Tag: Saturday

More “running” from Malaysia, and my (closer to “proper”) run…


It rained all day on Saturday. I was a bit restless as a result, itching to go out into the gardens to organise the pruning which has accumulated in a couple of corners in the backyard. The council’s “hard rubbish” week was to start today and I had wanted to clear my backyard off those pruning.

After our usual coffee at the Coffee Club at the Chase, we rang a new migrant couple and invited them to dinner. They were probably too polite or maybe they didn’t want to miss out on an evening of time with the kids (they have 3 young ones) so they suggested afternoon tea instead. It was a novel idea – albeit an very English and therefore old one – but as the idea was to get to know them and see if we can be their friends, we agreed and set it for 3.30. We then checked with Jason and Mel to make sure our suspicion that they would give this a miss was ok. We had asked them the previous night when they were at our home for the first cell meeting of the year, but we thought it was going to be dinner. Our dear friends spend Saturday afternoons swimming and/or playing badminton so dinner was going to suit better. The previous Sat had been taken up with another do at our mate’s home so two Saturdays in a row was always going to be tricky. So it was just Tress and I and the new family.

So we had “tea” on Saturday arvo. The family was lovely. They’re both IT professionals – very highly successful ones with large MNCs, but remained very pleasant and courteous. Their kids were a joy to be with. Extremely courteous, curious and obviously intelligent, they were very warm too, to boot. They would be such wonderful additions to the local community. They have been here only a few weeks, but they are one of probably half a dozen or so families we have met in the last 6 months or so, who have chosen to leave Malaysia. The trend is a continuing one and appears to be escalating. All Australia’s gain and Malaysia’s loss for sure, but I dont think those idiots who pretend to run the country care very much at all. Someone told me Idris Jala, a Malaysian government minister, recently went back on his views that Malaysia faced bankruptcy unless fuel subsidies were removed. No one in Malaysia thought this reversal had anything to do with any notion of an improving economy, and more to do with another minister who either did not know what he was talking about or one who lacked courage to defy his band of thieving and lying manipulators.

Anyway, this family appears to have settled in well and quickly and will no doubt contribute to Australia more positively and will be appreciated here more than they were in Malaysia. At least their kids can attend university courses of their choice and which they qualify for strictly on merit, instead of seeing buffoons take up places they dont deserve, in hopelessly narcissistic universities anyway.

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Yesterday in church someone asked me if I can recommend his grandson a job. He just finished his law course in a local uni and is probably having a testing time looking for work or deciding on the next step. I mentioned to his parents before, about roles in the State Revenue office but I’m not sure if he’s into that sort of stuff. Like I always suspected, if you finish law school without ever securing a summer clerkship at anytime or locking up an article clerkship, you’re in for a rough and yet very ordinary careeer. That is not a bad thing as lawyers who work their entire lifetime in suburban practice can do well and be happy but it does tamper with a young man’s often rose tinted view of a law career.

Having said that, I’m still struggling with what to do myself. Increasingly, spending time in my present role is just that – spending time. It is still underwhelming, uninspiring and I often go home with a flat feeling not from exhaustion but from being flat all day with little push or excitement. How one needs to be happy with one’s work.

So I’m hoping to make up for all that flatness by running a little bit more. I have previously resorted to food to do that for me – to provide something to look forward to each day – which has been a bit of a problem. Last week I clocked a 32km total, which is something I had not done for months and months. To run 8km a day again, for 4 days a week, feels a little better. It was laboured and it took a lot longer than it used to, but at least the run was clocked up.

This morning I did a 9.6km, albeit still at a slow time of just over an hour. I wonder if those 11km-12km an hour days are well and truly over. At least it made me feel a little better.

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Road Ahead Beckons


It has been a slightly busier last couple of days at work for me. Renovation works scheduled for next week were brought forward and things got a bit messy. I was in early the past couple of days and today – my last day at work before taking a week off for Canberra et al – I’m kind of hoping to have a “POETS” day (Piss off early, tomorrow’s Saturday – pardon the Aussie pleasantries).

Tress has been busy too so I hope today would be better than yesterday.

English: Mallacoota Top Lake, 2011
One Chapter Closes
Batemans Bay
Another one opens

In any case we’re both looking forward to a mini break of sorts. We plan to push off early tomorrow so all the packing for kiddo and other road trip preps must be done tonight. We hope to be at the doors of Burton and Garran Hall by about 2pm, which would allow us a few hours to attend to whatever that needs to be attended to. Tress and I leave the PhB student on Tuesday and will make our way back to Melbourne but via the NSW coast. First stop is Batemans Bay, then down past Bega Valley towards Mallacoota and then down past the Lakes Entrance and towards Wilson’s Prom where Port Albert would be our last stop. We arrive back in Melbourne on Sunday. The Little Black Jedi will be coming along for the ride.

When all that driving’s over and we’re b

ack in Melbourne, life will be somewhat different for us. Life really is a box of chocolates.

Batemans Bay at twilight, looking towards the ...
What lies ahead...
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One chapter closes…


Kiddo, Tress and I spent the whole of Saturday doing stuff together. We went to the Dandenongs in the morning and did the Kokoda Memorial Track (“1,000 steps”). Kiddo has been really fit and was the first one up. I was next and a surprisingly fresh looking Tress was in tow, a few minutes later. We took a longer but more gradual route down and when it was all done, we felt good and had a good brunch at Olinda. We did the unpardonable and had pies at Pies in the Sky. A bit of warning – the pies appear to have lost some of their attraction. They don’t taste as yummy as they used to and the “floater” (in pea and ham soup and a scoop of mash on top) certainly wasn’t the extra $9 or so – it was very dry and bland.

