It’s very difficult to get motivated to write today and you can tell that this malaise was evident last week as well when I didn’t bother! I have just spent the best part of 24 hours churning through my latest assignments at the Uni of San Diego and thought that at least while my two fingers are on a roll, I could write something.
This time next week we’ll be back for the start of a nine-week break and we’re really looking forward to it. The end of year busy period has just been chaotic here and I still have a heap of things left to do. We went out surfing on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday afternoon and our efforts were ill rewarded, with a tiny wind swell barely big enough to support us on the waves. Similar scenes were evident on the web cam yesterday and this morning so Ross and I elected not to go over the mountain. Carl is heading over today, but doesn’t hold out much hope for a wave. Weather conditions have been stifling here in recent days, the heat heavy with humidity and sapping of strength. We get to school after our 15-minute walk nearly exhausted before the day has begun and collapse back home in the afternoon to cocoon ourselves in the air conditioning. Our TV is still not fixed, so we hope we can get something in train so that this issue can be resolved while we’re away, apparently Grundig does not have a service agent in Taipei and the other repairmen are reluctant to take on the job, knowing that spare parts may have to be ordered from Germany.
Virg’n Mary seem to handle the heat very well, in fact they pretend that it is cold when we turn the air con on, cuddling up together in their “octagon” or seeking some extra warmth on Cassy’s lap! We have been stocking up on their food, litter etc, readying them for the break and our minder Poonam is all set to do her duties.
Cass has already worked out how many dinners she will get on our flights home and the business class fare should be excellent in comparison to our usual. Chris and Val rang yesterday and were keen to come and collect us from the airport so we accepted their offer, even though we often just hire a car to save anyone the bother. It will be nice to be chauffeured home!
We just got back from downtown where we saw “The Day after Tomorrow” which was quite spectacular and we had to line up for ages to get in. Cass decided it would be the fodder for heaps of nightmares, with storms, tornadoes, massive waves, floods and freezing temperatures all vying for the most terrifying. We both agreed it was so much better than the trashy “Troy” which we saw last week; a cross between Gladiator and Lord of the Rings Part2, it wasn’t a patch on either of those movies. In fact, we decided that the scriptwriter should be taken away and shot and the historical consultant and continuity guys should never work again! We flashed down on the scooter and declared that we’d miss our trips zipping around the city (!), and arrived in sapping heat with full sun. Somehow, life imitated art in the intervening few hours, because when we emerged from the pictures a full-scale tropical storm was lashing the downtown area. After we had some lunch, it had calmed enough for Cass to go back on the train and me to get the bike home without getting totally saturated. That achieved we watched a great game of football between the Pennies and the Dogs, still lamenting the Knight’s loss to Melbourne last night.
Just a few hours after we return home, we’ll be at Energy Australia Stadium cheering on the Knights against Parra and we can’t wait. See you next week!
