It was my first full weekend back home here in the burbs in Melbourne. So, I was keen to get back to what we always do. We went out to a local for “TGIF” dinner on Friday night, this time to the Lebanese place on “The Loft” of the FHC. “Mazaj” is one of the few remaining joints to still survive and operate relatively well. We had some falafel, lemon garlic chook, a hummus dip, and a fattoush sallad. It was too much food, and we had wanted to just have the first three dishes but the waitress thought it was too little food. We enjoyed it anyway, and came home to watch Port Adelaide beat the Saints. It was a bit strange to see Ryan Burton thriving for the Powers, whereas Chad Wingard, the player we took in to trade out Burton, has been having a stop start role with the Hawks.

The next day, after a usual brekky and a walk for the little, younger, fellow, we took a drive into the city. We wanted to do a recce for when the Malaysian folks come visit. We trekked into Southern Cross, where they would drop off the rental vehicle, and from there we drove to the Albert Park Lake GP track, and from there, to Brighton Beach where we would let them see the bath boxes. We dropped into a bakery for lunch, where I had an enormous steak sanger and Tress had a soup.

We got back just after 2pm, with a clearer idea of how that first day for our dear family may pan out. After leaving Oreo at home and letting out Scruff for a bit, we went and did a bit of grocery shopping before returning to take both boys out for an extended walk. Later that night, we just chilled, watched a couple of episodes of “Lucky Hank” before calling it a night.

Back in St Alf’s the next day, after a 6-week absence, we were on communion duty so it was “straight back into it” kind of thing, the hiatus notwithstanding. We then caught up with some folks before heading out to our usual spot for lunch, up in Donvale. Then it was back home for the week’s cook, that included a soup for Tress and I later that night. It had been a cold morning, with near 0 Deg conditions, so we had thought a soup for dinner would have been nice. We used the double boiler for a Chinese styled herbal soup – something we had done for Kiddo numerous times when we were there. After the cook, I went for a walk to “air” myself from the aromas that had built up around me from the preps and cooking. Then it was more walks for the boys, before we came back to finish up the day by watching the finale of the mindless “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here”. We had caught intermittent glimpses of the show for a while now and every time we did, we found ourselves laughing. I guess that’s unpretentious good entertainment, where we could just watch, park our minds and opinions well away, and just laugh. Accompanied by a glass of a smoky scotch, it was a wonderful way to wind down and sleep well, and remind myself that routines at home are wonderful.