I write every week about our little trips. But I've stopped writing about the daily "little things" that charm (or maybe challenge) us. Too many "little things" posts make for bitty reading.

But still, every now and again it's good to pause and reflect on the ordinary.

Of course, no week is ever really ordinary. This last week -- April going on May -- has been rather different in that it has contained both an earthquake and a public holiday (not that either of those events is THAT unusual here...) Still, the point remains that the greater part of our lives is made up of routine, not big-ticket events.

So here is a snapshot of our routine at the moment.

Work takes up most of my time. I don't know how my colleagues manage. They have far more classes than I do, and they have families and often businesses. Preparing lectures; grading classwork, assignments, and exams; administering classes; talking to students individually in our "consultation" sessions; researching and writing; and (my least comfortable task) correcting the language in undergraduate theses -- it all takes up many hours. Maybe I just don't work quickly enough. Maybe I need to settle for "good enough", rather than always trying for "the best I can reasonably do"... Yeah, right -- I would need a personality transplant to achieve that.



Then there's the trip to work. On Rufus. The roads are busy on working days, with swarms of motorbikes jostling for position amid all manner of stationary and mobile obstructions. So the journey is often pretty terrifying. Having been twice knocked off our motorbike, we harbour no illusions that we're invulnerable. But it's always beautiful. Always. Ricefields, rivers, roadside stalls; houses and gardens; trees, trees, trees.

Most mornings we go for a walk. We have only two regular routes, but they're never the same twice. The light on the ricefields is different every day. Have you seen the colour of ripe rice when dawn is turning the sky pink? Ineffable. Sometimes we see the volcanoes, and sometimes we don't. Sometimes it's misty and ethereal; sometimes the air is clear as a bell. Sometimes there are pattering, splashing flocks of ducks, and sometimes there are not. But it's always beautiful. Always.

Near the end of one of our routes, there is a guava tree, which is in fruit at the moment. I love the moment when my nose first picks up the delicious perfume. I don't know what the owner of the guava tree makes of me, as I pause and sniff, pause and sniff...

Some evenings, we walk to the market. Sometimes you get a triple light-show: stars in the clear sky overhead; lightning flickering in the clouds on the horizon; and hundreds of fireflies twinkling in the rice-fields. Those are wow moments.

Less often than we used to, but still fairly often, we walk to Jl Prawirotaman at the weekend. A ViaVia breakfast is usually the first objective. The supermarket is usually the second. We becak home. I like riding in a becak, and I like supporting this sector of the economy.

Eating at our favourite (mostly very simple) food establishments continues to be a daily pleasure. This week the soto ayam man was back! He's been missing for ages, so one of our regular breakfast options had fallen by the wayside. But he's back! His soto has the most aromatic broth. Excellent ketoprak and ayam goreng have both figured on the lunchtime menu in recent days. And a glass of es tape from the stall on Jalan Bantul makes its way into the routine most weeks.

Our evenings are generally low-key. I'm still in the midst of my diary-computerization project, so whenever there are a few spare minutes, I knock off a couple of days from some (seemingly very distant but actually quite recent) period in the past. This is not difficult. I type quickly, and I don't need to use my brain for this task. I also try to read an Indonesian novel for an hour before going to sleep. Apart from one Indonesian class not quite every week, that's pretty much all the language study I have time for. Which is one of my biggest frustrations. At the moment I'm reading Dekut Burung Kukuk (The Cuckoo's Calling) by "Robert Galbraith", who is actually J.K. Rowling. It's a reasonable read.

Sometimes we meet up with friends in the evenings. This week it was Karin. And the venue was the Ministry of Coffee, where I relished some more of their delectable pancakes.

Reasonably often there's an event at university. Tonight, for example, there were student performances of music and dance to mark the 33rd anniversary of Fisipol. These are usually very good shows, and this one was simply stunning. There's a wonderful talent pool here. I hate to single anyone out, since they were all so good, but particularly memorable were the quick-as-a-flash Acehnese Saman Dance; the hauntingly beautiful call for rain from Lombok, with its deep, throbbing didgeridoo-type instrument and its melancholy shawm (played continuously with no breaks to inhale); the group with the pretty, delicate angklung; and our fabulous hiphop ensemble.



And a few weeks ago, we established the "Friday night is movie night" tradition. This involves indulging in some culinary treat (yesterday it was bubur ijo -- mung beans in sweet coconut milk -- from the market) and watching a DVD (uncomfortably, it has to be said, with Nigel's computer balanced on a board on our laps). Usually we watch an Indonesian movie, but last night it was J. Edgar, contrasting reviews of which are here and here.

And then there are our "little trips".

This is our "ordinary". It's good.

When I leave this place -- as inevitably I must -- I'm going to miss it terribly.