It’s hard to pick out the happiest of happy things but this is my list of 2025 highlights (excluding books – more on those later – and holidays, and I had some amazing ones this year, notably Hobart, Cambodia, New Zealand, and my sinkholes tour).

Best Films

01. The Last Journey (Swedish documentary)
02. Riefenstahl (German documentary)
03. Kajillionaire
04. The Chronology of Water
05. Spreadsheet Champions (documentary)
06. Splitsville
07. Train Dreams

Best Things I Watched on TV

01. Fire of Love documentary (Disney)
02. Shrinking S2 (Apple)
03. Apple Cider Vinegar (Netflix)
04. Better Things (SBS)
05. Dying for Sex (Disney)
06. Colin From Accounts S2 (Binge)
07. Couples Therapy S4 (SBS)
08. The Deathcap Murders (Stan)

Best Things I Listened To

01. Lucy Dacus’s new album, Forever is a Feeling
02. Remastered and expanded edition of Voice of the Beehive’s Honey Lingers
03. The Buck Up podcast
04. This podcast episode on The Salt Path controversy
05. Wet Leg’s latest album, Moisturizer
06. The Belair Lip Bombs
07. TayTay’s Life of a Showgirl

Best Things I Ate and Drank

01. Pretzels stuffed with mud crab and pickle, with a side of Southsides at Marmont.
02. Lune’s four-cheese loaf.

03. Butter and tomatoes that I am still thinking about from Ogee.
04. Asparagus with whipped kombu and nori at Supernormal.

05. Gingerbread kugelhupf at an Austro-Hungarian lunch (that extended into dinner) at Cardwell Cellars.
06. So many delicious sandwiches.
07. Dinner at Suze – yes, we had a giggle at the flourishes on the menu (I mean, I call ‘farmer’s leaves’ a salad….) but the ricotta with slivers of beetroot, and a pasta dish of ravioli in a brown butter and hay sauce (you know how fresh hay smells? They somehow got that into the sauce – extraordinary) was outstanding.

08. A perfect cocktail at Aru (made of black porter, ginger wine, orange, toasted dandelion root and Beechworth Fernet). It was served cold but was toasty and aromatic.

Best Things I Cooked

01. This next-level-delicious version of bucatini all’Amatriciana
02. Everything in The Potato Book
03. Brownie pudding
04. Greek spanakorizo
05. Dirty Martini Chicken
06. Chocolate-chip cookies

Best of Live Performance

01. Melbourne Theatre Company had an amazing season. Four plays stood out –

• the very, very funny Never Have I Ever.
• the funny and painfully sad ‘play in five evictions’, The Mother
• the delightful production of Much Ado About Nothing. The set was extraordinary (above)
• incredible one-woman show, Dying, based on the memoir by Cory Taylor.

02. Cyndi Lauper’s concert – she is such a wonderful, weird soul.
03. Seeing Elizabeth Gilbert speak – still thinking about what she said about the woman who is the ‘quiet mare’, and the person who holds the power.
04. Yael van der Wouden at MWF and especially the bit where she read one of her ‘Dear David’ columns.

05. Katy Perry concert.
06. Marlon Williams, supported by Māori choir, Nga Mātai Pūrua.
07. Opera Australia’s breathtaking production of Orpheus & Eurydice.
08. Lime Cordiale and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

Best of All the Other Stuff

01. Finally spotted a roll cloud (taken from our tall ship trip in Hobart).

02. Ramona Books book club.
03. Best goggles I’ve ever owned.
04. Eurovision is always exciting but this year, more so… because the announcement of the winner was also the announcement of where I’m traveling next year.

05. The NYT Well Festival
06. Getting tickets to Laneway Festival

07. Swingers at Rising Festival – an art installation with mini-golf as an added bonus.
08. The exhibition that was a part of The Mourning After grief project.
09. The Einder installation at Now or Never – it was absolutely breathtaking and I could have lay under that marvel and watched all night (pictured at the very top)
10. You couldn’t pay most Melburnians to swim in the Yarra/Birrarung… but I went to the Birrarung Riverfest Swimming in Stormwater event and had a little dip.