Our friend flies home to New York tomorrow and will be making the difficult transition from 30 degrees celsius to just 3. We made sure he didn’t leave without first snorkelling at Manly, and having a surf lesson at Freshie.

Visited my delightful Aunty today and she has always hand made porcelain dolls. Looking through her collection of miniatures today, I had never realised how many risque nudes she had tucked away. This cheeky little thing is all of 10cm long.

A stunning morning at the beach and things were happening in all directions. The dogs running full tilt trying to exhaust one another, while the humans in the background took the day at a more leisurely pace.

The laptop is charged, the e-textbooks are loaded, the online homework portal has a password and the online canteen ordering system has credit. Remember when you just had to sharpen your pencils and cover the exercise books in plastic and you were ready for school?

I thought everyone returned to work today, but it seems like the Northern Beaches are taking an extended long weekend. The golf course on Long Reef headland was covered with guys still avoiding the office.

For a day that was forecast to be stormy and rainy, Australia Day came out strong on sunshine and blue skies.

Driving home late from sailing up on the lake, we stopped at Dee Why Headland to watch the full moon. Much more fun was to be had swimming in the dark and waiting for the waves to come over the pool.

With New York deep under snow after the blizzard, it wasn’t hard to convince our NY visitors to come out on the boat and embrace a Sydney summer. Mackeral Beach is a secluded little piece of Pittwater that is a great showcase of the natural beauty of our local area.

Collected my children from RTX this afternoon, a huge gaming and internet convention held in Sydney. If you wanted to know where all the coloured hair dye supplies had disappeared to, this is the place to look. Waiting outside, I had a steady stream of cosplay characters walking past my camera. Contact lenses used to great effect on this girl.

Our 4 year old neighbour has a wonderful intensity about him. He will come up close to your face, urgently saying “I have something to tell you”. He will then regale you with all the facts he knows about tornadoes, or dinosaurs, or Star Wars. The world is huge and he is quickly amassing all the facts he needs to understand how it works. He is curious and articulate, and a whole lot of fun.

You try surviving a heatwave wearing a fur coat all day. It’s exhausting.

It’s a timeless scene, repeated throughout the world, and over many generations. The languid, hot afternoons at the end of the school holidays. Neighbourhood kids hanging out. Talking boy stuff. Important things.