For the Melbourne Cup weekend and in the hope of avoiding most coverage of the US presidential election, we went to Vanuatu for a holiday. It was a warm and friendly destination which we found very relaxing. We were lucky that we were there a few weeks before their disastrous earthquake.



It was also an early start for going to the beach over the Summer in Melbourne. After we returned home, Derek came to visit for a week. We started with a long weekend at Sorrento and also went to the Prahran pool on the second of his weekends here.



We had a busy time with concerts and cultural events toward the end of the year, hearing Troye Sivan at the Myer Music Bowl, Anyma at Flemington, Crowded House at Rod Laver Arena and the MSO at Hamer Hall. The events were all very different crowds. We were lucky at Flemington to find quite a few friends to dance with, as well as meeting Marcus who had come from Perth for the event.



In December we went to the opening day of the Yayoi Kusama exhibition. We were aware of her work from the pieces which had been included in previous Triennials. It was fun to get to see more of her large scale installations.

Investigating the possibility of building a house in Fitzroy moved forward a little as we received a proposed plan from the architect near the end of December. It is expected to be a long process and I’m guessing that if we proceed, there won’t be any actual building work before early 2027.



Over Christmas we took ten days away at Sorrento. The first part was with my sister for some beach time and Christmas Day. Last year we were in the US for Christmas with Jay’s family, so this was my first family Christmas without either of my parents. We kept it very low-key with steak on the barbecue and time at the beach.



After Christmas, Ivan and Derek joined us at the beach. The time there was complicated somewhat by a fault in the electricity connection which meant we were without power for two days. We discovered some of the limitations of cooking on the barbecue (heating enchiladas: yes, making pancakes: no) before the power was reconnected.



We were back in Melbourne for New Year’s Eve and went out for a while on New Year’s Day. I had planned for work to be fairly quiet for the first few weeks of January. Our weekends were busy though.



At the end of the first week of the Australian Open we went to watch what was a fairly one-sided match between Djokovic and Machac. That weekend was also the opening of Midsumma Festival with the Carnival. It was a hot day for the Carnival and after walking around the booths, we were grateful to find some deck chairs in the shade.



During Midsumma we also went to the pool party and we’re planning to see one of the theatre events next week. Purple Disco Machine was not a Midsumma event, but it might as well have been. We hadn’t been to the beachside venue before and it was a great location (for fine weather).

Coming up is the rest of the Midsumma Festival followed by Mardi Gras. At the same time we are making some plans for travel in the rest of the year.

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