Life is what happens ........... when you can't make other plans

Rarely a day goes by without us saying how lucky we are to live in this city, in this country - especially in this year of upheaval and anxiety. Although no one can be absolutely certain of anything over the next few months, we have made tentative plans for family get togethers in the lead up to Christmas and the young ones have even been game to make holiday bookings at (NSW) beaches.

But meanwhile, we are living our best lives here in Canberra. We're not travelling much. Our Coogee place is rented for another 12 months, longer than we wanted, but Sydney is not the best place for us to be hanging out in at the moment.

But Canberra is looking just beautiful to us this spring after all the rain. Our view from our apartment windows has never looked so densely green!

Rob and I are doing lots of walking this year - 3 or 4 times a week we do the bridge to bridge lake walk (about 6klm) and most Mondays we do the Mt Ainslie climb (usually with our friend David) as well - which is good for increasing the heart rate (843 metres and steep in parts). Our reward after the Mt Ainslie climb is breakfast at our little local coffee place - Intra. They introduced a new menu this month at intra - still a small menu but always fresh and interesting, and the best coffee in Canberra (big call!).

We are very lucky to have an active social life in the midst of the pandemic too: lots of time with our family, lunches and coffees with friends, book clubs, guitar group, gardening in our shared park, and new friendships formed as a result of moving to the C5 precinct. There are lots of occasions now where our new sourdough making skills are in demand.

Rob and I socialise with each other too - regular lunches and movies, and drives to the country in that new car of ours...........

Our National Gallery opened up (at last) last month and the amazing "Know My Name" exhibition is the first big item on the gallery calendar. It's a curated collection of the work of Australian women artists from 1900 to the present day. The 7 Sisters installation by the remarkable weavers of the APY Lands is a stand out in this great show, the start of a new approach to gender equity in the gallery collection. Our National Gallery (in walking distance for us) is a source of great joy to both of us - and it feels great that it is open again, just like it used to be. 

When we were in strict lockdown in March-April we really took note of how our apartment worked for us and where there were any improvements we could make for our enjoyment. We ended up ordering a new rug, a couple of extra stools, some new lighting and art work and a small piece of furniture for the front entry. We finished all the orders and purchases back in early July -and there are still a few things that haven't arrived yet. But our front entry shelf was finally installed last Friday.

This was Sam, outside our apartment, doing the final precision scribing of the shelf so it would fit neatly against the entry wall..

And here it is in position. A beautiful simple piece of jarrah joinery that is a good match for the lovely unit that David made for us in our living room.

We ended up doing a bush walk last Sunday instead of our usual lake walk. We started at Kambah Pool, along the Murrumbidgee Discovery Track ......

..... walking around 2.2klm until we reached the Red Rocks Gorge lookout - with its great views of the Murrumbidgee River.

There's a nice swimming hole beneath the lookout, but a bit steep to climb down to.

Peregrine falcons breed along the river at this time of the year - but the only bird life we saw down by the river today were very friendly magpies (no doubt hoping we had some food).

I'm pretty sure this was a Wahlenbergia sighting (Canberra's floral emblem-Bluebell)

At only 4.4klm return this was a shortish walk for us - but because it was 27oC at this time of the day - with most of the track unshaded, we felt a bit hot, dusty and bothered by the time we got back to the car... a great excuse to end off our Sunday with a long cold beer at our local "Pedlar" (pub) before returning home.