Quite the catch

I love a weekend that ends with eating a roast dinner while nestled beside DD.

We mixed things up a bit last night by heading to Flourish in Avalon with DD’s mates D2 and D3 (their Warrior . nicknames). It was a bit posher than our usual roast, the yorkshire pudding was decorated with edible flowers … oooh errr!

I also made DD go for a pre-dinner dip at Bilgola. The water was crystal clear and a teeny bit warmer than our last icy plunge.

It was wonderful, just what I needed to get out of my busy head after another week of feeling trapped in the expensive bubble that is Sydney.

DD topped off the fun with the discovery of a last bottle of my favourite wine hidden away under his stairs somewhere, so we had a little toast on his deck at dusk while I showed him paint swatches – I’m thinking about painting the exterior of my place a shade called “Ancient Ruin”.

Ironic.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’d better rewind to Friday night, which was a special one celebrating my nephew’s birthday with teppanyaki.

It involved just about everyone except me catching bits of omelette in their mouths and bowls of fried rice in their hands.

I caught a bowl of fried rice with my clothes.

I am a klutz.

But it was a hoot.

Here are some happy snaps:

On Saturday I visited a small but exquisitely expensive piece of Sydney real estate, which put another nail in the coffin of the idea that I could downsize.

Last week, a real estate agent told me three bedroom units in my neck of the woods start at $1.5million.

What the actual? Where are people getting all that money?

Afterwards, as the youngest languished in bed with tonsillitis, I sneezed myself senseless in the garage, filling the wheelie bin with childhood plastic crap and feeling guilty about landfill.

On Sunday morning, I tweaked the lounge room, hauling an old piece of furniture out of the garage to be the entertainment unit in the lounge room. My ex and I bought it in Chinatown in Singapore when we lived there waaaaay back in the early 2000s.

I’m quite excited to see the decorating coming together. While I theoretically want everything to be neat and spare and white, the truth is I actually get a big kick out of all my original art perching on top of furniture and shelves around the room. Some of it is courtesy of the eldest, some of it I’ve bought along the way, some pieces are lovely gifts from friends and family. And one canvas is a sunset photograph I took myself a few years back.

And now another hectic week begins.

This one includes the youngest trying out for a spot at a selective sports high school while shaking off illness; the Bacardi Legacy semi-final at the recently voted World’s Best New Bar – Maybe Sammy; and the eldest’s subject selection night at his new school, followed by dinner with the kids’ former primary school teacher who has morphed into a lovely friend.

Busy, busy, busy.

Hope you had a good weekend and have something fun to look forward to in the week ahead.

And my heart goes out to everyone affected by the terrible fires raging in NSW.

Song of the day: New Order “Bizarre Love Triangle (Every time I see you falling)”