Family Matters

So tonight Imogen and Toby are coming home. I can't wait. They've had a lovely week over in Perth, staying with my parents, while I've had a lovely week of getting in to work stupidly early every morning, and then getting a lot done.

And I'm over it.

I have achieved quite a bit, though. One of my two units is almost totally done - lectures complete, website built, tutorials ready - the whole bit. The other is well along the path, though it's new territory for me, so will be a little more full on.

I've also got a good chunk of my next book written. I'm enjoying writing it, and hopefully will have the first draft almost finished by the time I have to start actually teaching.

The other day, my editor Kristina and I went through the final tweaks for Daywards. We wrote the blurb. We signed off on the cover. It's looking really good. It should be going to the printers tomorrow or wednesday. I can't wait to hold it.

Lets see... what else...

Saturday I went out to a Gliding Club in Goulbourn with the intention of going flying. Sadly I got there just as an enormous thunderstorm rolled over and turned the airfield to mush, so I missed out there. I did get to sit in a glider, though. On the ground. In the hanger. Wasn't quite the same, somehow.

I also sold my old road bike. This was a bittersweet moment. This was the bike I bought when I was in my late 20's and still doing triathlons fairly seriously. At the time, it was a state-of-the-art road bike, with carbon fibre forks, Ultegra groupset (bike-people will understand), a flight deck computer, Rolf 18-spoke racing wheels, the full bit. God I loved that bike. And I rode it, too - my mates and I put in thousands of kilometres around Perth and up and down the coast. Most saturdays we'd do a lap of the river - about 55 kilometres, stopping in Fremantle for a coffee and then up the coast a bit before heading back in to the city. Lovely days.

But for the last three years, my road bike has been sitting in my carport under an increasingly thick layer of dust. A spider had nested in the front brake. It was too hard and uncomfortable for riding on the *really shitty* Canberra roads, and so a year ago I got myself the bike equivalent of a station wagon. A big, wide-tyred, soft seated, low geared Shogun for riding in to uni.

And so this week, after putting it off for three years, I sold my shiny red road bike. I got $300.00 for it. Which I then spent on a Baby Bike seat and helmet for Toby, so from tomorrow, I can take him for rides on the 'station wagon'. I think this is a good investment.

Last night I started revisiting The West Wing, beginning again from series one. This show is such a brilliant piece of television. If you've never watched it, then (a) what's wrong with you? and (b) you need to do so.

But I'll be honest - I cannot wait to go to the airport tonight and have our little family back together again. Last week when they left, Toby was walking a lot, but still crawling about 50% of the time. Now, I'm told, he's running pretty much everywhere.

And I can't wait to see it.

As I write this, Min and Toby should be just about on their way to Perth airport, and it's almost knockoff time for me, so I'm going to go home and get the house organised.

Or perhaps watch a couple more episodes of The West Wing.

Fly safe, family.