Back to reality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVtCFolzgeg

 

The wintery view of Reine in the Lofoten Islands, Norway is the vista shown for January on my new calendar that adorns my studyroom wall. It seems to match the cool Sunday morning weather here in Adelaide. It rained briefly earlier, enough to wake Yani and me scurrying outside to salvage our laundry.

We arrived yesterday after long flights from Jakarta to Sydney, and then after around 2.5 hours doing nothing at the Sydney Airport, we had a two-hour flight back to Adelaide. There was no heatwave greeting us – the weather was perfect, warm and sunny. The house was in a great condition, thanks to my friend’s capable hands. While I was away, Ricky, a friend from church agreed to keep an eye of the house. None of the fish perished even though they were pretty hungry when I fed them yesterday. 🙂 Unfortunately because of the heatwave last week, I lost my crepemyrtle as well as my smokebush in the backyard. The trees up the front looked relatively alright even though my toona looked quite poorly – it is its first Summer in the plains, so it will need to adjust itself. I planted it last Autumn after I bought it from a nursery up in Adelaide Hills. I also lost all of my Spathiphyllum (Peace Lily) in the bathroom. 🙁 Unfortunately Ricky forgot to water the plants there – they had been in the house for about four years as I bought them not long after I moved in. Rest in peace, little friends! I will replace my trees and plants once I can visit the local Bunning’s.

Understandably, there were a lot of mail waiting for us when we got into the house – mostly bills and junkmail. There were two packages as well – one for a shirt that I bought from eBay. It was meant to be worn for the reception in Bandung but it arrived too late – ah well! The other one was my Christmas present from a great friend in Norway, Hugo — the Lofoten calendar is one of the things inside the package. An annual Norway cheer! 🙂

After a brief rest, I took a shower and headed to town to have a haircut while Yani had a rest on the sofa – it was nice to walk around in town again afterwards. I noticed some changes already – Woolworth’s in the city is closed for renovation and will reopen later this year; a fruit booth in Rundle Mall is cordoned off, probably for a makeover. The rest are pretty much the same. Haha. I then took a bus down to Anzac Highway so I could do my grocery shopping – I walked home afterwards, just to exercise myself after sitting around for so many hours during the flight home. Yani was still asleep so I busied myself pruning and training my bushy and overgrown grapevines. The two trees have grown considerably while I was away – just another Summer and I think I will have a decent cover for the veranda. 🙂 Yani got up and then did some clean-up – dusting isn’t in one of my favourite activities so naturally, she had a lot to harvest while she did the dusting and vacuuming. Hahaha. I also did one batch of laundry and Yani did one as well. I didn’t have a lot of dirty clothes to wash this time, thanks to a big batch of laundry that I did in Bandung.

As I’m the better cook of the two of us, I cooked dinner last night – just to give her some respite as well. I wanted to cook something simple so I made Aglio, Olio e Peperoncino with  some trivelle pasta. Yani liked it as well even though she thought it was a tad bit spicy. Hehehe. Naturally, she did the cleaning up. Hahaha – teamwork! 😀

In a bit, I’ll have my shower and then head over to church – I sure am back to life, and back to reality. A week of work awaits – a lot of things to do, decisions to be made, and a future to behold!