When the last week of spring hit 37° and the forecast showed December bringing with it an early taste of 40° it felt like the inevitable and familiar return of summer. Days of leaves at the front door, numb fingers trying to assemble breakfast, cravings for sun to penetrate clouds, all were forgotten. It was summer again. The fifth I would live through at my current address. I could already see the next few months spreading out before me. Early morning walks. Blocking out the sun with whatever I could. Air conditioning. Smoothies. Salads. Emerging into the air after dinner for beach walks or sunset beers. Summer Again. I saved my playlist with that name ready for the weeks ahead.

Summer provided all of that. And it provided injuries, stress, Christmas, family, house stress, and new music.

It's now March 19, and forecast for 33° tomorrow. Every day I wake up and think, Summer Again. But today at least one long lingering stress from the end of summer has been resolved. So it feels appropriate that I should post my summer playlist now, in the hopes that after this the drought might break and it will actually rain again.

Specific summer memories must include:
Cooking a lot of olive oil, salt, herbs and chicken.
So many cheap berries from Saturday morning markets strolls with Vanessa.
Enjoying the tiny difference that roller shutters made to the house temperature.
Floating in a pool.
A family dinner as sunset light filtered in from across the mountain tops.
Nash eating/drinking pup-a-cinos.
Doing a lot of holiday planning.
It almost never, ever raining.

Tram into the East End after finishing work. Hot. Beer with J at various locations before reaching Gluttony for drinks by the duck pond, a massaman curry. Caught the tram back west and walked home shirtless.

Saturday, coffee trip with Vanessa and Nash. Already 30 degrees at 8am. House Open prep, including the inevitable trip to big box hardware. Killed ants.

Open time, 40 degrees. Strong winds. Took Nash to bakery for lunch but without much shelter. Waited in the car the rest of the time under a tree. Played I-Spy briefly. Neither Vanessa or Nash guessed "bark".

Open over, threw the dressings into the right storage, had a nap, then took the tram back to Gluttony for Gus' 40th. Good catch up, good AB for dinner. Some nice wind came across the duck pond for a while, then the wind died. I thought wistfully about a shirtless walk home. Left but missed the tram by 1 minute so caught the train instead. Saw Ryan after a brief wait in the air conditioning of Tim's carriage.

No rain overnight, but cooler air in the morning. Took Nash back to the bakery for the sausage roll she missed out on. Then food shopping. Vanessa had a massage while I worked out with tunes at home. Then some shopping before visiting my newest nephew who cried in my arms and slept in Vanessa's. Returned home, made bulk curry, saw mother briefly to collect a monitor, then a walk around Woodville before basketball at Timezone. I won the first game but lost the next two.

Quite a bit of stuff to remember forever...

On January 25th on our traditional morning walk to the markets my ankle swelled up so badly I could barely limp back home. It recovered a little with ice and rest, enough that I could get in a legless workout before going to an open house. We decided to make an offer for the house. The next morning I woke up at 4:40am for a road trip to Merrijig.

Every day since then has felt like a hurtling drive with stops only for coffee (it's okay Alex) and every night feels like I woke at 4:40am that morning.

We bought a new house, and then decided to sell our old one. I've dedicated days to spreadsheets, cleaning, furniture, finances, work and inopportune holiday plans. My ankle has been pretty sore most of that time. I thought I had gout so I gave up beer. Then when that didn't help I gave up beer and dairy. I spent over a week without a proper smoothie, coffee, thing of yoghurt. What a terrible way to live. Anyway when the MRI came back as ligament damage and arthritis at least I could drink a beer again.

I also spent a week living without carpet. I also was the one who ripped up our old carpets. I just put on Triple M's greatest hits, and lucky I was back on dairy because I also had an ice coffee, and I just cut into it and pulled it up. I had a new knife, plus gloves and a dust mask from big box hardware. One of many trips to there this month.

Carpet is such a fragile thing. It's in your life in your house and you never once think about what's under it and then a few slices of the knife and you roll it up into a roll and gaff it together and it's gone. Houses in general are stupid things. I've felt this way for so long. All you really want is shelter from the sun and if rain exists, the rain, and warmth, and high speed internet. Why do we need cornices and grout and matching coloured cabinets. I've spent so many hours cleaning things since Merrijig that I didn't shave for a week because I couldn't get my hand clean enough to touch my face.

And the dryness is relentless. Now we don't even have upstairs curtains. Heat, clean, work, sleep, repeat. I also haven't been to the gym for nearly two weeks. Although our storage unit is on the second floor of the storage building, so I have done many rounds of storage cardio. I've lost 3 kilograms since January. Maybe from storage cardio, maybe from abstaining from beer and dairy.

Tonight, finally, the house was ready for photos. The new carpet was laid. The terrible paint job was concealed. All the new furniture was arranged and Vanessa had them styled with cushions and books. The floors were mopped, windows wiped, the back courtyard pressure washed, the garden pruned, the front door washed, the new rug vacuumed, the bed sheets ironed, the shower screens scrubbed, the cardboard boxes cut up, the crevices dusted. The photographer admired the pizza oven, took the sunset shot, and it was done. Finally, tomorrow can be a day to breathe. The last thing I cleaned was myself. And I shaved.

Pretty much the opposite amount of enjoyment compared to Venetian holidays.

I know what compelled me to buy a ticket for the Anjunadeep Open Air show tonight. I listen to their mixes all the time. Usually around 9AM after coffee while programming, or better, drawing a component diagram. Progressive trance. Sonic synth work. Well chosen vocal samples. Visualising the relationships between systems. Bliss.

But standing in a crowd at the other end of the day would be a different story. And back in October I couldn't have known that I would be in the apex of preparing my house for sale. Yet I still went. I guess I wanted to see if I felt something. Or if I had any sense of belonging.

I did not. But the music was good and loud. Earplugs were worth bringing, and the high vis vest made for a pleasant cruise home on the bike in the temperate, open air.

Would I do it again? Probably not. Maybe if I brought my laptop.

This weekend has confirmed it. We're selling the house. I did consider keeping it. I did a big spreadsheet to work out the value of that, but there was none. And that didn't even require my annual $10K of mental costs to tip the ledger.

I don't want to be a property baron. When it was a possibility, I was thinking about all the jobs I'd need to do around the house to make it tenantable, one of which would have been getting rid of the spider that's lived in the corner of my kitchen window for the past year. It made me sad to think I'd have to evict that poor spider. I think that's when I knew that being a landlord was not for me.