Week 49 — Birthday week
- I had this week off work and have been holidaying & catching up on some life admin things.
- I managed to catch The Boy and the Heron before its run ended in Canberra this week. I have been a fan of Miyazaki's work since I saw Spirited Away in 2005 during a particularly turbulent period of my teen-years. The film really helped to ground and distract from some of the events at the time, and has been something I return to almost every year. The other films by Miyazaki & Studio Ghibli are also amongst my favourites, there's nary a stinker among them! So it was no surprise that the latest addition (and probably the last) was also a joy to behold. What started off as a sprawl of open ended and seemingly unresolvable threads, came together over the course of ~2 hours in to a neat and emotional farewell-braid. The version I saw was the Japanese language version, but I am super eager to re-watch the dubbed version, if only to hear Robert Pattinson voice the heron!
- I've been doing some office organising too this week. I had planned to empty everything out, sand and paint the walls, and sand and re-varnish the floors, but a surprise (read on to find out more) waylaid some of that plan. I have a single IKEA Skadis that I have used to store photos, batteries, cables, my jackets and a bunch of other miscellany. The board was becoming a little over-loaded, and thus, getting things out from under things was finicky and fraught. So this week, I picked up a second board, and moved over some of the things over to the new board. This new one is closer to the door of my study, so now I can just hang a jacket and bag up as I enter, and grab things as I leave. Success!
- Over Christmas / New Year we spent a week in Melbourne. We usually toss-up between driving and flying. This year we chose to drive. Normally, we'd service the car before making the journey just so that we're reducing the risk of being stranded 400km from home. This year, we didn't manage to get a booking before we needed to leave, so we chanced it with an unserviced car. We did manage to get there and back again without issue, except for a "service car" warning popping up ~50km from Canberra, which was fine. This week, we got that service. There were so many broken pipes that could have potentially caused the engine to overheat that the mechanic was shocked that we managed to complete the trip without incident. I guess the torrential rain during both legs helped?
- Speaking of driving, on Friday, I was surprised with a weekend away to Currajong Retreat — and because our car was still being worked on, we had to borrow an unfamiliar car, which made the quick drive a bit more interesting! The retreat is 3 cabin/tents on the back of an Angora goat farm. All meals and drinks are provided and there are plenty of opportunities to freely do a whole lot of nothing! Surrounded by nature, and with zero cell-coverage, we could easily while away the hours down by the river, reading or hanging out with the goats. It's run by a family, who, are super friendly, hospitable and willing to delve in to the intricacies of goat farming, if that's your jam ;). The price may be a little steep, but by gosh you get what you pay for, and then some. There is nothing like home-cooked meals while you're out amongst the trees.
- This week also marks the first year of this site being re-built in its current form! It's also been the year since I have set a goal to stick to some form of blogging. The weekly-post format really helped to stick to that. I have only published a handful of other posts in amongst those, but even that handful of posts is more than I have written over the last few years.
Movies watched for the first time this week
This week, years ago
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