Took off early on Friday to catch up with Dishy(ex)Boss for boozy lunch. Because he now works quite far away from the CBD, and because I am Very Nice, I volunteered to catch the train out to meet him in the wilds of suburbia.

I was glad of my kindle because it felt like, as Joe/Frank would say, the TOML (trek of my life). In reality the train ride was probably quicker than my normal daily drive+walk to SML, but there is no way I would wanting to be doing that train commute on any sort of regular basis.

Anyway, it was gorgeous to see him. We barely drew breath for hours and didn’t even cover half of our conversational topics. He now has a job with really very enviable conditions, conducive to excellent work life balance, but he is quite miserable at work – mainly because there is no-one to talk to. This is quite amazing as we all consider him someone who could talk to anyone. I can relate a little because most of my old SML pals (including him) have left accompanied by giant sacks of money. I love Heather to death, but those conversations are confined mostly to gossip, snark and waspishness.

Of course D(ex)B completely led me astray and we drank rather too much wine. I was quite seedy the next day.

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On Saturday Don, Joe/Frank and I were on a train in the same direction to see the Ducks beat Freo in the first round of the finals. Another TOML. I would much rather watch footy at the SCG, as would I think every other member, but despite this they always schedule finals at Olympic Park.

Our seats were excellent and not inexpensive. Sitting in front of us at the game was the coach from our biggest threat to winning the Grand Final. I like that everyone around recognised him and was totally intrigued with what he was looking at (both through his binoculars and on his phone), but totally left him unmolested. That was until he got up to leave, then everyone shouted “goodbye” and waved.

I think of it as very Sydney that you just let people get on with it. Though on reflection perhaps this is not such the case anymore?

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This morning Don and I wrote a large list of Action Items.

The events of last week had been so unexpectedly unexpected that we had no time for a lot of things, including grocery shopping, so we had to cover that off. Fortunately not too painful.

And I went for a run outside! Just my normal 3km route because I am trying to correct my right foot strike and overall technique (less of the shuffle, more of the kicking up at the back) so I did not want to go too far, plus I haven’t run for ages and don’t want to overdo it.

To my complete amazement I ran my fastest 3km ever (19:19) and my second fastest 1km (5:40!). I had no intention of running fast so this needs some intervention. The treadmill has me all over the place with no sense of my speed.

It was encouraging though.

We have other much more tedious things on the list, like painting the upstairs trim so we can move things back against the wall and a couple of hours of SML work as penance for sneaking out on Friday.

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Now I feel as though a cold is coming on – I blame getting outside my bubble (or the prospect of a spending the afternoon with spreadsheets).