Whilst recently on holiday I read Do Interesting which, amongst many other things, recommends writing a weekly blog post. Since I have also recently started doing some very rudimentary daily journalling (more on that in a future post) I figured I’d give it a go.

This week has been a bit of a strange one as we try to settle back into some sort of rhythm after returning from a three-week holiday in the UK. We arrived back into Australia last Sunday morning and spent the next couple of days in a haze of jetlag (apart from my youngest daughter, who managed to sleep for most of the long haul flight from London). Luckily I opted to spend an extra couple of days on leave, so didn’t have to cope with getting back into work until Wednesday.

I started a plant-based diet - mainly for health reasons. I’ve done it before, so I already know that I do feel better for it. Plus I already take oat milk in my coffee instead of dairy (personal preference - I prefer the taste and texture to full-cream milk).

That said, I’m classifying myself as vegan-ish - I may occasionally stray for a single meal, and won’t beat myself up about it. This is an important distinction since we also ordered a new upright charcoal smoker for my wife to start experimenting with smoking / slow-cooking meats. We’ve previously used a smoking box with our gas barbecue, but this promises to yield much better results. The new kit should be delivered next week, so I suspect I’ll be breaking my plant-based streak next weekend!

Back to work on Wednesday - the first day was pretty much solidly spent catching up on emails and Slack threads. The rest of the week was spent dealing with outstanding support issues that weren’t resolved in my absence, as well as starting to shape up the next big project I will be working on.

The weekend saw my eldest daughter’s first away game for her soccer team (she plays for the academy team at our local club). An unfortunate defeat, but that was largely down to their age-group playing with ‘no offside rule’, and multiple goals scored by an opposing player who spent 90% of the game offside! This was only the fourth game of the season for the team, but they are already starting to show some fantastic coordination and skill, so we have high hopes for the games ahead.