Considering all the effort I put into passing my latest work certification, I can't believe I missed preselecting the playlist for after I passed the exam.

Over the past six years I've tried a few ways of getting through winter - surgery, northern hemisphere holidays, global pandemics - with varying levels of success. Winter 2024 featured none of those and while I was still embittered about the cold a lot it was probably the most tolerable winter I can recall having. Though not as tolerable as hiking through forests in western Europe.

What was the trick to this?

Better warmth strategy. I bought an alpine-quality puffer jacket in May, and upgraded my old North Face jacket during winter as well. I bought gloves with mini heaters in them. You just need to recharge the batteries every couple of days.

I discovered the benefits of wearing pyjama pants under my tracksuit pants for extra warmth. I bought new socks. I wore beanies. There was a single morning it was cold enough to justify wearing all of the above at the same time. Most of the time I was able to coordinate a few of these together such that I did not feel cold while being outside. This resulted in less grumbling.

Indoors, I gave up on watching television in my freezing living room and spent every night at home in my study with the door shut and the heater running. Even that was still pretty chilly and didn't stop me from teaming the pyjama pants and tracksuit pants at times, but it was tolerable.

Good distractions - one technical project and one mindless pastime. The former was designing and building the quiz website. The latter was beating Breath of the Wild, which I actually completed around the second weekend of July and then I didn't play any games after. But it got me past the solstice.

Getting sun on my arms at every opportunity. Mostly by timing my lunch breaks for around 2pm on days when there were no clouds, and walking really fast to justify removing my jumper.

Also what definitely helped was not getting sick, other than the tail end of a cold in the first days of June. How I managed this is probably due to a lack of social activity and well timed vaccines, but it absolutely made the season way less shit. Also having most of August off when it was serendipitously quite sunny certainly accelerated the transition into spring.

All of that was good, but I think solid routines were the real key to getting through winter. Trips to the markets on Saturday mornings, walking Nash to the bakery on Sundays. Birthday month's daily desserts. Inviting myself around to Alex's fire on the weekends. Coffee and progressive trance between 9 and 10 each workday.

A paper titled Routine and the Perception of Time in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that a key factor of people remembering time as passing more slowly was "anchors of novelty", and by removing a lot of novelty from my life in Winter it certainly does feel like it breezed by.

Actually, considering I did work two major projects, changed jobs, had a colonoscopy and a two week holiday I'm not sure those enjoyable routines really did help that much, and maybe it was the pyjamas plus tracksuits that was the real MVP.

Or perhaps it was actually the new music.

Autumn is the season for change. Like, a change in scenery.

This double entendre certainly suits the three months which just passed. Weddings in Hindu temples. Weddings in Circus tents. Beer hunts. Giant cookies. More gym sessions. Walks through sunny hills and valleys. Barefoot walks on sands. Visits to bakeries down south. Food at restaurants in Brisbane's West End. Concerts after dark. Sunshine at lunchtime. Tasting Australia in Victoria Square. Odyssey kingdoms. A vision of 1969 London. Board Games. Sunsets. 39 degrees evenings at the Fringe and 4 degrees mornings testing out the new puffer jacket.

As always, a soundtrack that developed to go with these things. The walking, the exercise, the programming, the drives, the wedding dance floors, the gardening, the soup making and the smoothie drinking. I love music so much.

I reached the end of the excellent Utopia Avenue today. It took me a few weeks. The story was an absorbing ride through the late 1960's, with fully fleshed characters and a real example of how good writing benefits from having multiple protagonists. The way they interact, when they all have their own motivations and back-stories really gives them character. As someone who has been paid to write words about music - something that is not worth doing! - I also appreciated his technical ability to bring sound to life through the written word.

I have been listening to a lot of music from the era as well, thanks to its countless name drops, to try and enrich the senses, but I don't have any inclination to go down a psychedelic rabbit hole so I am writing this now to remember reading about Dean, Griff, Jasper and Elf.

To bring this journal entry back to my own life, I listened to that audiobook this morning while mowing the lawn, pruning the vines and sweeping up half-pecked lilly-pilly berries from the backyard. Then I did some rehab, lat pulldowns and side planks.

The weather so far this May has been amazing, other than the creepy stat that it has barely rained since January. This morning's walk to the bakery with Nash was especially picturesque.

I went to a concert tonight to see an old (relative) man sing old songs for me, who is also becoming an old man. I brought ear plugs and wore fingerless gloves and comfortable shoes.

