About this point I also start looking for a Mass to go to. I must confess I'm kind of a church-slut. I tend to pick a Mass depending on whether my weekend better suits a vigil Mass on Saturday or a Sunday morning or evening service. Herein one of the few perks of not having children at a Church school in your area: there's no obligation to attend the same service each week.
After this point I start putting the other "living" things in - groceries, sleep, laundry and the like. This perhaps sounds mechanical and I suppose you're right. Regardless, since I've been doing this I never find myself cursing wasted time on Sunday evening.
This particular weekend was a case in point. Saturday kicked off with a long run along the Capital City Trail eastbound. This time I actually found the trail, which was a change. It's not well signposted, and if you don't twig that it goes under Rushall Railway Station you'll lose it entirely. I discovered that it seems to merge with the Merri Creek and Yarra Trails. This was perfectly fine with me: at any rate I found myself running on sealed tracks a long way from the roads in beautiful scenery. I've seldom enjoyed 15 kilometres more, and it would have been better if I hadn't pulled a calf muscle that put me in a world of hurt on every hill climb.
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| Bridge on Capital City Trail |
Beach day at St Kilda was about what one would expect. That is, a lot of lying in the sunshine, regularly going to cool off in the water, and in between times reading Albert Camus' L'Etranger and Watkin Tench's account of the early days of the colony at Sydney (published as 1788). To my mind, the best bit of L'Etranger is the passage where Meursault describes the weekend just after his mother's funeral. Perhaps nothing fits so perfectly with the essay "Summer in Algiers".
Beach day ended with a pint of Four Pines pale ale at the Village Belle Hotel. It was still light so I went to the Coles and bought myself some rolls and some silverside and had a kind of picnic dinner by the beach which I much enjoyed. I caught the tram back to my digs and decided to head up to the laundromat and get my laundry done and also catch up on some SES paperwork I'd been feeling guilty about (productive or what?). Once back at the casa I started folding laundry and flicked the TV on. Lo and behold, a guilty pleasure movie was on (Yes, Resident Evil...) so I stayed awake to watch and do the ironing.
Sunday rolled in humid and I had just enough time to get to Mass at St Margaret Mary. The service started at 9am and was (praise heaven) done 'straight' without fanfare and with a priest who drew his homily from the day's readings. Surprisingly many priests ignore them and go off onto a tangent, which is a tendency they can't all do well, or at any rate well enough for the education of the parish.
It was touch and go whether the girls would be able to Facetime this afternoon, so I filled in the time writing them a letter and doing some reading. When it looked like they were (sensibly!) getting an early night, I headed down to South Melbourne for a swim. Once again, I laid on the sunscreen and read a book in the sun in between swimming in the warm water. I wonder why I didn't do more of this when I was younger?
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| South Melbourne Beach |
Regardless, by 6pm the wind was getting up and the clouds had come in and I called it a day. I stopped for a pint of India Pale Ale at the Beach Hotel where I bumped into an old friend, AB, who lives down there. Good to see people doing well! I still had space in my calorie count for another pint of beer so I stopped at the Quarry Hotel for another IPA because what the hell. I live alone and I'm single. Who's to condemn me?
I don't know what the stigma is with drinking alone. A person who can drink solo knows nobody will call a cab for them or dump them on their doorstep (except perhaps the police). It's a peaceful, self-sufficient and satisfying thing to do.
I walked home from the pub. Dinner was rolls, meat, wine and an episode of Big Bang Theory (and now blogging). On balance, I've never felt more contented
J'ai pensé que ... somme toute, il n'y avait rien de changé.
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