic noises would pollute the streets, restaurants and shopping malls at this time of the year. Another part of me however, as usual, wished it wasn’t so hard to have family around under circumstances which are far more serene and far less “noisy”. In as much as I’m seeking and asking about purpose and direction, I’m not unhappy we’re just busily “getting on with it”. Living may be it.

As Tress and I walked into our usual Italian joint last Friday night and settled down to end the first week back at work, life felt like it has returned to our normal routine. The weekend certainly saw an ignition of our regular activities that pushed us along that path.

On Sat morning, I headed out to St Alf’s for a sweeping/cleaning duty as Tress started vacuuming the house. It was unusually messy at St Alf’s so the work took longer. I also bumped into Paul W, who had been doing some mowing and whipper snippering and we chatted for a couple of minutes before he took off. Back home, I started to clean up the mess that a hot, windy and gusty week had wrought. Raking, sweeping and blowing, it took a while to sort through the mess to have the outside of the house appear much less strewn and chaotic. When I finished and got back in to clean myself up, the inside of the house too, felt so much fresher for having been cleaned well.

Tress and I then headed out for a late lunch, did some basic grocery shopping before we headed home to get ready for our “Dinner Tonight” duty at New Hope, just down the road from St Alf’s. By the time it finished close to 7pm, I was ready for a feet-up-wine-in-hand winding up of the day. Tress and I certainly slept well that night as we woke only late-ish, and had a quick brekky before heading out to St Alf’s, where Peter delivered the second of the new series on 1 Kings. The story of Solomon’s early reign, sorting through his friends and enemies with his father the ageing and dying David, sounded a bit like Vito advising the younger Corleone, Michael. The passing of the baton from the senior outgoing Godfather to the heir and new head of the family, rang through the message as Peter talked about David advising Solomon to deal with various friends and enemies.

After lunch at our usual place off High Street at “Wong”-Caster, we went home and I gave the cars a wash, cooked the week’s lunches and then had the sprinklers on post mowing and getting ready for the warm week ahead. Again, it was late on before we could put our feet up, and we started on a new series on tele – the “Treadstone” Bourne spin-off.

All the familiar activities took us back into our routine which in turn took my mind off the troubling bushfires that appear to have ebbed. Threats of huge fires continue to burn at the Alpine, and holiday destinations along the South Coast of NSW and Gippsland continue to dust away the aftermath in attempts to resume business. Some places urged the public to return, saying at the same time however, that they weren’t ready to take bookings for another week. For those folks so badly affected, I bet they couldn’t wait to return to their routines too.

It has been a horrid start to the year, and the Queen may want to put 2020 down as a leading contender for “annus horribilis”.

The fires here in Oz have raged furiously and are now said to be the worst the country as a whole has ever experienced. Then there was the assassination of an Iranian general by the US, that lead to a barrage of missile being fired by Iran, on to US bases in Iraq. Then a Ukrainian commercial plane crashed in Tehran, killing about 170 people.

Against such horrid backdrops, I’ve been in a a pretty ordinary mood. When I then saw a message in a chat group that felt like a gigantic signal for a fight or flight response, the answer became clear in my mind. I did a quick thanks-but-no-thanks response to that message and exited that chat group.

For weeks now, that chat group has been discussing a drive from Sydney to Melbourne, after a wedding . That drive was going to comprise a group of 12. I stayed away for a little while but some comments about this being an opportunity for family to do stuff together, got me sucked in, much against my instinct and preference. I thought I’d put aside those instincts and preferences and give the family doing stuff together bit, a chance. I should have stuck to my guns because no sooner had I decided to join that drive that the father of the bride wrote to me asking if I could lead that drive.

He said it would help him if I took the lead on the drive, as he would be tied up with the wedding stuff. Again, I should have remained strong and declined but when someone from the (albeit extended) family asked for help that way, it’s hard to say no. Again, I had seen this (being asked to lead the drive) coming when I decided to come along for the drive, so I should have not chosen to come along in the first place.

With the fires raging through much of NSW and Victoria, Tress and I thought about whether we could do an alternate route instead. That set of a chain of communications that confirmed my worst fears – this was going to be a difficult bunch to “lead”. You are asked to “lead”, but really, what they want is for you to do the work to execute their wishes.  That became apparent when what we said were ignored, and they would do things they had wanted to do anyway.  I said “they” but it really is what I’ve called a “tribe” within the larger family, where anyone outside that tribe will get no bite or time of day, and whatever anyone within that tribe throws up will be grabbed and embraced, no matter what others in the family (who are non-tribe folks) think.

It was for that “tribe”-within-the family reason that I had, maybe a couple of years ago now, left another chat group that had heaps of people in the family. I felt then already, that unless the “speaker” was someone in that tribe, whatever was said would get little or no traction. Whereas no matter how trite or silly a tribe person would say, it would get loads of traction and nods. I have to clarify that this tribe has a bit of a concentric feature; a few would be nearer to the core and would get the most traction. Someone on the next circle would still be part of the tribe and get traction. But the circles end abruptly and someone like me would be so far outside the outer circle I might as well be even beyond the family corroboree line. I didn’t take much for me to exit that group.

When I exited this “road trip” group, after announcing I was going to “un-join” the trip, a great sense of relief took over. If the planning was so fraught, I imagine the trip itself would be just… “fun”. I’m actually glad I out of all that, and regret agreeing to come along and even more so, for agreeing to “lead” the drive. Someone outside a tribe would always be up the creek without a paddle in that tribe, and can never “lead” that tribe. Not all family are equal I guess.

Its now 2020. We ushered in this “new decade” at home, with Kiddo and Mic with us. New decade in quoted terms was to take into account some arguments that the decade really only ends on the 10^th year. That is to say, that 2020 is really the last year of the decade and so the new decade starts 1 Jan 2021. But most were quick to consider this a new decade, so that is that.

Kiddo and Mic came to Melbourne a day before Christmas Eve. They went back last Saturday, amidst a most disrupting time in our country. We have been seeing images of horrific fires across the country, particularly in NSW and Victoria, in recent weeks. For NSW and parts of Queensland, it had actually started well before summer. Even as I write this now, a smoke filled air shrouds the city.

In spite of the horrendous environment from the fires, we had a good Christmas and New Year’s break. It was good to just be at home with Tress, Kiddo, Mic and the pooches (LBJ and Milo). I spent Christmas Eve morning working, then went shopping for the Christmas Day lunch we had invited a couple of families for. I then made a salad for Christmas Day lunch. We went to a Christmas Eve service that night, at St Alf’s which ended past midnight and came home to a late bed time. On Christmas Day, I went about preparing to roast the 4.6kg bird on the weber. Jason and Mel and family and Gerry and Jess and family came over for lunch and we had a good time of catching up to celebrate Christmas.

We spent Boxing Day and the days following that, in and around Melbourne. We went to the botanical garden in Cranbourne, trekked into city, drove around the suburbs and generally just did whatever we liked, particularly eating in nice places and lounged around. It was relaxing and the only thing that sat on our minds in not a good way, was the fires. The air in Canberra has been particularly bad so Kiddo and Mic were constantly checking the news.

Yesterday at St Alf’s Peter led a very beneficial time of praying for the country at this time. Often over this period, I get carried over the festivities and being away from work, that the reflecting takes a very low priority. I had been asking the Lord what I should think about in this new season but that is well in the background. That came to the fore yesterday and I hope it becomes clearer for me very soon. I hope 2020 lets me serve Him better.