After leaving the Dandenongs we went to get some dried foods for Kiddo to survive on in the next few weeks when crouching in the trenches that are the tiny rooms in the halls of residence in the ANU, as well as some storage containers and packing boxes from Bunnings in Vermont. We got back just after 1.30pm, I took a short snooze before cleaning the house for the dinner party in our home on Sunday night.

Tress did some cooking, as well as the usual rounds of laundry and Kiddo went about packing and placing all her stuff in the spare bedroom to help us all gauge how much space she needed in the car. Kiddo did as much of the packing as possible and we all have a much better idea now, of the stuff we would be carting up this weekend.

That night Kiddo went for an 18th birthday party in Bulleen – that of Sammy her best mate. We took her to the dinner and went to Box Hill ourselves.

Church yesterday was in really hot and windy conditions and the cell leaders meeting in the arvo was a bit testing for that reason. I got home around 3 and got ready for the dinner party at home for Kiddo’s church friends. We had a Sri Lankan lady do the catering and we picked up the food (from church). It was a longish night but I think Kiddo enjoyed the time with her friends from church, that she has made in the last 8 years here in Melbourne.

It was the last weekend of this chapter in Kiddo’s life. Next weekend a new chapter begins.

Weekend Blitz and Bliss


We saw the sun peeking through yesterday arvo just after 2pm. We were at a lunch but decided we must sneak away. The rain had been belting down all day Saturday and our plans to work the garden had been frustrated. We thought if the weekend was going to see any work done we had to leave that lunch soon, great food and wonderful company notwithstanding.

Jason and Mel have always dished out great meals and company. Generous to a fault, it is always difficult to say no to their invitation. So although we had said they should direct their generosity at other more deserving souls, we gladly rocked up anyway. We thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon which unfortunately we had to cut short if we were to halt the rate at which our little garden was turning into a jungle.

The fact that kiddo wasn’t there made it a little harder as other than the cries of the garden, there was no other reason not to just while away the afternoon over a really long lunch.

Kiddo had left earlier yesterday morning. We drove to Tulla just after 8am and after she checked in we did some quick duty-free shopping and she was off through the gates. We started missing her as soon as we got into the car and left the airport. Thanks to the wonders of modern day apps like “Whatsapp” and Skype however, we managed to chat with her later in the evening, as she enjoyed what looked like a really good dinner in Klang. She’d have plenty of that in the next 2-3 weeks.

Before we settled down to avail ourselves to the modern communications technology however, Tress and I tore ourselves from Jason and Mel’s place, got home and immediately changed into our “working gear”. I ducked out to the local service station to get some petrol for the mower and got back and started working.

We trimmed, cut, mowed, swept, washed and did as much as we could for the remainder few hours of daylight, which thanks to daylight saving and the impending start of summer, lasted till almost 8pm. As usual after working on the garden, a cold one tasted exceptionally good and the Tiger Beer Tress had bought a few weeks earlier came in really handy. It was sheer bliss to sit on the deck, looking at a cleaner and tidier lawn and sipping cold beer. What a way to end a weekend. Knowing kiddo would have a great time over 6,000 km away was a bonus.

 

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The Worst Ever (Black Saturday bushfires)


Victoria is in shock, I think. From the Premier John Brumby to my colleague across my desk, no one could believe what happened. The bushfires which raged through last Saturday would etch an indelible mark on those of us who lived through the day in this State.

We all waited in trepidation for last Saturday. The forecast had said the maximum temperature would be 44 deg. The actual maximum was 46.4 deg. It was also going to be very dry and windy.

A few of us visited a friend in Kew on Friday night and didn’t get back till late. At home, I couldn’t sleep straight away so I stayed up, had a few drinks and watched tele. 

As a result, I was up late – just after 7.30 – on Sat. Tress and I went to our usual coffee place, in the Chase. Just before 10 we got home and Tress and Kiddo both went to church for some practice and other meetings. I stayed at home and tried to do some work. By about 12 it had got up to about 40 deg so I gave up.

I also decided against attending the church Board meeting which was going ahead that afternoon. I thought if I did I would simply struggle through the 2-3 hour session and neither make any meaningful contribution nor feel any wiser or better for it. It would in fact, send me down a very bad path.

Tress and Kiddo came back just after noon and we decided to hide out in the Chase. They waited in the car and the moment I opened the house door to join them, I felt the heat hit me like the breath of a might dragon. The heat was intense and I never felt anything like it. It must have been at least 45 deg then.

We got to the Chase and I took the opportunity to look for a new pair of runners. My old ones are overdue for replacements. I used to change one every year (at the most).

Admittedly I run less these days but one reason for this has been my runners have been causing me problems. My right sole has been hurting and by all accounts, the shoe is the main culprit. So away with the old and in with the new. Problem was –they didn’t have my size. I use the New Balance 766, meaning it was a 2006 version of the 76x series. The New Balance 769 is the current one but they didn’t have a size 4E, which I need.

So the “shopping” activities went on. Only, we weren’t really shopping – more a case of just whiling away the time to hide from the oppressive heat. We took in some sushi and ice cream.

After about a couple of hours we thought conditions may have improved. We went home, were confronted with the continuing heat and went back to the Chase after less than 20 minutes!

This time, we just sat at the food court. Sharon our neighbour walked past and much to my shame I had to look at her a couple of times before being sure it was her. I think many modern neighbours don’t interact very much and sometimes we aren’t even sure what they look like! Anyway, I was sure it was her so I called out to her and we chatted for a bit.

It was soon just after 6pm and I stepped out of the Chase a bit to check out the conditions. It was cool again…

We went straight home, opened up the doors and windows, turned out the cooler and waited in anticipation for the house to cool down, quickly. I hit the showers and felt, just before 7pm that my weekend had only just started. Little did I know that for many, the nightmare of this enormous disaster has already begun.

 

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