Una fin de semana muy buena

It is one of those almost-hot mid-December days, any physical exertion would result in a sweaty afternoon. But to potter about inside a wide open Queenslander, the gentle breeze wafting through the front doors, is a delight.

Heather is hard at work at the Intensive Care Unit at the Royal Brisbane and Womens Hospital and I, after a lovely sleep-in on our new mattress, have been doing some leisurely tidying, cleaning and organising of the house - making it more our home - consequently, I must be a homemaker. A pleasant role for the short term, but I am already getting restless in mind and body - a good gym session will solve half the problem, but a rewarding, satisfying and not-too-stressful job would solve the other half. I am on the case, but often need to remind myself that the urgency for employment is not the same as it was in London and I can bide my time while hunting for the right one for me.

I flew back to Brisbane yesterday afternoon following a pleasant weekend catching up with Lucas and Farah - and meeting Lucas's friends and family and taking a trip with him down memory lane to his adolescence in Wollongong.

After a hectic and frantic end to our time in London together, and indeed to our travel experiences to that point, it was great to catch up again and ponder the difficulties of the world and how they should be solved as well as learning more about the latest countries we had visited in our travels.

The big news from the weekend, however, was the engagement of Lucas and Farah. I want to wish them the best and say how I excited I am for them and all the amazing opportunities and adventures they have before them to tackle together.

As for the minutiae of the goings-on in my cerebrum - I have just finished the oft advertised 'Freakonomics' - basically an economist doing some statistical analysis on data sets requiring some ingenuity to uncover, and some lateral thinking to approach and interpret. His most controversial topic being how the 1973 Roe v Wade decision in the US resulting in the legalisation of abortion in most US states was the key underlying factor causing the reversal of growing crime rates in the 80's and early 90's. Backed up by further case studies of similar effects in various European countries it appears almost unrefutable. The book doesn't make any moral judgments about rights or wrongs and doesn't advocate any ideal - purely using the data and some unbiased common sense to draw conclusions.

Ah, the Spanish program on SBS radio is beginning. Time to move on.