Easter and ANZAC Day are on consecutive weekends in 2025. This means if you get sick on Good Friday you can ruin two long weekends at the cost of only ruining three workdays.

Another year of enriching family traditions.

The answer was "Hock". I'm sure that the word has appeared at least once in the first 40% of All the Pretty Horses, so I was primed for an equine question. But the way it actually worked was I scanned my memory for anything I'd eaten in my life that was a big chunk of bones and tendons. The fact that this took me about a minute combined with my slow wander to the mic from the back of the room only made my correct answer seem more unexpected. Thank you Cormac McCarthy and Kloster Andechs.

I am not going to detail how I mounted the fan in the new gym, but in the second hour of the job I did use a hammer.

There's been two occasions this week where I've had to engage in conversations before I've had coffee. Both were reminders that I am naturally not connected to society or my community. Thankfully, caffeine helps me get by.

The hairdresser of the two asked me if I wore headphones a lot. Apparently she can tell what's on my mind better than I can. I was thinking, yes, noise cancelling ones, I basically only take them off for sleeping and haircuts.

For five years the tree was a centrepiece of my life. When I woke up in the morning and poured a glass of water, tree was there through the window. Working from home, standing up during a call, I'd look out my study window and see the top of trees.

Lunch time, I'd prepare a salad or heat leftovers or make a sandwich and eat it out the back looking at the tree (or my phone). Evenings. BBQ. Peripheral tree. Bedtime, take the dog out to toilet, she would do it beneath the tree.

Why did I like tree so much? The main difference between the house and the previous house was the location. But the main difference between the houses was the tree. And what a difference a tree makes. Especially when COVID shutdowns demand that you spend all day in your house. Sometimes on hot days I would go and stand in the shade of the tree just for something to break up the day.

In spring you could eat mulberries off the tree and in summer you could be sheltered and in late winter you could see the first buds of green on the spindly branches to give you optimism and cheer.

In autumn you could pick up lots and lots and lots of leaves. Which was good in a manner; an unavoidable reason to reconnect with nature and touch grass.

Maybe I liked tree because I knew that as long as it was upright it was adding like $50k to the value of my house... That's why I felt beholden to prune it, water it, fertiliser it, to keep it green. Maybe that's why we grew close.

Tree is not at my new house. In the mornings I drink water looking at the pool. Nash shits on a small strip of grass by the fence. When I look out my window from the study, I do see tree. Some previous genius planted a couple of lilly pillies directly in front of the western facing windows and they block out the harsh afternoon sun quite nicely. Lorikeets like eating half the fruits and dropping the other half.

Those trees aren't tree though. It was windy yesterday, autumn skies. I had the shutters pulled aside because I needed to catch a delivery van pulling into the driveway without leaving my computer. I heard knocking, but it wasn't at the door. It was on my window. The lilly pilly branch was swaying and tapping on the glass. "Let me in, Brad", it seemed to be saying.

No, I won't let them in. They are not tree. Goodbye tree. Hopefully soon I'll receive that $50K in my bank account. I'll put it towards pool maintenance. I hope the tree brings the next owners as much joy and centring as it did me.