I came to the end of The Shepherd's Crown today, marking the end of my re-reading/mostly just reading of the Discworld novels that began back in the first winter of COVID, 2020.

Sir Terry has been dead almost a decade now, but with him being one of my writing inspirations since I was thirteen years old, I did feel fresh sadness as the book came to an end. And also when it started. The story itself deals a lot with death. And the writing, technically not even complete due to the ravages of Alzheimer's, and a bit under-cooked, was also a depressing reminder of mortality and the tragedy of dying with unfinished stories.

I can't think of any heroes that I have, but Terry Pratchett's writing was close. I started on his biography right after so that I can separate man from art, as I suspect all humans are not worthy of hero status. But stories might be. The narrative could be my hero. A hint of comedy, a clever twist, a satisfying conclusion, an endless string of sequels. Royalties. The fresh smell of paperbacks.

Anyway, no conclusion about or remedy for mortality in this article. I just thought it was worth trying to write 400 words.

Onwards into her twelfth year, Nash had a great today.

Starting with getting pats from strangers on the way to the cafe, she then slept from 9 to 5, before an evening walk along a very dry river with Vanessa and mother. Also featuring many servings of chicken, and four turds.

Now well past retirement age, Nash is still yet to be introduced to adult concepts like house repairs, finances, insurance and cleaning.

She has been a jerk many times, but always forgiven.

After a hectic afternoon of work and house, I rode into town to catch up with Tim, Cowan, James, Mark and Sam.

One of the pitfalls of getting old is realising young people don't recognise Simpson's references, which reveals you rely on them for many of your internal cognition.

Case in point, I visited the new Empire Pool Lounge tonight and while it was pretty similar to the old location on West Terrace it certainly seemed a lot brighter inside than the old one. They'd gotten rid of the dank, and half the clientele wouldn't have been thinking that in Carl Carlson's voice.

Another post-forty pitfall is potentially... Gout. Do I believe I have gout despite my good diet, limited alcohol, and healthy weight? Not really. Do I have unexplained ankle and big toe pain? Gout might actually be the best option. So, I've stopped drinking alcohol completely as it was the only thing on the entire gout list that I actually consumed. This made Empire feel even brighter, and I worried that I might never win a game of pool in my life again.

Shockingly, after a few terrible games I managed to actually rediscover some muscle memory and make some shots. I think the music got louder at the same time. Maybe I should buy a pool table for the new house.

I rode my bike home in the dark with my head torch on. Initially it felt a bit risky, but because I was sober I guess that riding at 10pm in February is no more dangerous than riding home from town at 6pm in June.

I also wore a high vis vest for extra responsible safety, the opposite of dank.

There's not much to love about heatwaves, but last night I did get a serendipitous shuffle that put Leftfield in my car speakers as I set off for an after dark run to put boxes into storage. With the windows down, it was a good vibe.

No such luck tonight, even with the sun disappeared I had to drive with the air conditioner pumping just to be able to roll down the windows.

Recording this memory for reflecting on next winter.

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.

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.

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