It was a short working week last week, with Tress and I having taken an additional day on top of the King’s Birthday long weekend. The 3-day working week didn’t necessarily mean less work. It simply meant the work had to be done in 3 days instead of 5. So we were washed out at the end of the week. At least I did. I felt spent.

I didn’t do anything about our usual Friday night end of working week dinner but Jason pinged us to ask if we wanted to go out so we caught up with them at Enrik’s near our home. We had a good time catching up over dinner and while we talked about recent events that soaked up our bandwidth – viz., Sammi’s (and Brendan’s) impending move to HK and Kiddo and Mic’s adventures with Abigail – we also talked about patching things up with people from our past. I said to Jason I had caught up with Tham Fuan and David a little while ago and we talked about him and Tham Fuan. Mel said something about the other side still not reaching out to apologise and Jason said the same. I guess they remain a little distant from any chances of reconciliation at this point in time. I asked them to think about reaching out regardless of who’s “at fault” and who needs to be apologising, I mentioned something about Jesus coming down – reaching out to us – while we were still sinners, while we were rebelling against Him. We ought to be like Jesus and reach out even if the other side appears to be at fault. I guess it is easier said than done, particularly for someone like me who was significantly more removed from the hurting events, compared to what happened to Jason and Mel. I guess all there is to do, at this point in time, is to pray. I hope the seeds have been sown and they’d start to think about reaching out. Or maybe Tham Fuan will…

On Saturday morning, I said to Tress that we need to be just resting and not be caught up with house chores. We just needed to rest. I did. So after taking the little one for our usual weekend walk, we just idled around, did some grocery shopping in an unhurried manner, then went for lunch, where we bumped into John and Siew, our friends from St Alf’s. We talked and they told us about their work with a growing Asian community at St Alf’s. Later that arvo, we came back and I took the car for a wash as Tress prepped the boys’ food. All that talk about rest had to be qualified as the car, having gone through a return trip on the Hume to and from Canberra, was grimy and was begging for a wash. A few dollars later at the DIY car wash place on Burwood HIghway, the car looked far less yucky but the rains that night threatened to mess things up. The next morning, the problem wasn’t a dirty or wet car but one with a flat. The rear right tyre was flattened as we were about to leave for St Alf’s. We took it to the servo, filled up all tyres, but came back to swap cars before going to St Alf’s arriving the latest we have ever done since we started at St Alf’s a little over 10 years ago…

The rest of the arvo on Sunday was more the usual things – lunch, cooking and bringing the boys for their walks.

I have been following the first Ashes Test in the UK since the middle of the week. It has been a fascinating test match, with Ben Stokes’ “Bazball” version of test cricket cranking up the usually dour tones of test cricket. Last night, as rains interrupted play on the third day, England had a slender lead of some 20 runs and the Aussies took a couple of early wickets to remove both English openers in their second innings. The match remains evenly poised and so provides a lot of excitement.

This morning it poured so I headed to the gym for my weekday run. I had joined the local Club Lime gym precisely to deal with conditions such as were presented this morning. I much prefer going for a run around the neighbourhood, running through roads and bushland and parks, but the winter rains often make this a challenge. I hope I’m allowed to “go soft” and head for the gym occasionally. Lest I feel washed out much earlier in the week.