Time flies, doesn’t it? We’re already a week into 2025. In Australia that means we’re about halfway through the annual summer hiatus, where everything is on hold. All the TV shows are on holidays so you get endless repeats or ‘lifestyle’ programs like border security or real-time cop shows like RBT (random breath testing for those who don’t know – a TV show about catching drunk drivers). It’s summer holidays here. Schools and colleges broke up just before Christmas and won’t start again until February or March and many other people take their own annual leave, so trying to get a tradesman to do anything at this time is a bit like catching a unicorn.
Still, the upside is there’s lots of cricket. We were treated to a five match series of Australia vs India. Some people have predicted the end of test match cricket, where one match is played over five days. They say people don’t have the patience for the long format of the game anymore. Either the games are one-sided and it’s over in three days or it’s as slow as a wet week and ends up in a boring draw (Geoffrey Boycott, anyone?). But every one of those games was riveting. Well – maybe we didn’t much like the first test, where India walked all over Australia, humbling our team. But even so, it was riveting cricket with lots of flair and drama. It’s called TEST cricket because it tests the fitness – both physical and mental – of the players over a long period. Each game had its share of drama and controversy and the last test was a nail-biter where either team could win, thereby winning the series, and there was no chance of a draw.
For fans of the short game, the BBL (Big Bash League) is on the telly several times a week. Two teams play twenty overs each and there’s plenty of derring-do with batters smashing runs over the fence. Since there’s nothing much else on TV it’s a good distraction on warm summer nights.
For those folks who don’t like cricket there’s plenty of tennis with matches played in every state as a lead up to the Australian Open in Melbourne. I think it starts next week. For me, tennis rates a little higher than F1, but well below watching grass grow.
Then there’s the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. The start in Sydney Harbor is televised on Boxing Day and is always spectacular as the fleet jostles for position amidst the hundreds of spectator boats. We didn’t see it this year. We were in Brisbane and decided to partake of another great Australian tradition, the Boxing Day sales. I suspect the imported Black Friday sales have taken away some of the shine of Boxing Day coming as it does in the lead up to Christmas, but there were still queues of buyers waiting to get into some shops. Me, I’d rather shop online – but not for clothes or shoes. Asia doesn’t seem to understand sizes for Western folk. I was looking for sandals but to my surprise there wasn’t much on offer so we went to Star Casino’s Sky Deck to admire the view instead.
We went home from Brisbane the day after Boxing Day. The plan was to visit family for a rare Christmas catch up at the Sunshine Coast, a straight forward trip up the main highway of about one and a half hours. We used Google Maps to find us a route out of town and although the first few moves were familiar enough, pretty soon we were being directed to bits of suburbia we’d never seen before. But we were told several times that this was the fastest route, despite the delays clocking up. The roads were all packed and we did consider ignoring the GPS and heading for the MI – we would have to end up there eventually anyway. However, we persevered with Google. When we reached the motorway it was a car park. In both directions. It took us nearly three hours to reach that Sunshine Coast address. Half of Queensland must have been on the move visiting relos or starting their post Christmas holidays.
Now that’s all behind us and Australia is starting to shake off holiday inertia, things are starting to happen on the home front. A plumber has been to replace a tap and fix a few things, we’ve had a tradesman in to quote for improvements to the bathrooms and another tradesman has quoted for fixing the laundry. The new kitchen should be happening in a couple of weeks.
And we’ve done some work in the garden, planting an orange, a lime, and a couple of paw paw trees, tomatoes, and some ornamentals.
Things are looking better.
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