While searching for a Christmas card for my Maiden Aunt today, I discovered a whole range of relationship-specific cards, the most strange of which was:

for a wonderful doctor at christmas

There were no cards available for other occupations – just doctor.

I am not quite sure what to make of this at all.

After we’d returned from Japan, before we instituted the Moderate Frugality pact, and before I put myself on a news ban, I read an article in The Guardian about one of my favourite architectural movements.

So much do I love it that I think I follow every account on instagram with a brutalist bent (okay, maybe I follow 6 accounts).

There was a book mentioned at the end of the piece and I knew it had to be mine. When This Brutal World arrived I was in heaven!

It’s full of fabulously fabulous images, some of which you can see in the Guardian gallery here

Of course, my beloved Nakagin Capsule Tower was featured and many of the usual suspects, but also many wonderful buildings that I’ve never seen before.

It is hardcover (sort of) and the binding is quite unusual – artful or horribly cheap? I can’t decide.

And while I adore the pretty pictures, I find the typeface the complete opposite of delightful:

I adore it to bits, even despite the challenging binding and typeface. And after flicking through now have a yearning to see High Rise

poor abandoned hat

Today was unpleasantly hot and humid. I got out for a 4km run and boy howdy, it was exhausting.

I ironed and tried to get my laptop to connect to the wireless again – for hours. And hours. It is flaky and really quite maddening. I’m at the point where I’ve just reinstalled windows. Next step is to throw it from the 4th floor balcony onto the street. 

In between times we grocery shopped, then realised what we’d planned for dinner required marinating overnight, so grabbed Indian home delivery (which was amazing).

Such the jet set lifestyle!

Bike ride tomorrow and then I bake a cheesecake for the dessert part of Bessie’s (early) Birthday feast. I’m mildly terrified.

Then back to work for the week and then 11 (or is it 12?) days off!

Vale beloved $8 umbrella, who despite several repairs was quite the powerhouse until today, when the wind became all too much and snapped some of the metal struts clear in two.

Yes, I am really tempted to keep that fabric. No, there is nothing I would actually do with it.

What a difference a day makes!

I wasn’t quite quick enough to take screenshots at precisely the same time, but both before 7:32am – so close enough.

For the non-metric amongst us, that’s 82.58oF and 62.78oF – difficult to know quite which is preferable!

So today marks a month since I stopped drinking alcohol permanently.

So far I’ve managed to survive birthday, SML cocktail function, SML Xmas party and a trip to the theatre sans booze. These are all fairly festive occasions and I really haven’t missed not being able to drink. Okay, maybe I missed having a glass of pre-theatre champers and maybe I get a little bored with lime and soda at functions.

As I bemoaned to my SML peeps, there are occasions when I want a happy kind of drink. So I’m considering perhaps carrying a supply of festive flamingo straws, festive cocktail animals or festive swizzle sticks about in my handbag.

I’d love to get myself this feminist sober killjoy tee-shirt to celebrate the month, but I’m a bit discomfited by the term sober for the non-drinker. Perhaps it is an Australian thing, but to me it says the alternative to sober is drunk – with all those connotations (like breakfast beers &etc). Maybe that’s just my binary style thinking.

xxx

The world is still trying to make me drink though, as evidenced by this extract from an email from ebay I received this morning.

It should be noted that I have never bought, nor even searched for, alcohol on ebay (and I wouldn’t buy from Dan Murphy’s if I did!).

The more you don’t drink, the more you’re aware that alcohol is pushed on you everywhere.

xxx

I’m feeling quite positive about my progress. Sure I will miss the odd glass of champers, and the prospect of never having an espresso martini or a lemon sour again makes me a little disappointed, but to me the benefits are worth it. And having done this before – it is definitely easier this time around.

If we figure I live to 100 (feasible I think), that’s another 615 months of no alcohol. I promise to stop blogging about it around month 136.

the palisades from below

Apparently it was extremely hot today, probably fortunately I missed most of the heat because I was trapped in the icy confines of SML smashing out a 25 page report for an Important fortnightly meeting. 

I did have a minion on a contract for this sort of thing (which I am not sure if I’ve mentioned), but I bid him farewell after six months because he was massively lazy, not engaged and a bit of a precious princess. LazyExMinion now intends to start his own consulting business in the same sort of area, which we all found quite hysterical because we’re pretty sure that you need to put in actual effort to be successful on your own. I’ll be watching with extreme interest.

The upshot of this is that this stuff now falls to me (well me and another minion who I’ve roped in as backup). Entertainingly it took me 1.5 days to produce what LazyExMinion was taking 2 full weeks to complete – and my time included completely reformatting the whole thing to remove a good deal of the nonsense AND seven separate stakeholder meetings. I am quite happy to be extricating myself from BAU grunt stuff and focussing on this mostly full time. 

I really ❤️ my job right now (quite possibly the first time I’ve thought this in my life).

Summer has been pretty harsh and hot and it has not been too great for the flora on the lower balcony, but we have …

tomatoes!

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Lots going to seed:

lettuce

parsley

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Some greenery hanging on.

In the foreground is a wee goblin tree, one of two that self seeded in a pot back in Glebe. This one stayed very tiny for years, I replanted this year and it has gone mental.

not from my run

Finally managed the first run in a few weeks and thankfully it was not too bad. I definitely need to explore new routes – I’ve had the same 3km loop for the past 3 or so years.

My right ankle is giving me a little grief as usual, but I’m pretty convinced that’s from walking more than anything – mostly because it started a couple of weeks ago when I hadn’t been running at all. Ah! The aches and pains of old age!

I did feel quite a bit better for the run – yet another thing I need to get back into my schedule. That and push-ups and sit-ups, and squats. 

No idea how the exercise all fell apart in the last couple of months (I’d like to blame the cold, but don’t think I can), but I must be vigilant to ensure it does not happen again!

So that Belated Big Birthday Ride scheduled for today, wasn’t quite so Big, but we got out there anyway. We took the unusual step of driving part way and then cycling to Kurnell.

Reader, I was really pretty knackered both during and after. Gosh, fitness is an ephemeral thing! It is going to take me a bit longer than I had anticipated to get back to my earlier form – that cold knocked me around much more than I thought.

There were however two very good things:
Thing 1. I handled the (very small) hills much better than I ever have.
Thing 2. I shared the road with big, big trucks and cars – even the bit where there was not a designated cycle lane!

This is pretty tremendous!

xxx

In exciting news I finally got to try out my new summer cycle gear! I am very happy with it – very light and breathable! And well worth paying the extra money for superior quality.

xxx

We stopped to watch a boat for bit – while being attacked by hundreds of flies (worst part of summer). Even though we love ThePalace(OfLove), we really do miss living right on the working harbour (though of course it is no longer working).

xxx

We’re definitely getting back to that regular weekend riding.

Next up – tomorrow I attempt to run.