This morning, Steve and I climbed from the saddle to the top of Timbertop Mountain in the Victorian High Country. It was a combination of many of the things that I enjoy. Walking up steep slopes. Eating cereal, fruit and yogurt. Photography. Spending quality time with brothers.

I felt sad after it was over and we'd drunk a coffee and Steve drove away. The world is a big place and it feels like it's becoming bigger. Maybe because I'm closing in on forty and time feels shorter. Maybe because I always enjoyed going to the pub and playing pool and it happens so rarely these days that when it does happen I am overwhelmed by nostalgia.

There were a lot of snakes on the mountain. A Mayfly bit my leg. The view at the top was nice. Overall, it felt good.

Napoleon's tomb, in Les Invalides on the Seine in Paris stands a compensatory 21 metres high from its base of marble to the top of the golden sarcophagus.

The big screen at Melbourne's IMAX theatre is coincidentally the exact same height.

The above is bullshit. I will not fact check it. IMAX Melbourne is showing the Beyoncé movie instead of Napoleon on the two days I'm in this town and this is the final insult that my plans for an enjoyable holiday will endure. Like the French's enemies in the first years of the nineteenth century, I surrender. I'll make the best of whatever days are left of this road trip and I'll look forward to Monday and returning to work on hopefully the first day I haven't felt like shit all month.

I have enjoyed a good run of holidays leading up to this one, so I can't feel too aggrieved. PNW, 2022 Road Trip, and Europe 2023 included no sickness or other dramas. I appreciate the privilege I have to even take a holiday. But this trip has undoubtedly felt like a cascade of drama. Sickness, missing catch ups with family, driving and sleeping only. After commenting that I would get injured just by attending a CrossFit competition I then slipped on some mud by the beach and pissed off my wrist again. No, this holiday is a dead holiday and I have been a ghost on it. Lying in bed at 8:30pm instead of drinking beer and watching the lightning over the ocean. Haunting historic Goulburn instead of quality time with nieces and nephews. Sunny days covered by sheeting rain. Not writing journal entries. Not seeing the sun set. Delicious food and coffee tainted by the ubiquity of infectious mucus. I am glad I at least recovered my sinuses in time to spend time with Steve on Monday, and get in a couple of hikes. Vanessa has not been so fortunate. It has not been fun. I would rather have been working.

Gough's Bay this morning.

And yet, there still opportunities to make the best of what is left. I'm sitting at Riverland now as the sun lights up the Yarra and the DJ plays my funeral song - hopefully not an omen, but a reminder that it doesn't matter how big your tomb or how high resolution your biopic is, it's better to be on holiday than to be dead.

And I got to see this bird.

Good thing I drilled a hole in the ceiling when it bloated from rain water, according to the roofer who came tonight. If not, the ceiling could have collapsed.

He then proceeded to demolish the ceiling, sending plaster, sodden insulation and black mold down to the floor.

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.

The inevitable happened. Not getting Covid, but getting Covid with the precise worst timing such that many enjoyable social, fun activities would need to be avoided.

The summer solstices of 2023 had been going so well for me up until now. In June the day started with breakfast and a walk around the shores of a lake in the Swiss Alps. And then an evening of music and sunshine on the cobblestone streets of a little French town. Today started with a sunny stroll through Prospect, and ended with a socially distanced walk along the sand at the beach.

While missing Christmas due to Covid will suck, I take comfort that at least I am not suffering from anything more serious. Like scurvy, thousands of miles from home on a rotting timber ship in the eighteenth century. Although at least that might have come with more of a sense of adventure.

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.

On Saturday morning, the first day of my ten day Christmas break, I watched as garbage man emptied a dumpster of recycling into the same compactor as he'd just lifted two dumpsters of trash into. I heard the metal on glass crunching as rinsed containers were pulverised into bags of leftover popcorn and snotty tissues. It felt like a bad omen. I was right.

The Detroit Pistons were my favourite team when I was a kid. I don't recall why. Grant Hill probably, because no other names on the 95-96 roster resonate with me except for Joe Dumars. I had two Pistons hats. One was an old school Snapback cap with a small logo on the side. The other was - from memory - a shiny blue hat surfaced with some soft material and a huge logo. My friend's dad gave it to me as a gift and it was an awesome hat. In fact, the hat may be why I was a Pistons fan.

I feel like a Pistons fan again today. They suffered their 27th consecutive loss, setting a new league record. I too have been taking L after L in December 2023. Today I registered another consecutive positive Covid test, leading to my sixth straight day of cancelled plans. My injuries are making it hard to even sit and do a puzzle. I don't feel sick, but I'm not willing to drink a beer until I get at least one day past a negative test. This is Covid in 2023. I almost, but not quite, feel like I should actually go out and spread this variant because it is so mild. But I won't do that. I will be a good social citizen and hope that someone out there appreciates that they're having a good time this weekend because I made a nice decision. For me, it feels inevitable that I will spend my entire holidays stuck at home until the day I go back to work.

Vanessa, Nash and I walked to McDonalds tonight for a socially distanced soft serve. The machine was not out of order. Maybe that's a sign that things are improving.

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.