Newcastle's summer has been fairly typical of recent years, sun searing in the mid mornings and afternoons before a fierce nor-easter whips in in the late afternoon, sometimes accompanied by a spectacular storm, sometimes a mild freshen-up and sometimes a stifling blanket of heat that extends into night.
We enjoyed many family celebrations at Christmas time, including a three day spell in a row, that, while entertaining, was also mildly exhausting for us as we socialised more in that period than we'd normally do in a month. (I should really write that as "I"!) Cass and I also celebrated our wedding anniversary in style a little further afield at the iconic Cottage Point Inn, playground of the rich and famous! We also stayed the night after our wonderful degustation lunch and this allowed us to relax and really enjoy the lunch and a few drinks. It was all magnificent, but the experience was slightly spoiled by horrific, rainy conditions on the freeway there and back: we were again thankful for our modern, all wheel drive vehicle!
Cass has been religiously walking nearly every day on her usual trek along the coast, then onto King Edward Park via the Anzac Walk and back each day. She usually follows this with a rigorous free weights session, targeting different muscle groups on alternate days: I get tired just watching her! I've taken a break from accompanying her on the walk to swim each day instead. Ostensibly, I've been training for the Cross the Harbour Swim which I've done the past two years, although I was disappointed to see it cancelled last weekend because of polluted and debris-filled water washing down from the valley after recent storms. For the time being, I'll keep going with my laps in the Merewether Ocean Baths interspersed with some ocean swimming when the waves allow it and/or the baths are getting cleaned (or need a clean!)
In a neat segue, I was recently surprised to learn belatedly of the publishing of my short story on Merewether Baths on January 1st, 2024, which I subsequently published here below a little while back. I entered a very different story this year and was one of the finalists again, this time with a short story about a storm and a kitten! I'll publish it here in the next few days (or weeks!). I think it really made the short list this year as it was published on one of only four Saturdays in the publishing window of January 2025: Saturday's paper has the highest circulation by far. Anyway, it was fun to open up the paper and see it there.
"Adventure Days" are still happening too! We've been to see lots of great movies followed or preceded by lunch, gone on "hidden secrets" urban bushwalks, stayed overnight in Sydney for the last concert in Cold Chisel's 50th anniversary tour and made a day trip to Sydney to see the Renee Magritte exhibition and a smorgasbord of our favourites at the Art Gallery of NSW.
Footy season and classical music concert season are fast approaching! Oh, and I've been very slack in mentioning books we've been reading: I've such a backlog for each of us that it would be impossible to list them all (especially Cassy). So failing filling in the gaps, I'll try to mention just what we happen to be reading at the moment. Cass is reading Entitlement by Rumaan Allam and I've started Lee Child's short stories, Safe Enough.