The Fringe has kicked off in Adelaide which means it's time for the occasional evening out for a display of extreme physical strength and endurance.

And no, this is not my annual recycling of "a sitting through a performance with a shit back" entry. We had great seats, partly enhanced by my latest life hack of carrying a lumbar support around with me and inverting its straps so that I can wear it around my waist to buffer my spine.

So the feats that I saw were a part of Mythos: Ragnarok at The Garden. If you enjoy mythology and WWE wrestling then you'd probably enjoy this juxtaposition of those things.

I also got to observe the pushing of physical boundaries by Vanessa, who tried staying awake past 11 PM.

Next year, who knows. Perhaps that will be when gen AI simulates artistic performances for me on demand, and as the technology continues to grow, maybe push me to my physical limits as well.

Today Nash celebrated her tenth birthday, which by modern standards sounds like an eccentric thing to say. But considering how hostile towards life the majority of the universe is, I feel proud to think that after the millions of years that it took to have multicellular organisms we now have a dog with more cells in a single, ejected tail hair than there are on most planets. And because of me and Vanessa, there's a dog that has by far lived her best life and brought a lot of joy to a lot of humans. The last decade would have been worse without her.

Does that justify her eating 5% of her body weight in chicken and cocktail pies for a day, while everybody wore party hats with her face on them?

Yes. Well earned, Nash.

This was not how I expected to spend my Christmas break, but 1500 pieces later at least I can say I helped to do something.

Every Monday of 2023 I made a short, coffee related video.

Coffee and my phone, basically the only two ubiquitous aspects of every day of 2023.

Today was not the first day of my life that began with sunrise in North Adelaide walking the dog and sunset at the beach walking with my wife. I didn't take any pictures, which is not because there was nothing to see nor great light. I am privileged that despite what happens in my life I can enjoy pleasures such as these with such regularity that I don't even feel the need to document them. I also ate what apparently is Australia's best breakfast of 2023 and I didn't take photos of that either.

What I did document today were these Nash themed oat-flour gingerbread cookies.

Currently, my favourite coffee in Adelaide based on taste is The Grind in the central markets. They are a treat, as the price is now $7 for a large flat white which must be noted contains a lot of shots of coffee that you will feel after sipping.

We filled up two backups with fruit and vegetables after that, for about $19 (which for future reference was quite good and would have been double at the supermarket).

Then we went to the supermarket and spent a lot of money on groceries like frozen berries, sugar free soft drink, and a royal flush of dog treats.

There's a lamb surplus in 2023, so lamb legs are now much cheaper by volume than excellent tasting coffee. Lamb is a good meat, but a pain to roast as it takes a long time. Today I experimented by searing it in a frying pan with salt, pepper, olive oil and garlic at about 11am and then putting it in the slow cooker on top of a cup of chicken stock and a few sprigs of rosemary. It was ready about 6:30 and I have to say it turned out extremely well for something I put very little effort in to. I even made a wheat-free gravy out of the leftover stock and some chickpea flour and despite being lumpy that was easy cooking too.

The last week of September has been the kind of unrealistic spring weather you dream about in winter. Sunny, warm enough to wear shorts, but not so hot you can't go outside. Basically perfect, if you don't suffer from allergies. I've been riding my bike into town when I'm not working from home. Drinking coffees in the sun. I can't help being fascinated by flowers and the lifecycle of plants.

On the weekend we went to the Barossa to dog sit, and took Nash along for the ride. This presented more opportunities for enjoying the weather. We did the full Kaiserstuhl walk after having to cut it short last time due to injuries. I ate cereal, fruit and yogurt on a log in the morning light watching the birds before striding on up the hill and it felt like this was what my body was made for.

While in the area I also tried award winning bacon (it tasted like bacon smells like) and visited Greenock Brewery for a tasting paddle. I also walked around a lake and took in the golden canola fields.

The second brown snake spotting made us to decide on cutting the trip short, and we packed the second dog into the car for two more nights of dog sitting back in Adelaide.

I feel like I will finally sleep well tonight.

I've been back from Europe for over a week now. Did I ever really go there? The thousands of photos indicate yes.

I've ridden my bike three times already, in an attempt to conserve some of the summer spirit. The first trip was to the supermarket, then on Monday I rode along the Torrens to visit the office. The sky was overcast, the water was brown and the boring, muted towers of the Adelaide skyline gave me a visceral reaction. I muttered some ungracious things about the city and did not take any photos.

Since then my body has adjusted to the dark and the cold and the damp. It was definitely a good idea to put fresh bedsheets on the bed the day we left. There is still eight weeks of winter remaining, but at least the backyard that confronted me after a week away was not just a gigantic pile of mulberry leaves, but a couple of flowers too.

Saturday was my third bike ride, a trip to the markets between downpours for delicious, strong coffee better than anything I had in Europe (except maybe one in Rome) and cheap fruit. I felt a lot better after that one. Then we rode back home.