I spent over an hour lifting up a corner of my grass tonight so I could replace a sprinkler head. Youtube made it look very easy, but I think my garden shovel was the wrong tool compared to the pointer spades I saw online.

I eventually did uncover enough to unscrew the top and put a new head on. Luckily when I mowed over it last week I just clipped it, and the barrel was intact. I probably wouldn’t have mowed over it if I had a better lawn mower, but I don’t. What am I supposed to do? Buy a garden spade and a new lawnmower and a new shaver head every few months?

On Monday we had a blackout for a few hours. When the power came back on, the alarm system control by the back door was flashing. I have enough LEDs in my life so I pressed some buttons to try and stop the flashing. This armed the alarm system. I did not receive the code to the alarm system from the original owners. A few seconds later the alarm went off.

The house alarm was very loud. Luckily I knew where the box was - in the roof cavity. I also had experience from the old house which also had an alarm system. At that house I unplugged the alarm system, but later it went off and I learned that there was a battery connected for backup. So, I went into the roof cavity and there I learned that the alarm was hardwired in this house AND the battery connection was corroded on. Fortunately, I was in there with a Philips head screwdriver that I’d needed to get into the alarm box in the first place. And I realised that I could use this to unscrew and pull all the wires from their connections. This took a few minutes, and it was quite satisfying hearing each siren and alarm go silent as I pulled out wire after wire. It was like defusing a bomb in a movie.

I am not sure I have done anything to actually improve the house recently, despite many attempts. I can’t just blame my tools. I think I am the tool. I did buy an inflatable basketball hoop slash ring toss for the pool. Let’s count that as a win.

Henley Beach for Ice-Cream

Park Run (walk), cafes, swimming, sausages.

Onkaparinga Gorge, Somerton, Grange

Bakery, Family, Friends, Reading.

Yes, it was another perfect long weekend of hiking and beach walks, catch ups and coffee, back roads and BBQs...

...Partially ruined by Big Box Hardware and home ownership.

At least the front lawn looks less weedy now.

I gained one kilogram of weight including 900 grams of lean muscle mass over the weekend. According to my smart scales anyway, which sell for half a grand on top of hoping I'll sign up for their monthly premium subscription. So I suspect they have incentive to lie to me. Especially considering the amount of working out I did over the weekend was far out-ratio'd by time consuming pizza, lemon delicious, Freddo cake, baguettes, protein bars and coffees.

My scales also claim based on the electrical pulses it sends through my body that I have a biological age of 30. It's claimed this since October, so I was expecting on my birthday it might go up, which it did not! Even more impressive is that my birthday was actually weeks ago according to my account data, a measure I took for privacy obfuscation.

I have complained a bit recently about having to maintain a pool. Something which is very much a first world problem, but also legitimately frustrating. I took the water in for testing this afternoon expecting another poor result. In fact, today my chlorine was in the good range! The salt and hydrochloric acid was off instead, but the phosphates were back to healthy levels after I poured something from Bunnings in there last week. So I felt like maybe I was getting better at pool chemistry. And if pool issues are a first world problem does that mean that if you solve them you win the first world? Like it's the last level?

Tonight at the quiz we technically came second again, but I left quite happy anyway because I won a jug of beer during Tough Teacher. It was "guess the novel" and after a few passages I said "The Great Gatsby” and I was right!

I didn't remember any of those passages from when I read the book between naps in 2011. I just got an F Scott Fitzgerald vibe and I trusted my instincts. I also did a lot of squats at lunchtime. Maybe those scales are right...

This slip of the tongue has stuck with me since it was misspoken at the start of a webinar some months back, another life.

In early April, booking accommodations and scrutinising ferry schedules, Norway felt much more imminent than it did two days ago.

Work deadlines, life events, upcoming holidays, a moment to sit on the couch. Everything was happening in these parallel layers of time which felt unquestionably persistent.

The present was constantly becoming the past, so was the future. Memories of old houses, old exercises (side planks!), old injuries, old feelings. All mixing in with the new.

I haven't had a smoothie for months. I used to drink ten a week. I've been eating almonds almost daily, after forsaking them based on a blood test in 2023. I'm nothing but living echoes. My house is no longer mine. Driving around my old neighbourhood and GI tract I see new shops and changed roads. You move on, but time persists.

In My Ridleyton Era.
In my covid era.
In my mulberry tree era.
My cycling era. My air-fryer era.
My upper limb surgery era.
My no mortgage lifestyle era.
My friends all having kids era.
My fresh baguette from the shops that morning era.
My savvy and not so savvy investing era.
In my meat puffs era. My New Holland Honeyeater era.
My watching Nash grow old era.
My integration architecture era.
In my working and working out from home era.
My local cafe knows me and my dog's order era.
In my noticing how bad the cold is in winter era.
In my driving twenty minutes to the beach nearly every second summer evening era.
Out of my Ridleyton era.

I feel like, in Nash's head, she is on an eleven year winning streak. Until tonight. This is what happens when the Dentastix slides underneath the couch as you leave the house.

She did not get it out.

I am not going to detail how I mounted the fan in the new gym, but in the second hour of the job I did use a hammer.

For five years the tree was a centrepiece of my life. When I woke up in the morning and poured a glass of water, tree was there through the window. Working from home, standing up during a call, I'd look out my study window and see the top of trees.

Lunch time, I'd prepare a salad or heat leftovers or make a sandwich and eat it out the back looking at the tree (or my phone). Evenings. BBQ. Peripheral tree. Bedtime, take the dog out to toilet, she would do it beneath the tree.

Why did I like tree so much? The main difference between the house and the previous house was the location. But the main difference between the houses was the tree. And what a difference a tree makes. Especially when COVID shutdowns demand that you spend all day in your house. Sometimes on hot days I would go and stand in the shade of the tree just for something to break up the day.

In spring you could eat mulberries off the tree and in summer you could be sheltered and in late winter you could see the first buds of green on the spindly branches to give you optimism and cheer.

In autumn you could pick up lots and lots and lots of leaves. Which was good in a manner; an unavoidable reason to reconnect with nature and touch grass.

Maybe I liked tree because I knew that as long as it was upright it was adding like $50k to the value of my house... That's why I felt beholden to prune it, water it, fertiliser it, to keep it green. Maybe that's why we grew close.

Tree is not at my new house. In the mornings I drink water looking at the pool. Nash shits on a small strip of grass by the fence. When I look out my window from the study, I do see tree. Some previous genius planted a couple of lilly pillies directly in front of the western facing windows and they block out the harsh afternoon sun quite nicely. Lorikeets like eating half the fruits and dropping the other half.

Those trees aren't tree though. It was windy yesterday, autumn skies. I had the shutters pulled aside because I needed to catch a delivery van pulling into the driveway without leaving my computer. I heard knocking, but it wasn't at the door. It was on my window. The lilly pilly branch was swaying and tapping on the glass. "Let me in, Brad", it seemed to be saying.

No, I won't let them in. They are not tree. Goodbye tree. Hopefully soon I'll receive that $50K in my bank account. I'll put it towards pool maintenance. I hope the tree brings the next owners as much joy and centring as it did me.