When the last week of spring hit 37° and the forecast showed December bringing with it an early taste of 40° it felt like the inevitable and familiar return of summer. Days of leaves at the front door, numb fingers trying to assemble breakfast, cravings for sun to penetrate clouds, all were forgotten. It was summer again. The fifth I would live through at my current address. I could already see the next few months spreading out before me. Early morning walks. Blocking out the sun with whatever I could. Air conditioning. Smoothies. Salads. Emerging into the air after dinner for beach walks or sunset beers. Summer Again. I saved my playlist with that name ready for the weeks ahead.

Summer provided all of that. And it provided injuries, stress, Christmas, family, house stress, and new music.

It's now March 19, and forecast for 33° tomorrow. Every day I wake up and think, Summer Again. But today at least one long lingering stress from the end of summer has been resolved. So it feels appropriate that I should post my summer playlist now, in the hopes that after this the drought might break and it will actually rain again.

Specific summer memories must include:
Cooking a lot of olive oil, salt, herbs and chicken.
So many cheap berries from Saturday morning markets strolls with Vanessa.
Enjoying the tiny difference that roller shutters made to the house temperature.
Floating in a pool.
A family dinner as sunset light filtered in from across the mountain tops.
Nash eating/drinking pup-a-cinos.
Doing a lot of holiday planning.
It almost never, ever raining.

On January 25th on our traditional morning walk to the markets my ankle swelled up so badly I could barely limp back home. It recovered a little with ice and rest, enough that I could get in a legless workout before going to an open house. We decided to make an offer for the house. The next morning I woke up at 4:40am for a road trip to Merrijig.

Every day since then has felt like a hurtling drive with stops only for coffee (it's okay Alex) and every night feels like I woke at 4:40am that morning.

We bought a new house, and then decided to sell our old one. I've dedicated days to spreadsheets, cleaning, furniture, finances, work and inopportune holiday plans. My ankle has been pretty sore most of that time. I thought I had gout so I gave up beer. Then when that didn't help I gave up beer and dairy. I spent over a week without a proper smoothie, coffee, thing of yoghurt. What a terrible way to live. Anyway when the MRI came back as ligament damage and arthritis at least I could drink a beer again.

I also spent a week living without carpet. I also was the one who ripped up our old carpets. I just put on Triple M's greatest hits, and lucky I was back on dairy because I also had an ice coffee, and I just cut into it and pulled it up. I had a new knife, plus gloves and a dust mask from big box hardware. One of many trips to there this month.

Carpet is such a fragile thing. It's in your life in your house and you never once think about what's under it and then a few slices of the knife and you roll it up into a roll and gaff it together and it's gone. Houses in general are stupid things. I've felt this way for so long. All you really want is shelter from the sun and if rain exists, the rain, and warmth, and high speed internet. Why do we need cornices and grout and matching coloured cabinets. I've spent so many hours cleaning things since Merrijig that I didn't shave for a week because I couldn't get my hand clean enough to touch my face.

And the dryness is relentless. Now we don't even have upstairs curtains. Heat, clean, work, sleep, repeat. I also haven't been to the gym for nearly two weeks. Although our storage unit is on the second floor of the storage building, so I have done many rounds of storage cardio. I've lost 3 kilograms since January. Maybe from storage cardio, maybe from abstaining from beer and dairy.

Tonight, finally, the house was ready for photos. The new carpet was laid. The terrible paint job was concealed. All the new furniture was arranged and Vanessa had them styled with cushions and books. The floors were mopped, windows wiped, the back courtyard pressure washed, the garden pruned, the front door washed, the new rug vacuumed, the bed sheets ironed, the shower screens scrubbed, the cardboard boxes cut up, the crevices dusted. The photographer admired the pizza oven, took the sunset shot, and it was done. Finally, tomorrow can be a day to breathe. The last thing I cleaned was myself. And I shaved.

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.

Spring 2024 started with many leftover quiz night cupcakes and pizza slices, and a crisp Sunday morning. Irises were in bloom. Jumpers were worn. A lot happened in the following three months that led to a barefoot walk on the beach last Saturday night as the sun showed no interest in the horizon despite it being well after 7pm.

Tomato plants have grown, exams were passed, pub trivia was won, wellness benefits were spent on putt putt and bouldering. Blinds and shutters have been installed in preparation for the Summer 24-25 playlist. We walked on the beach.

I visited Alligator Gorge, Watson's Bay, and Melbourne twice. I saw the milky way and a miniature horse. Hats and shorts replaced heated gloves and puffer jackets. I witnessed another AFL Grand Final that I'll probably forget. I made a lot of sandwiches seasoned with Gaganis italian herb mix, plus quite a few pizzas. We walked on the beach some more.

