The end of August, how is it the end of summer? Very sad. I had a busy last week of the summer holidays once we got back from Norfolk, variously going to house viewings and catching up with friends. I met up with a few friends for dinner and drinks early in the week, went in to work a couple of times and on Thursday we had a very exciting day of 3 back to back viewings, one of which was absolutely great.

On Thursday night, after pondering our thoughts on house viewings over a pint at Little Faith brewing in Deptford, we headed to the cinemas to see Christopher Nolan’s new film Tenet. Being quite a big fan of Inception and the Dark Knight trilogy (and Peter a huge fan of all of Christopher Nolan’s movies) we were extremely disappointed by the film. To be fair, I was a little shocked and distracted at home many people were in the cinema – it was ‘socially distanced’ in the sense of a chair or a couple of chairs between groups, but still felt very full. However, the film was still confusing and lacked a plot or any emotional connection to the characters. I’d be interested to see if I got it any better on a second watch.

On Friday I headed in to work to finish setting up my classroom and Peter spent a day making an offer on the flat we’d both really liked! Very excitingly, it was accepted, so he is in the process of starting what is a bit of an ordeal – very different to the house-buying process in Australia (or Canada, for that matter). Today (Monday) is a public holiday which doesn’t help, but luckily he was able to contact quite a few of the necessary bits and pieces on Saturday. It’s a lovely two bedroom and an office place in Forest Hill with a backyard, so we’re hoping that everything goes well! On Friday night we had a Zoom movie (if you can call Geostorm that) and drinks night with his cousins Rachel and Stu before he started night shifts and I headed to bed.

I had a fantastic start to the weekend on Saturday morning at the Bermondsey Arch One+ climbing wall! I hadn’t been bouldering since I left Aus and it was a lot of fun, if completely exhausting. In the afternoon I met my friend Alex, who I met in Egypt, and her friend out at Fourpure Brewery and we had some drinks there and at Partizan brewery. We’d intended to do the Bermondsey Beer Mile (a mile of breweries under the railway arches in Bermondsey) but ended up having too much fun chatting and enjoying Fourpure’s big and spacious taproom so only saw the two before heading home.

Waking up with a very sore upper body on Sunday, I had a quiet morning of skyping Mum, Dad and Jess, then just pottering around the house and doing some sewing. Peter and I met up with Geoff later in the day, whose September flight has just been cancelled with no renewal dates (all flights to Australia seem to be cancelled at this stage) so he needed some cheering up. We had a lovely picnic in Green Park and then dinner at a quiet little pub over the road.

After a reasonably busy week and weekend, I spent today very quietly, doing the food shopping and food prep ahead of starting back at school tomorrow and finishing sewing a couple of masks I’d been making. I’m getting together a good little collection now! Despite not being able to travel to Europe, the summer ended up being quite lovely and I feel very restored and ready to go back this week.