I enjoyed the set, mostly the old songs. At one point, probably during a new song, I had to mentally check to see if I had attended a live concert since I turned 30. The answer I think is basically just Jebediah at Schützenfest in 2016. It seems hard to believe I spent so much of my twenties attending live music and then completely stopped.

I did not stand in front of anyone. I didn't buy a t-shirt for causal Friday. I did enjoy the bass and the drums and the nostalgia.

In the final week of Spring I was putting the finishing touches into the musical playlist that I intended to embed memories of the past months in. Spring 2023 had been pleasant, as best as I can recall it now. The fading glow of Giunio 23 had carried me through Winter. My work/life balance was correcting itself. My body parts were coming together with enough cohesion that I was even able to complete a mini, late-30s equivalent of Bulktember. A more age appropriate approach. Rehab repetitions prioritised over moving weight. Balancing pain signals with progression. I suffered only moderate lower back pain.

By the end of November, despite a recurrence of my dodgy, left shoulder I was moving well, energised by technology and the future. There was bacon in the Barossa, panini on lunch breaks, lamb roasts in the slow cooker, burgers before basketball games. Lots of coffee. Flowers were blooming, the outdoors was calling, and by mid November my index finger had some blood back in it.

Life was not perfect, but I was enjoying it. It felt like, as spring turned to summer around me that in my life too would bloom into sunshine and blue skies and a semblance of control.

Alas, storm clouds approached, as spring will do. Literally, initially, as late November rain pummelled the house and got into the gym literally hours before we were to set off on a cross country road trip.

December from start to finish was problematic. The road trip that was supposed to be a break was plagued by injury, weather, snakes (actually those were cool) and actual plague. Driving long distances in the rain just to isolate in cheap motel rooms was not fun. It was becoming apparent that my wrist injury was not minor, and the Napoleon movie totally lacked historical accuracy and nuance. In fact, I was craving a return to home life and work routine by the end, knowing fate would choose that moment to at least clear out my sinuses. We returned to a mouldy, ruined gym, more rain, a sad puppy and a whole train of minor inconveniences. The final two work weeks of the year did bring some sense of normality back, and then I got covid and missed out on Christmas. By the time it was 2024 I was exhausted. And I'd felt comfortable enough with where my feelings were to share my Spring playlist that just served to remind me of happier times.

Time never stops though. And through all of this, and the continued wrist pain, insurance drama, back pain, life stress, and shoulder pain it did feel like I've done this all before. It did feel that all I had to do was keep getting through work days, keep doing rehab morning, lunchtime and night, keep going to the beach at the end of hot days, keep making phone calls, keep taking the dog for a walk and mowing the lawn after limbering up that things wouldn't necessarily get better, but they might average out. I listened to the Spring playlist a lot, and of course new music and so I added to it already aware that I was now making a Spring/Summer double album playlist. In some ways it made sense, under the influence of the narrative fallacy: Spring was a rise and fall, summer would be a fall and rise. The perfect sine wave. With gym repairs scheduled and two weddings at the end of February to look forward to it seemed appropriate that by the end of summer I'd feel balanced and I'd have a second collection of songs.

Well, it worked to an extent. My wrist still hurts most days but not that much. I have no idea if the next storm will flood some part of my house. Jobs still cause stress. But I have a Spring/Summer playlist. And I know that I will listen to it for years to come sometimes when things are going bad and sometimes when things are going well and sometimes when some things are bad and other things are good. This is life. I am accepting it. Because I can't change it. Seasons will continue to come one by one and I'll relish posting a mixtape for each one for as long as I can.

Memories of:
Driving down South Road in sunshine. Lifting light weights in the gym. Driving to a bonfire. Books about Mars, and Nipples. Taking coffee breaks in the backyard on WFH mornings. Being in the groove in front of VS Studio while looking out over the Adelaide hills. More hours on my back on the rubber mats on the floor. Long stretches of country roads. FLOWERS BLOOMING. Feeling sad. Being in the groove in front of CS Studio with the air conditioner on and the curtains drawn. The same walks around Croydon. Memories of Paris. Passionfruit. Trying to hold a plank.

Nash took us for a walk around the neighbourhood, then we settled down for some oat flour and banana waffle bowls for breakfast.

I had to work in the morning, and made a surprising amount of progress on some automation development - partly powered by a taken home cupcake from the evening before. Then it was time for the final wedding of the weekend. Jarrad - who I hadn't even seen for two years (Fringe, 2022). Jarrad and his fiancé are both living lives of music and art as they approach their forties, so I expected that their wedding was not going to be traditional. That said I did not wear my Kurta.

