A Sunday That Stayed Local

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoMiddle Sunday of the long weekend, and the decision got made early and firmly: town could wait. There's a particular wisdom to sitting out the crowds on the day everyone else has the same idea, and Publika made a perfectly good alternative — close enough to feel like barely any effort, removed enough to avoid whatever congestion Sunday had planned for everywhere else.

Before lunch, a bit of a wander turned up the iCour V23, which turned out to be genuinely worth the look — neat is the word that stuck, the sort of understated impressive that doesn't need much dressing up to make its case. Not the day's main event, but a nice bit of unplanned interest all the same, the kind of thing a long weekend has room for precisely because nothing else is competing for the slot.

Lunch followed at Nippori, which did what a good lunch is meant to do — filled the gap, didn't overstay its welcome, left enough of the afternoon intact to actually enjoy rather than merely survive.

The shape of the day changed after that, though. Anita had a wedding to get to that evening, which meant heading home in good time for a proper rest beforehand — the sort of event that asks for a bit of preparation rather than a rush out the door, and reasonably so. Weddings have a way of demanding their guests arrive as something closer to their best selves, which takes a bit of runway.

With the house emptying out for the evening, the remaining hours found their own quiet purpose — a proper dent finally made in the backlog of videos that had been patiently queuing up, the kind of catching-up that feels almost virtuous even though it's really just sitting still with good company on screen. Dinner got ordered in rather than made, sensible given the solo evening, and there's a particular ease to a meal that arrives at the door requiring nothing more than opening it.

The day rounded itself off properly with United against Ipswich, and for once the football cooperated — a comfortable win, no late scares, no need to watch the closing minutes through fingers. After a season that hasn't always been generous with its comforts, one arriving on schedule felt almost suspicious, in the nicest possible way.

So: a Sunday that opted out of town and lost nothing for it, a neat little discovery over lunch, an evening handed over to a wedding and, in its absence, to some very overdue video-watching, and a football result that actually matched the mood rather than fighting it. Middle Sundays of a long weekend don't always pull their weight — this one rather did.

Back to Earth

Please click the photo above to play the daily videoThere's a particular gear-change that happens on the first day back after a holiday. The body is present, the mind mostly so, but somewhere in between there's a faint drag — like driving with the handbrake half on. You remember how to do everything; you just remember it slightly slower than usual.

Clinic was busier than expected, which is often the way after a break. The appointments stack up while you're away, patients accumulate like unread emails, and the whole thing spills well past lunchtime. There's no easing back in gently. The day simply starts at full pace and expects you to keep up.

By two o'clock, I was in a virtual meeting with the Asia Pacific Leukaemia Consortium, which on any other afternoon might have commanded my full attention. Today, though, the tank was running on fumes. I sat through it with the particular brand of tired concentration where you're technically following the discussion but couldn't reliably summarise it five minutes later. The spirit was willing. The eyelids had other ideas.

The rest of the afternoon was given over to paperwork — the administrative backlog that builds quietly during any absence, waiting patiently for your return like a loyal but deeply tedious pet. I worked through it steadily enough, but the clock seemed to move with deliberate slowness, each completed form immediately replaced by another.

Home after six, which felt late for a Friday. An early dinner, nothing elaborate, just fuel. The kind of meal where function wins comfortably over form.

The evening, though — the evening delivered. We sat down for the season finale of For All Mankind, and it did not disappoint. There's something bittersweet about reaching the end of a season you've been genuinely invested in. You want the resolution, but you don't want the watching to stop. The finale landed well — satisfying without being neat, conclusive without closing every door. And the good news is there's another season coming, which softens the blow considerably. Even better, a new spin-off series has been announced — Star City — which suggests the universe they've built isn't finished expanding. More of that world is hard to argue with.

It's a funny thing, finishing a long day of work that drains you and then finding energy you didn't know you had for a television programme. Perhaps that's what good storytelling does — it borrows from a different reserve entirely. The one that clinic and consortium meetings can't touch.

The weekend starts tomorrow. The holiday may be over, but at least the week had the decency to be short.

Happy Malaysia Day

I was doing a bit groceries early this morning and it appeared that the Jalur Gemilang Lego bits at Bangsar Village was completed in the nick of time.

Back at the apartment now and waiting for Syahril and his family to arrive. Will likely chill out the rest of the day, but would be on call tomorrow.

For those resting at home and enjoying the long weekend, Happy Malaysia Day!