Once again we wandered down to the park, grabbed a coffee and lounged about watching local cricket.

I think it is maybe 3 (or 4) years since we were there, but we finally busted out the sarong we acquired in New Caledonia. Easy to scrunch into a ball and shove in the bag and much better than sitting in the pokey grass and having bitey ants crawling all over us.

I read a little more of wolf in white van** – as recommended by the most excellent hazelblackberry – I’ll admit I’m struggling with the treacle-ish pace and ever-so-slow reveals.

It was an exceptionally relaxing few hours. As Don pointed out, when you’re slothing about at home you tend to feel guilty because you are not doing stuff – slothing at the park and there are no such guilt issues.

And I really needed relaxing – this week we heard that Dr12 is jumping ship in a couple of months and there are several of us who are devastated. While he may be rather, okay extremely, idiosyncratic, he has shown fabulous leadership, made huge and amazing decisions (such as TheReckoning) and has really empowered and rewarded some of us. The prospect of an internal replacement fills us all with dread.

I had a quiet couple of glasses of wine this evening and sat with the news. Even two glasses hit me like the proverbial – I am sure I will probably regret that decision come the morning.

**$1.92?!? Crazy! I paid 10x that.

As is my way, of course I encouraged the family to complete the vote compass.

And as is their way, they were totally into participating – for there is nothing they like better than a family contest or a chance to compare themselves to each other.

Also as is my way, I was compelled to make a chart of the results.

Despite frequently making charts for a living (though I have people to do that now), I’d not had any occasion to make a scatter plot in excel, so needed to call upon the m4d sk1llz of my lovely husband because it is the most ridiculously unintuitive thing I have ever seen. I think I had forced Vincenzo to do this once, I will apologise on Monday.

Anyway on with the results:

Clearly Joan is our token conservative.

It is very interesting how aligned we all are. Don and I both grew up in families firmly entrenched very far in the bottom right quadrant which we (thankfully) both rebelled against. Fortunately the offspring did not feel the same rebellious compulsion!