This week was largely free of “extra” activities, which meant I could knuckle down and get things done. Although I love my holidays and peppering in fun activities when we are home, sometimes you just need some time at home.

FRI 16.8.2024

• I had my physio appointment today, and she’s very happy with how my foot is going, so I won’t need to see her for another month as a final check-in before we go overseas. In the meantime, I have calf raises, single leg hops and single leg side-to-side hops as my daily physio, plus I will be slowly increasing my running and throwing in some longer walks and hopefully some hikes. After my appointment, I went next door to the gym and did my walk-run, plus some heavy lifting.
• The girls came over for dinner and we finished the puzzle and started on our next one.

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SAT 17.8.2024

• I walked into Domain Rd to meet the running group. It was about 8.5 km. The rain held off while I walked there. I was planning on walking home, but the rain set in, so after brunch, I went home with G. This is me trying to extend my walking in preparation for doing the Camino. I’ve never really had to do any training for our previous walks because of my running and strength work, but this time, I’m coming from worse than the couch.
• Meeting the running group for brunch. It’s been ages since we did this, and catching up was great. A few we hadn’t seen since the Gold Coast.
• Once home, I spent the rest of the morning working on the kid’s school photobooks. This is a big project but I do love designing the pages and also looking back through all those photos.
• The sun came out again, so I got out and did a couple more walks. First, I took Riley to the park, and along the beach, then I dropped him home and walked to the shop. It was about 13 km of logged walking, 20,700 steps for the day, which is my biggest daily step total since my injury.

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SUN 18.8.2024

• The girls came over for brunch and some puzzling.
• I did my second run for the week, on the treadmill, 30 second run alternating with a 1:30 walk for 20 minutes. All is feeling good.
• While walking home from the gym, I listened to one of my regular podcasts, and they were talking about libraries. I love my local library, and I’m not alone. They said that 1/3 of Australians have a library membership and visit on average seven times a year, and more than half of Victorians have a library membership. That’s pretty good, I think. Another fun fact: The State Library of Victoria had 2.1M visitors in 2023, making it the third busiest public library in the world.
• The sunset flare as we walked back from church.
• Enjoying the light as we walked home from church—no more stumbling on the uneven footpath as we make our way home.

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MON 19.8.2024

• Today, we had eight families in our mainly music group. We are getting a good regular group of families now, which is excellent as the parents/carers can also start to get to know each other.
• H had the day off work, so she came over just after lunch. I still had a few jobs to complete, but we spent some time doing the puzzle together. We also took Riley to the park and the shops to pick up food for dinner.
• S also came for dinner, and we spent the evening watching a couple of episodes of The Umbrella Academy. There were many moments when we were all laughing out loud.

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TUES 20.8.2024

• I started using Duolingo to learn a little bit of Spanish before we head to the Camino. I didn’t have a chance to brush up on my Italian or learn any German before we went to Italy and Germany last year, and I did not enjoy having no language. I’ve already picked up several useful words and phrases. The app does make it very easy to pick up some language, so I won’t be completely ignorant.
• More on libraries: I went to our local library today, and they now have dog parking. How cute is that! Our immediate area has good facilities for dogs—the large Elsternwick Park, which is off-lead, and the off-lead areas of the beach, dog bowls at some of the water fountains and many of the cafes put out water for dogs.

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WED 21.8.2024

• Personal training was tough this morning. I had heavy deadlifts and chest presses, followed by lunges, all stacked with some punishing core work—plus some triceps and flys. This is a good thing, though. My current schedule of a de-load every three weeks means I can push harder this week, knowing that I’ve got a down week coming.
• A flexible schedule that allowed me to have an afternoon recovery nap, which I needed because …
• I completed my level three safe church training in the evening over Zoom. I’m happy to tick that off my list.

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THURS 22.8.2024

• We’ve been having a lot of spring-like weather the last few weeks. That doesn’t mean we won’t dip back into winter temperatures again before spring really kicks in, but I’m enjoying this when we get it. Today was glorious; I even had to take my jacket off when I walked Riley this morning.

• I’ve had a low-volume work week this week, which meant I had no (paid) work to do this morning. Instead of goofing off, I took the opportunity to get the house looking spick and span, prepare some forms and update a process for this weekend’s Decastella Run (I help out in a volunteer role for this) and ticked a few other tasks off my todo list.
• My broad beans are growing well. I hope the beans are ready either before or after our trip. I staked them today. They only need support so they don’t break and lay down in the wind, so I stick some stakes around the outside of the bed and then run some string around the outside.

How has your week been? Do you enjoy the change of seasons?