Yesterday morning Don and I put the bikes in the back of the car, drove down to the Cooks River cycleway and went for our first ride in THREE YEARS.

It was an absolutely beautiful spring morning and was really one of those it’s-great-to-be-alive moments. We took it pretty easy and rode 11(ish)km. It had been so long that there was a little re-familiarisation with the road bike gears required. I’d forgotten how much I like being on the bike in the outdoors. Infinitely preferable to sitting on the exercise bike which if I’m honest, I really don’t much care for.

I can’t even recall why we stopped our regular habit of weekend cycling. We both agreed it’s something we’d like to get back to – though not in our formerly somewhat extreme, somewhat obsessive manner.

xxx

First bushfire of the season this weekend – in the Royal National Park which is about an hour(ish) south of here.

The skies are thankfully clear, but the smoke smell seeped through the cracks in the evenings. And I’ve had my usual physical response (post nasal drip – pah!) and feel quite oogy.

I’ve had this brilliant post from Fiona Edmonds-Dobrijevich about her experience in the South Coast firestorm of last summer, open in the browser on my phone since January. It’s spectacularly well written – if you’ve not seen it, worth a look.

All bits crossed that we don’t have a similar spring/summer to the last one. Send rain.

xxx

I deleted my blog stats plug-in this week and have no plans to reinstall or replace. I felt almost instantly more positive about blogging after doing this.

It was all bots and spam commenters and made me despair of the InformationSuperhighway and humanity and honestly, I’d rather just sit in a bubble of delusion and pretend they don’t exist.

Likewise I’m still off both news and instagram, and I cannot say I miss either.

xxx

After owning the bright red couch for over 9 years, I finally broke open the leather conditioning kit that came with it and cleaned and conditioned the couch. It was of course quite a simple undertaking – why do we turn these things into insurmountable challenges?

In other Palacely maintenance ordered a roll of carpet underlay from a seller on eBay last week, it arrived very quickly (the shipping cost more than then roll) and yesterday I replaced a roll’s worth of the very mangy and water-damaged underlay in the NotCraft room – by myself! Full disclosure, I did need Don to lift the corner of the bed for a minute.

I felt very powerful and immensely clever. All for less than $100.

The carpet itself is still revolting, but we’re waiting until all the other work is done before even tackling those.

xxx

One more week left at SML until I have a week off. No particular plans other than a couple of lunches, maybe some crafting, maybe some time with my head in a book. I may buy things.