Around 3:30pm we took the tram into town and walked in The Garden of Unearthly Delights, which was very sunny and empty, which made it easy to identify the other wedding goers. Everyone was mingling in front of the red Spiegeltent, and like the ceremony on Friday there was a lot of colourful outfits but at least one more sailor costume.

Like a Fringe show, the doors opened and we were ushered in to find a seat. Like a Fringe show, the chairs were not super comfortable. Unlike a Fringe show I was handed a glass of champagne, and had the option of some free pickles.

The ceremony was scheduled for 4:30pm. As that time came and went the suspense started to build, but eventually to loud cheers from the surrounding crowd we got our first glimpse of Jarrad and then an even more theatrical entrance from the bride.

It was a real wedding, however, so there was the standard playbook of ceremonial events although with a little more crowd interaction and whooping. And during this were the contrasting yet equally beautiful vows as compared to yesterday.

After the ceremony I tried my first "Pickleback" (whiskey shot with pickle juice chaser). That explains the large pickle platters from before the ceremony. Then we hung out in the artists bar for a while, ate some tacos and a pork bao, before eventually returning to inside the tent which was now sans-uncomfortable chairs and more of a dancefloor.

There were a few short speeches from the family, but then in place of bridesmaid and groomsmen speeches like Sunday we instead got a live show. Satan's Cheerleaders played a couple of songs, earning them their second mention on this website. Shaolin Afronauts then followed up with a longer groove session of afrobeat and dancing. Jarrad moved from the drums to the bongos.

After the music, the bride's side put on a collection of cabaret bits. Starting with a small girl in big heels singing absolutely beautiful opera while simultaneously performing puppetry with paper butterflies and a big folding fan that she used to keep them fluttering above her.

Then things took a darker turn, and a lady walked out to play with fire, eat it, and then breath it with the help of a very muscular man wearing a leather vest over his tanned upper body.

I have written these long entries about this wedding weekend because I wanted to remember the things I saw and how I felt. Already I feel like the chaos of Frantic February is fading into the ether. By the end of this five day weekend of weddings I felt inspired by the back to back exhibitions of beauty. I've witnessed so much love, in all sorts of ways. Romance, family, friendship. Listened to touching speeches. I've been enveloped in so much colour and happiness. It really was a human experience, leaving me quite exhausted but also very happy to have been there. Even Nash has enjoyed the weekend. Every night alone has been balanced out by a long morning walk along the river, or a lake, or up the hill to Prospect. She too will be content that it's over.

That all said, the last thing I saw on Monday night I will not describe because I do not think I will ever forget it. And if I do, I will just search for the number one single by "Hot Butter" from 1969 and I am confident everything will come flooding back.

I left the tent shortly after that. More music was starting up, but the time had come to call it a day and prepare for another week of software delivery, rehab, shaving, dentist appointments and dog walks. As that continues indefinitely, these entries will hopefully help engrave in my brain some of the happiness that came from the last month.

After multiple duckling sightings today, it is clear that Spring is over and I'm both warmer overnight and closer to death. In the latest Above and Beyond mix he also shouted out that an amazing summer was coming to an end... This seems like a good moment for finalising my latest seasonal playlist and reminiscing about it. I was in Italy like twelve weeks ago. It feels like it was another lifetime. How does that make me feel about my trip to Europe in 2016? That was someone else's existential crisis in someone else's lifetime.

Hopefully writing about some of the music I listened to a lot over the last twelve weeks will help with keeping every moment of my life compressed like a pancake inside my own mind (except the embarrassing parts obviously).

The title of this mix is Estate Winter 23, a name I chose because "Estate" is the Italian word for "summer", and "Winter" is the Australian word for "suck shit we don't believe in double glazing or insulating houses".

Here's to you, Winter 2023. Whether it was hearing a reggae remix of Metallica on a warm morning in Parco Sempione, or listening to the original version on shitty headphones on my ride home from Wayville on a sunless day in August, such a specific stretch of months has never made me feel so free and helpless at the same time.

Johnny Jane, your voice carried over the streets of Paris the night before I flew home. Gorje and Manchester Orchestra, you were lullabies for afternoon naps. Spoon, the soundtrack to trains across France. Milky Chance, summer vibes regardless of the weather. Various trance and progressive house tunes, you are like the Vaseline over the camera lens to make work feel more beautiful. The rest of you, well, I just know I listened multiple times during the mundane walks around my neighbourhood, or while shivering through rehab in the gym, or while frolicking in the glorious parallel universe that is the tourist destinations of Europe - or just remembering that.