It’s once again been two weeks since my last good things post, but we were away hiking last Friday. Our trip was a very good thing over the fortnight but I’ll write about that in some other posts. I do want to mention a couple of things though …

Extended time with good friends

The first weekend of our trip we hired a house and invited our friends (S and N) who live in Launceston to come down for the weekend. They moved to Tasmania just over a year ago and I’ve missed them. S and I caught up last October, watching the Melbourne Marathon and agreed we would get together when G and I visited this year, so she blocked the weekend in her calendar. The weekend lived up to all my hopes. We had extended time to chat, go for walks, cook together, eat together, do some sightseeing and drink lots of cups of tea (they’re originally from the UK).

Once in Hobart, we met up with a friend from our running group who had moved down there with his wife. He took us up to Mt Wellington. The guys went for a trail run, while I did a hike. Afterwards, we went to the top of the mountain and then on the way back to the hotel we dropped in to see their house. In the evening we met up again, this time with his wife as well, for dinner.

The main reason for our trip was to do the Three Capes hike with our good friends (S and P). We don’t see them as much as we used to since we moved to Brighton. We used to live a couple of streets from them and S and I used to go for a long walk every week. A hike like this gives plenty of time to catch up and we made the most of it. So good!

Two more internet free days

We hiked the Overland Track a few years ago and there is no cell reception on most of the track unless you summit the peaks. The Three Capes track is not as remote and there was reception at the huts and also at many points along the trail but I treated it mostly as a cell zone free time. That meant the two middle days were internet-free.

Afternoon Naps

I enjoy a good afternoon nap, but while we were away I didn’t take many. One afternoon in Hobart we had some downtime before heading out for dinner and I lay down and promptly fell asleep. Confirmed by G as apparently, I was snoring. After that, I pulled a series of all-dayers. One afternoon about 20 minutes before pre-dinner drinks I remember sitting in the lounge admiring the view feeling very tired, saying to G that I should have had a nap before heading to the lounge. Anyway, we arrived home about midday on Monday and I was feeling very tired. I’m not sure whether it was the accumulated tiredness from the hike or due to dealing with the motion sickness of multiple taxi rides and the plane flight (I wasn’t sick but didn’t feel great). I felt exhausted so I lay down and fell asleep for an hour, woke up and thought I must get up, and promptly fell asleep again for another hour. It was just what I needed, and luckily it did not affect my sleep that night. I guess that’s a sign that I really needed it!

March!

This is probably my favourite month of the year in Melbourne. Also known as Eel Season by some of our First Nation’s Peoples, this was the time when the eels were fat and ready to harvest and the manna-gums flower. The weather is usually fairly settled and starting to cool down after the hot days of February, although weirdly, after out fairly cool summer, we have a forecast for three days over 38C (100F for my US readers). We also have a long weekend (this weekend actually) and G and I celebrate our wedding annicersary.

More Produce from my Garden

The day before we left for our holiday I picked a heap of beans and cooked them for family dinner. I was so surprised when we got home to find the plants dripping with beans once again. I’m also very pleased that since netting my tomato bushes I’m finally getting some ripe tomatoes.

Family Dinner

We have designated Mondays as family dinner night. That’s the night for a standing invitation to the girls to come back to our place for dinner. We try to get our son home that night as well (work schedule dependent) and his girlfriend will often come as well. We postponed the family dinner this week to Wednesday because our eldest had an appointment on Monday night. It was great to reunite with the kids again after our time away. The girls also bought Riley back, who’d been staying with them while we were away.

Riley back off-lead

Before we went away Riley hurt his leg and was not allowed off lead. Yesterday I took him to the park at a quieter time so he didn’t get too excited with all the other dogs, and he had his first off-lead walk in over three weeks. He did not do a crazy run but did do lots of sniffing.

Bonus Good Things

• We finished another puzzle. This was our younger daughter’s Christmas present. It’s a 2000 piece.
• I don’t know whether this is a good thing but it is our guilty pleasure. We’ve been watching Australian MAFS on TV and it is riveting. It would be educational viewing to help people identify the many and varied relationship red flags. So much bad behaviour.
• How to Handle Unhinged Comments Like a Helpful Grown-up. Dealing with hate comments (luckily something I haven’t had to deal with here due to my low profile and lovely group of bloggers I’m a part of), but aspects of the advice would also translate well into real life.
• Why do we Valorize Busyness? A balanced take on the question of busyness. “Both scenarios treat neither busyness nor the lack thereof as a virtue. Instead, the virtue in question in these families’ discernment about travel soccer is primarily the cardinal virtue of prudence (wisdom). For busyness itself must be neutral; it is neither a good nor an evil. It is just a state of activity that should not be valorized at all.”
• Lemoncurd Icecream from Van Diemens Land Creamery. So I get eczema (and possibly some brain fog etc) when I eat too much dairy but this was worth it.

How about you? Any good things to share? What’s your favourite month? Do you nap? Do you have a guilty pleasure?