The real world

The real world is hot and smoky and filled with dirty dishes.

Oh, and the moon is bushfire red.

It’s a bit of a shock to the system after the flooding rain and waterfalls and fresh mountain air in New Zealand.

I arrived home from the airport around 8pm on Wednesday night and immediately started cleaning up the trail of devastation created by a 16-year-old lazing around eating boxed mac and cheese, pizza and two-minute noodles for a week.

I’d left proper food behind, including a big tub of homemade pie mince and frozen pastry sheets, but I came back to the good stuff mostly uneaten.

Yesterday was a mad one at work, getting together eight stories for my weekly Drinks Trade newsletter, including the early morning breaking news that Carlton & United Breweries had bought a popular craft brewer called Balter.

The mortgage broker arrived around lunchtime to grab the paperwork for my new financing. Business must be good – we signed the forms on the boot of his white convertible Mercedes and he handed me a $200 Westfield gift card.

After work I headed to Woolies to restock the fridge and pantry, then cooked dinner, watered the new hedge, put on a few loads of washing and dabbed eczema ointment on the youngest’s eyelids.

Sitting in the Pinot Pit drinking pink bubbles was much more fun.

Looking through my holiday selfies has been a bit confronting though, as it sometimes feels like my grandmother is peering out from my face. I don’t mean that in an I-look-old way, it’s more that I see her in me.

I particularly noticed her echo in this make-up free one:

That’s me as a baby in the right hand one with her.

I miss my Nan very much. So does my Mum, so I imagine seeing my selfies freaks her out a bit too.

Anyways, today is another huge one, but filled with fun. I have my work Christmas lunch, a Taylors Wines function and possibly a glass of birthday bubbles with my sister afterwards.

The kids will forget what I look like again.

Have an awesome weekend and I’ll update you on my shenanigans next week.

Song of the day: Barbra Streisand “Memory”