For one of our dinner parties, Damjan made a lamb roast. At the end of the evening, he stopped one of our helpful guests from cleaning out the oven tray.

‘Don’t throw out the juices,’ Damjan said. ‘That’s the best bit.’ He poured the oily liquid into a container, which then went into the fridge.

A few days later, we took the container out and lifted out the congealed disc of fat at the top.

This left us with two or three cups of beautifully lean and potent lamb stock for a risotto.
The risotto was bursting with flavour. We had a couple of kaffir lime leaves left over from a Thai pumpkin curry stew and we threw that in with zucchini and mushroom. So yummy.

This year, I am seconded into another company. Being seconded means that my own company has ‘loaned’ me out. My original company still pays me directly and my new company pays my home company for my time.

Since I started working, I have been on three secondments. The first time I was asked to go on secondment, I was unsure. The job sounded boring. My managers were keen that I accepted the role; there was no one available to do it.

I went to my mentor for advice. She said, ‘Always accept secondments. You end up learning a lot from them.’

It’s true. Every time I leave my home company, I meet new people, get new skills, and end up being able to tell people about my unique experiences.

My first stint was for a government agency in the UK. I researched and implemented approaches to dealing with the social aspects of sustainability in road projects.

My second secondment was for a rail project in outer suburban Melbourne. I managed environmental issues on a big and fast moving construction site. This was a terrifying and effective way to learn local legislation quickly and practice how to persuade construction workers to do things that slowed them down.

My current job is to find ways to fund low carbon and efficient energy, water and waste systems in a large inner Melbourne development. This is the first time I have worked as the ‘client’, commissioning engineers to do studies for a project.

Anyway, so this has been a long introduction to what I really want to talk about. At my new company, we use laptops instead of desktop computers. Rather than clicking into a docking station, the laptop hovers above the desk like this.

The laptop screen is 15.4 inches, which is probably the smallest I would want for an everyday computer monitor. Isn’t it a strange set up? I suppose it saves the money needed for a monitor and a docking station.

Last year, Damjan and others helped Megan and Brad establish their vegetable garden. I was in the UK so missed out on the day of labour. Of course, I was very happy to be around for the the follow up ‘vegie harvesting day’, especially as it was also a ‘cook up a vegie storm and serve it to friends day’.

Using plums already picked from one of their trees, Megan and Brad were going to bake a pie for dessert. However, Brad accidentally dropped the box of stewed plums and it splattered everywhere. To me, it looked exactly like blood.

My mum gave me a yellow banana-shaped box. It says ‘banana house’ on it.

I’m doing my best to avoid owning things and cluttering up our new apartment, so I thought maybe this banana house was one of those ‘over the top’ items, invented to solve a problem no one has.

But I gave it a go and now I like it. It is a regular vistor to my workplace.

I have just started working at a client’s office. I brought the banana house on the first day and word got around that I had this strange thing. People asked me about my ‘banana box’ when we met at meetings.

It’s necessary to choose bananas of the correct curvature. Occasionally, too, bananas can be too thick to fit in the case. Sarah at work asked me if I bring my case to the market and test out bananas before putting them into my shopping basket.

One week, we bought very large bananas. None of them would fit into the case so I had to cut the top third of one them in order to get an unsquashed banana to work.

Damjan and I were walking home after dinner on Monday. It was 10pm and still hot from a 40°C day. At City Square, we found a small knot of children in front of the fountain. They were pushing leaves through the water to make shapes — words, a love heart.

Damjan wanted to do his name so I collected up some leaves for him. Then it was my turn.

Walking home from work the next day, there were still people at the fountain, making shapes with leaves. There are now more shapes and names. I think we got in early on this Melbourne meme. I wonder how long it will last?

Damjan made lemon ice tea as a family friendly aperitif for our new year’s eve BBQ. He made two versions: a sweet one and a tart one (more lemon).

To help people distinguish between the options, I made the labels.

Jess and Jared took us to the TreeTop Adventure Park, about an 75 minutes out of Sydney. The Park has high ropes courses, graded from Yellow to Black, much like the difficulty grades for ski runs.

We started at Green (the first ‘easy’ adult course) and aimed to get to black.

Blue was okay with a bit of wobbling, a bit of effort.

Red started getting quite hard. At one part of the course, I grabbed a rope and swung Tarzan-style from tree to tree. At the arrival end, I had to let go of the rope and throw myself at a rope net. It was hard, pulling myself up the net to the next platform. The net kept moving because it was not anchored at the bottom. Damjan had to coax me up, every net square of the way.

At the end of the red course, Jess said to us, ‘I just spoke to the man ahead of us. He’s done the black one before and he says he finds it quite hard.’

This is true. I think the black TreeTop Adventure course was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life.

At the beginning, I almost made it over a long flying fox but I landed just a bit too slowly and didn’t get onto the platform. Instead, I zoomed backwards to the centre of the rope. Using my arms, I had to pull myself backwards toward the platform.

As I came to the next challenge, Jess yelled out to warn us that the moving platform here would slide back as soon as I let go of it at the other end, so I would have to leap onto the other tree as quickly as I could.

By this time, I had no strength left in my arms. A few times, I couldn’t keep the platform beneath me and it slid away behind me as I clung to wire ropes. As I inched close to the end, Damjan grabbed me and dragged me to safety. I burst into tears and thought very seriously about calling for management help to get me down from the trees NOW.

Forging onwards, there were unstable ladders to climb up, swinging footholds, monkey bars… For one challenge, there was a wooden plank suspended between two trees. We worked out that we had to use it as a ‘half bridge’. We inched over it to the centre, then used our feet to swing (like surfing) the half bridge over to the other tree to complete the crossing.

The man doing the course behind me walked the plank to the centre of the gap before the plank slipped off the first tree. He hung in mid-air, the plank dangling beside him.

‘Is this supposed to happen?’ he called plaintively. ‘What do I do now?’

With no options, he dragged himself to the other side using the guide rope.

I kept thinking the course was almost over but it was obstacle after obstacle.

At the end of it all, I was so relieved. I think I accomplished something but… all I think about, really, is how bloody hard it was.

I saw this at the Sydney Botanic Gardens.

Some tourists came up beside me and talked puzzedly amongst themselves. They eventually figured out it was a collar to prevent possums from climbing up the tree.

I’ve been teaching final year civil and environmental engineering students at Monash University. To celebrate the end of the year, I was invited to the department dinner where I sat next to Dr Dave and talked about sustainability.

‘It’s hard,’ Dave said. ‘We all want to make money.’ Dave noticed my expresion change. ‘You do want to make money, right?’ he prompted.

‘Umm, well… I have a mortgage… as long as I can pay that, then no, I don’t need to make a heap of money,’ I ventured.

Dave looked at me intently and suddenly lit up. ‘Well! If you don’t mind about money, you could go into academia! It’s such a great job, you know. You can make a real difference though teaching. Nothing is as effective as influencing people through teaching. Especially if money isn’t that important to you.’

On Friday it was hard to concentrate so I updated my desktop using a blue marker and Gimp.