I bought a new computer and monitor. I settled into my new job. I rode my bike to a brewery, and then caught the new train line back. Vanessa beat me in arcade basketball many times. I did a lot of gym and I saw Chihuly in the Garden. Nash swam in West Lakes. We walked on the beach.

I took many photos of flowers and birds. And Nash. And sunsets at the beach.

I lost two teeth. I went to Christmas Carols. I wrote a bunch of code. I listened to a lot of music. Over 5000 unique songs, 80+ a day. That's not counting the times when I dug up old mixes for the speaker in the gym, or when I put on Anjunadeep mixes for focused software development, or when Vanessa was DJ in the car on the way to the beach.

It was a good Spring.

I'm mostly responsible when it comes to sunscreen, but my legs tend to be neglected probably more than they should. It's a combination of their surface area, the hairiness, plus the effort of bending down. But, expecting a decent amount of outdoor activity today I creamed up both legs. It immediately commenced raining, was cloudy the entire day, and the UV peaked at 4.

We started our morning with a walk to Lady Bay and to the lighthouse, then back for buffet breakfast and I ate three types of pastries. Then another walk around the South Head cliffs and another coffee before taking the ferry to Manly.

The rain drizzled for most of the following hours, but it didn't stop us from strolling up the Corso, along the water to Shelly Beach, to some rainforests and great views along the North Head walking trails and across more sand in the rain.

After all that walking we had lunch at a Lebanese restaurant by the water and the Lamb Shawarma came with five mini pitas. So I effectively ate four yiros. Then I had a beer at Felons before we rode the ferry back for some long awaited shoe removal.

Note to self: Add feature to include daily step count on journal entries.

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.

There's been a lot of weather this week, basically every time I walk out the door the planet looks different.

Flashes of colour coincide with brief bursts of sunshine.

This cool tree does its annual thing of looking good against a blue backdrop.

Mist rolls in to give all the vibrant flowers a spooky haze.

Sunsets come later, and you can feel warmth after the work day is done.

Whole streetscapes seem to exist purely as a tableau for you to walk down on Saturday mornings, drinking coffee.

The last six days of my holiday (2.4% of a Jupiter day) have passed by at the normal, inevitable speed of life on planet Earth. Overall, an excellent break, where I accomplished nearly all of my to-do list (leaving enough to feel justified that it was a suitable amount of tasks) as well as relaxing and living in the moment occasionally as well.

Tuesday - a leisurely stroll around Morialta, with a break for breakfast, and then coffee on the way home. Plus more home-made pizza because, why not, it was holidays.

More wattle.

Wednesday - the sun was forecast to be shining, and I'd thought of doing a bike ride in the morning but after putting on my red shorts I decided I'd prefer just to walk around Croydon looking at flowers with Nash and drinking coffee. Here we are both enjoying a sun-patch.

In the evening, caught up with J and then took on the quiz at Big Shed with other members of Pump up the JAMB. Took out second, which I was quite elated about.

Thursday was my Azure Certification study day, noting that a lot of that study was while walking around the neighbourhood, clearing out my closet, walking clothes to the charity shop, cooking dinner, and working out. But mostly it was a lot of Azure study. I did walk Vanessa over to a friend's before dinner, and walked home westward watching the dark-purple sky light up with lightning flashes in the distance. As I wasn't getting rained on, this was pretty epic. I was listening to Azure study material at the time.

Friday was more exam revision (while walking around Croydon) followed by the exam which wrapped up around lunchtime. The rest of the afternoon was a blur of eating, working out, walking in the sunshine (and rain), and then writing up all my feelings about the intense cram session as my brain decompressed.

Saturday was a busy day, starting with a very short, slightly misty walk around North Adelaide with Nash who enjoyed the occasional patch of sun, but wanted no part of the activity once she realised the bakery wasn't our destination.

After that, went to the Central Markets for some produce and a good coffee and a brunch with Vanessa's friends, followed by a workout and then afternoon tea with in-laws. Then, dinner and showdown with Alex.

Sunday, the final day, partly cloudy but no rain, has had the feeling you get when you spend the afternoon in the winter sun and then the night settles in, multiplied by sixteen. That's not to say it hasn't been pleasant or productive. It began with the customary North Adelaide walk to bakery, pide-based pizzas for lunch, and then an afternoon doing some coding for the quiz night.

Before sunset we drove to the beach for a final walk in the sun.

I bought coffee all but two of my days off. The garden is looking fresher, the seedlings are shooting up ready for planting in September. I've seen family, friends, the beach, the hills. I've hiked and walked and been productive around the house. I watched half of a movie, and didn't play any video games. I've exercised nearly every day of the break. I've eaten desserts every day of the break. The flowers in the backyard are just starting to bloom, and there's fresh skin on my fingers after the friction burns of the first Tuesday from using the pruner... Hopefully these are good omens for the next chapter of entries tagged 'Office'. If not, I am not afraid of temporary unemployment once more.