The Godfather pt 1

Woke up without the aches I was expecting after an 85min run home from work last night. The run home was OK. Route was nice and I took in the Opera House, Botanical Gardens and Domain, Oxford Street, Moore, Centennial and Queens Parks. No idea how far it was. Not strictly true, it was probably around 17-18km. Felt quite uncomfortable for a while and thought I needed to take a tactical dump. Turned out to be a fart and after that I was farting like a trooper for the rest of the run.

So in anticiaption of being all aches, and because I had chores this morning, I'd spoken to JCJ and we'd decided not to dive. So the morning was clear and warm with little wind. Great. Chore 1 was to pop over to our to-be-new place and measure the gaps that we will fill with sofas and a fridge, washing machine microwave and so on. I did that as Sal and Mara headed to Paddington Markets to get a christening present for Maddie - that turned out to be one of those Russian doll things. Odd. Somewhat pissed off that the trip to Marlborough Road that we'd arranged to do together I was doing solo, and the no diving thing, I gave the CJs a call and they invited me around for a cuppa that turned into a cuppa and a couple of slices of toast with a state of the nation chat. The chat will, I think, end up costing me the purchase price of the book JCJ is currently reading, Meditations, the philosophy of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. You know, that bloke that dies early on in Gladiator before he can make Russel Crowe proper important. JCJ and I flirted with the idea of going for a dive...but alas, it must wait for yet another weekend. Gills are most definitely healing up on both of us through neglect. He also pointed out that a bit of grafitti I'd taken a picture of on our bike trip has been painted over. So this is history.

Chore 2 was to follow and is not really a chore at all as it is "fun" shopping. That means shopping for stuff and not necessities. I dropped Jonathon and Susan in the City and headed to Running Science on Victoria road to see if I could get a new pair of Asics Cumulus, my running shoe of choice. I chose Running Science because they do gait analysis and I reckoned it was about time I had someone in the know look at my running and make sure I am still neutral. And I am. Sadly for them they do not stock the Cumulus. They did, however, have the more expensive Nimbus. But not in my size. They were cool about it. Athletic Edge, in Randwick, do stock the Cumulus. But they did not have any today and will be calling Asics for me. So I stil have my old pair now.

But I have skipped the most impotant news of the day and that is a call I got from Sal's brother Adam while on my way to the shops. Tomorrow I will become Maddie's godfather. I was quite speechless when asked. It's an honour and a privilige and it came right out of the blue. More on that to follow, naturally enough.

OK, I have jumped about a bit and now have to go back to the part where I am heading back to Randwick from Victoria Road. I managed to do that via Neutral Bay, so made an unnecessary trip north and straight back south over the Harbour Bridge? Why? Well because I'm a dumbass, and because Sydney roads suck arse. The new cross city tunnel, that gets literally dozens of cars using it weekly, is toll only and must be prepaid. So I can't use it. So I join the queue to go topside through the City centre. And it is quite a queue so I decide to be clever and head north so I can go around the city centre and up Macquarie street. Only I miss my turn off as it looks like an access road to a building site - single lane, cracked concrete and all. And the rest is history plus a $3 toll. Deep joy.

What follows is the trip to Athletic Edge, newspaper reading (sports section including headline "We Lost The Ashes to This Lot?". Answer - yes you did, ha!) and coffee drinking, then a bit of volleyball practice in Queens park, the highlight of which was mara and Sally making some old guys day when, after a particularly decent dig-set-spike combination, they whipped their tops off and ran around whooping in their bras. Very saucy. Otherwise the quality of the volloeyball displayed was...patchy.

And now I'm being a misereable git and not going to Simmo's brother's party at the Coogee Palace Hotel with the ladies. That should not surprise many people, it is true to type.