5.30am. I got up when Brun started barking in the bedroom at the universe only knows what?
He heads out of the bedroom with me woofing several times more. “Shhhh.”
Then it is the usual morning routine and I am sitting on the couch with Brun and coffee.
I read The Guardian
Elon Musk lashes out at US judges as they rule against Doge. Musk lambastes judges as leftwing activists in more than 20 posts as Trump administration’s judiciary clash intensifies.
So much money, so little of the essence of a decent human being.
Ukraine’s clandestine book club defies Russia’s push to rewrite history. Risking discovery and even prison, teenage readers meet in secret to discuss texts that Putin’s troops are trying to erase.
No more rude stairs: the dream of cycling across the Sydney Harbour Bridge is getting closer. After years of debate and despite some local opposition, the $38.9m 200 metre long cycleway ramp is finally edging towards completion.
“I Made My Own Lane”: A Rare Interview With Liza Minnelli By Michael Feinstein. Photographed by Greg Gorman. Styled by Dara. October 16, 2024.
7am. I watched a review of the film High Tide. After that, I started watching online car resto shows on YouTube.
8am. Sam and Otto were up.
Sam makes coffee. I make Vegemite toast and more coffee.
“What are we going to do today?” Sam asks? “Let's try the country trip today. And lunch in the hills.”
9am. I go have a shower.
10.15am. Sam is down from the shower. “Are we ready?”
The bulldogs always get super excited when they hear the car key jiggle. And I have a keyless entry fob with one house key attached to it, so their hearing is really fine tuned down to the sound of that. All it takes is one, even slight, rattle and they are on it immediately.
We fill the car up with cheap petrol at the Nicholson Street cheap petrol station. $1.65 per litre standard unleaded.
Then we head out the Eastern Freeway to Springvale Road. Then it is the Maroondah Highway to the Ringwood bypass, (have you ever been to Ringwood? It is the best thing you can do there) and onto the Mount Dandenong Tourist Road to the Olinda Road through the Dandenong Hills. It is always nice in the Dandenongs? (that’s the hills and not the suburb, you understand. Dandenong the suburb isn’t nearly as nice)
I notice the petrol is the same price at all the petrol stations as the cheap petrol station in Nicholson Street.
11.30am. We’re in Kalarama eating at Destiny Point Cafe. Sam is having a pulled pork sandwich and I’m having a big breakfast plus coffee.
The sun is shining. It’s a lovely day in the hills. The air itself is so much lovelier.
A couple arrive with two Standard Poodles. One brown, one white. They both have those stupid standard poodle haircuts. They sit kind of regally by their owner’s chairs.
A couple arrive with two Pomeranian type dogs. They are a nightmare to start with, but they settle down.
Not long after, it gets too hot where we are sitting, so we change seats out of the sun. We feel instant relief.
Midday. The large group of young’uns, at the really big table on the grass, who were taking shit, as younguns do, leave. We feel instant relief.
The noisy old diesel 688 bus comes swishing around the bends and arrives at the bus stop across the way. Croydon Hills it says across the front.
The service is ridiculously slow. One more coffee and we’re done.
Then, I could have sat there all day. The fresh air and the view for which to die. But…
12:49pm. We’re at the Off-lead Old Olinda Golf Course dog park. It is one of my very favourite places in the world. Enter in through its front gate and once the rest of the world melted away. More recently they built a children’s playground at the front near the car park, so now you have to run the gauntlet of people and parents and kids and then the rest of the world melts away.
We walk for an hour, then we’re sitting under a shelter at the top of one of the old holes, from which we can see two old fairways stretching away from us in two different directions.
The sun is shining. The sky is blue. The bulldogs are panting. On top of the world, that’s how it looks and that’s how I feel
Two hours after arriving, we’re leaving.
Montrose > Croydon > Bi-pass Ringwood > Whitehorse Road Nunawading.
3.20pm. We go to Bunnings. We get 3 x 50 litre bags of potting mix. I have been out for weeks, and I haven’t been able to do anything.
Blackburn Road > Eastern Freeway > Wellington Street > Westgarth Street > Gore Street > Johnston Street > Chapel Street…
3.51pm. We’re home.
4pm. Sam goes to the supermarket and gets cheese cake on special. Yum, cups of tea and cake ensue.
We ate fried rice for dinner.
We watch The News, The Project and ABC News. We turned the TV off after all of that. Too depressed? Ha ha. Maybe.
I watched YouTube and American politics. David Pakman, adorable Keith Edwards. He’s just lovely. Of course he is, he is a gay boy.
I watched Cash Machine Cars, and the worst Porsche Boxter in England.
10.30pm. We went to bed.
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