It’s been a long time between blogs but here I am again. There’s a lot happening in my world – from a potential new job to Airbnb visitors (the first since Easter), getting my shower fixed, my car serviced, my teeth filled, quite a bit of work and deadlines, deadlines, deadlines (luckily I am a big forward planner) as well as lots of family stuff and overseas phone calls. My father’s health is not so good but, on a brighter note, my 16-year-old Melbourne-based niece is somewhere – beyond the reach of phones and social media (sounds blissful to me!) – in deepest and darkest Peru doing a World Expedition Challenge, one of my London-based nieces is preparing to walk the Camino de Santiago with her boyfriend, a friend of mine has just been on a food odyssey to Hong Kong and Vietnam, another is doing the whole massage, cocktails on the beach and party thing in Bali, while my friend Simon is wandering around Europe. Everyone is on the move in one way or another!

Apart from changing jobs I’ve been aiming to keep myself moving by making enough time for exercise – it’s that whole work/life balance thing. Mind you, some of us have it relatively easy compared to the work culture in other countries. My Singaporean guest, an accountant, tells me she regularly works from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Yikes! I find it essential to make time for both exercise and free-fall soul-nourishing time where life just is without the phone beeping, the chit chat, the dashing off to cafes for catch-ups and social interaction. Time to move and time to just be, and sometimes a bit of both.

To that end Saturday mornings are now sacrosanct for a bit of cardio activity. Unlike many of my friends and colleagues I don’t go to the gym or have a personal trainer but I am a big believer in the outdoor gym. Bertie and I take off to Hampton Beach in good time on Saturdays. There are plenty of steps and slopes leading down to the beach so we intersperse jogging and walking with running up and down the slopes. Bertie loves it and scrabbles up the banks like the true working dog he is. I might not go as fast as him but I do get my heart pumping and it feels good, clearing out any stagnant energy from the week.

Then this week I bought a new bike –well, not exactly new, you know me… I found it in the Op Shop at work. I do already have a bike and I haven’t sat on it for about five years so it’s looking pretty neglected. But the difference is that this pre-loved bike is a classic ‘sit-up and beg’ model – so no back-ache-inducing forward tilt – and comes complete with a wicker basket on the front. All very Brideshead Revisited. Funnily enough, before I came to Australia I visualised myself riding along the beach path on just such a bike. I do believe that we can visualise certain things into being.

If the new job doesn’t come off…

Once I’d bought the (bargain) bike, the luck continued. I texted my dog-walking friend who has a Subaru Outback on the off-chance that he and his car might be in St. Kilda sometime soon. Nick is a glass artist and it turns out he works in a studio just around the corner every Wednesday. Bingo! So me and the new bike popped round at lunchtime and were able to watch him glass-blowing and sculpting. I was amazed at how malleable the glass becomes at high temperatures – Nick was making a giant acorn and welding on the stalk. I was in awe at the dexterity with which he worked. What a skill!

Adding the stalk to the acorn

Apples and acorns and foil-wrapped potatoes for lunch

With the bike delivery scheduled for Friday, Bertie and I skipped off between work and a bit more work to the beach – not for cardio (hardly a goer in Wednesday work clothes and wellies) but for a gentle walk as the last rays of afternoon sun swept across the sand. As an added bonus, we met a pure bred Field Spaniel (Bertie is half field spaniel/half cocker) called Grace. We compared notes about our dogs’ behaviours and tendencies. We agreed that as working dogs, our spaniels need plenty of exercise – they need a job to do – and that they are hugely greedy and prone to pinching food off the kitchen bench. But we adore them.

Bertie is the most delightful boy but he is quite a handful. If he gets onto the scent of something or is scared or curious he’s off like a shot and barks up a storm. We were in the country a few weekends ago and got up early to go out walking in the forest. It was rather magical – a bit misty with rain dripping off leaves, lichen and moss clinging to ancient tangled branches with no sound other than the birds and the occasional rustling in the undergrowth. Until a wallaby appeared from nowhere and Bertie took off in pursuit. It ended in a stalemate with the wallaby looking bemused on the far side of a gully as Bertie barked furiously! He’s scared of ironing boards, skateboarders, wheelie bins and now wallabies. Oh and he barks at the TV if there’s a wildlife documentary featuring birds.

Nature programs aside, we’re both in need of a bit of down time so tonight it’ll be a case of SIT, DROP AND STAY… in front of the TV.