Last night I had a (free) trial class of “Northstar-style” jūjutsu at the local recreation centre. Fun, and I was drenched in sweat inside of five minutes! Exactly what I need, perhaps: a chance to work on flexibility, upper-body strength and general endurance; my marathon training plan (“beginner …

Ah, beautiful, delicate irony. I becomes apparent that I spoke too soon when I confessed to feeling satisfied for the first time in years — within hours of my last post, our landlords called to tell us they’re selling our home.

Dee had a brilliant idea this morning: “We’re taking the day off,” she announced. “No swim-school, no yoga.”

Of course, she then qualified it with, “We’ll just clean the house.”

Freedom! Fresh-air! Family! Freezing (by the beach)! Sitting in the Blue Bird café (inside the same building that has delicious Vietnamese food by Miss Chu) drinking a decent (but slightly off somehow — not burnt, so maybe just cheap/crappy coffee beans?) flat-white and waiting on a chicken and …

Last night we took the first step on what I suspect may be a long journey: readjusting Jules’ sleeping patterns. We’ve fallen into just a couple of bad habits over the last six months, probably since he got sick and went off his food. Neither are particularly bad habits, but I suspect they’re still …

Happy new year! Good riddance to 2013 and roll on 2014, says I. We celebrated with the Melrose clan (the Scots) by taking a picnic down to Bicentennial Park for the fireworks display — it’s the park right near our house, so not too far to go and we had a good view of the fireworks from both the …