I Can't Drive 55

Remember when pen-pals were a thing?  

At boarding school a fad went around in 1983-ish whereby a certain magazine in the library had an advertisement towards the back of a completely legit international company that specialised in connecting young people to like-minded penpals for a very reasonable rate - and young ladies at the establishment flocked at the chance.

Of course, we all wanted a cute 16 year-old boy (added bonus enough brains to be engaging).

There was one girl  in our class who did receive such a penpal - I still remember her name,(but alas his is lost to the annals of time).

But apparently the odds were not in my favour - as the majority of applicants were 14 year-old girls looking for cute 16 year-old boys.

Nearly everyone was slightly disappointed.

But I ended up with 2 decent girls - one French who shared my name, and one US girl who shared tapes and introduced me to US music.

Unfortunately my follow-through with long-term projects could be dated from that point. I am to blame. I kept meaning to send a reply... I am not sure who sent the final missive but I should have still made an effort.

Anyhoo. That wasn't what I was going to write.

I had a fully developed concept of how THAT title was to smoothly segue into giving you an adventure of cake.

I had an RDO yesterday and went to my happy place, playing in the kitchen.

• I made cupcakes. 
• Gluten-free Carrot and Pineapple Cupcakes
•  Pecan Carrot and Chocolate Cupcakes

The icing is cream cheese, butter, pure icing sugar, vanilla, lemon juice and lime juice.

Not a redeeming feature in sight. (And oh look -jeanieVision TM)

But alas twas not to be.

We  had one each at work today. (We = my corridor and the next over - including payroll. You gotta include payroll!) - we did!

Enjoy one with your cuppa.

Cheers.

The Lounge of the Ladies at Legs Eleven

 

Many, many, many moons ago (when I was a sophisticated young lady of 24) I lived a lovely life in a cute little cottage in the middle of Sydney town.

My flatmate (2 years my senior and in each other's friendship - and indeed flatmate - circle for most of our adult years) and I spent about $100 (do you know I cannot accurately remember) each a week to live there.

Parking was difficult (although not as bad as another place I lived in not long after with her) and it was surrounded by industry - although there were other dwellings too.

The front wall fronted the footpath and was a dark green, The door red and every portal barred but plain.

(This is the house 13 years later than this tale is set - the stripes were not there when I lived there)

Inside some renovation had occurred. The floors were board and upstairs had two tiny bedrooms, one with a Shoji door and a secret balcony.

But not all.

The bathroom and kitchen were original, with exposed (but not in a cool, steampunk way) pipes.

The back "veranda" the sink where the back yard drained and slugs gathered - and that you had to traverse in torrential Sydney downpours to get to the loo.

This was 1993.

A lot happened that year. A lot happened in the world that I was unaware of - for this was pre-internet and we didn't have a television.

We were young. We went to movies and coffee shops and poetry readings and markets and worked and sewed clothes and saw bands and went to parties. 

We wrote letters and played records and cooked feasts and drank wine and played cards and backgammon and talked on telephone (but this was also pre-mobile phones so if you were out you were out and you maybe had an answering machine and you did you had to remember to turn it on) :(

And I wrote and friends would gather for feasts and wine and board games and music and talking - and I would read them the next instalment of the fairy tale that I was writing. Some of them even appreciated me doing so.

Ah.

But then I got a boyfriend and - well, and some other stuff happened and we moved on.

But there was a time...

Another 13 years between the first pic and this - in its most recent Google Maps portrait - 2000

Part of the Team

 As you may know, I am loathe to talk about my work. 

For many, many, many years, I was a temp, which was a fun career adventure trek until it was no longer fun. Mind you, it was the "it was no longer fun being a temp" was mildly better than the sheer dissolution (desolation) of hope that was "my first real full-time job in decades" lobbed hand-grenade. Shudder.

But this job. Chef's kiss in so many ways. I get to help people on several levels who can't rely on help elsewise. I get to use the mathematical and problem solving skills that excite my brain. And I get to work surrounded by a  bunch of wonderful people.

If only there were 2 of me. Or even 1.5.

And we were both paid more.

Finding royalty in genealogy

 Firstly, to cut to the chase, no actual corporeal royal's in the family chronicles - although it was courtesy of the Royal Family that my great-great-grandfather came to these shores.

And no, not that sort of Australian Royalty that has convictions and convicts.

Just an Irish labourer in Liverpool looking for a chance at a better life, who grasped it between potato famine back home and gold fever induced labour shortages ahead aboard a newly built schooner called the Royal Family.

(I would love to link to a picture here - search for "royal family" 1863 liverpool melbourne and you can see her)

Generally my hours between Paris going to bed and me doing the same is enforced research time on the couch.

My genealogy research is based currently on what I can find out for free. Investment may come when I retire but right now it's a hobby.

Anyhoo it's not that easy finding information on anything of that name, apart from the Royal Family (people) and Royal Family (toast recipients) in the 1860s.

At first I cast the net too wide, but could not resist a peak at how tame or royals are, comparatively...

Young Bomba and his better half Launceston Examiner Thursday 2 January 1862 - Page 5

TW - motherhood exemplified in the good old days 

Discipline of the Royal Family of England 

(courtesy of the Rochester Democrat via the San Francisco Herald)

Bell's Life in Sydney and Sporting Chronicle Saturday 19 January 1861 - Page 4

TW - this was a tolerant and accepting racial view for its time 

An Interesting Marriage at Brighton 

(Gymnastics Training)

The Herald (Melbourne) Thursday 30 October 1862 - Page - 7

Before finally I found the boat

By Electric Telegraph 

Geelong Advertiser Saturday 7 February

... and then straight down a rabbit hole I went 

Eight of the Lancashire bellringers - contributed very much to enliven the monotony of the voyage 

The Age Friday February 9 1863 - Page 5

I will bet they did 

by the Royal Family ... we may see an improved style of bellringing

The South Australian Advertiser Saturday February 14 1863 - Page 2 

And don't you imagine Mr George Coppin being some sort of wheeler-dealer! Added bonus in the above is reading of the furore created by the Christie Minstrel

There was a completely different story linked when I then found the dream business opportunity!

The Solitude Station - business opportunity 

The Age Friday February 20 1863 - Page 2

All from the comfort of my couch.

I also found Republican stirring and religious upheaval and Prince Albert dying and etiquette guidance and.

And now my hours between Paris going to bed and me doing the same are up.

Good night 💤 

Labels and little jars

 One of the great gifts that I have received over the years was a labelmaker.

(I could have sworn that I have whinged upon it in the past, but the delights of the deep freeze lottery must have featured more on the unblogged part of my life. I can only find one example)

The upside of a labelmaker is it's a viable option almost guaranteed to ensure that you know what is inside a container - much better than that "oh, I'll remember what that is" technique relying wholly on one person's memory.

Unfortunately for my late in the day conversion to this revolutionary concept, the corporate world of greed snuck under my radar and convinced me that the label tapes that I required to replenish last month would be most economically achieved if I bought a job lot - and the job lot had a mix of colours and the first colour chosen was gold.

My decision was made without full knowledge of how ineffective as labels they would be because that colour and my eyesight...

and yes, that label does call it Beef Not Madras Curry.

Because sometimes the old "oh, I'll remember what that is" technique works, as in the fenugreek leaves on the left 

 - but sometimes it fails, as in the Not Madras Curry Powder on the right.

I give spice mixes as gifts, as I love cooking and trying out lots of recipes (especially those from India and Sri Lanka) and a lot of my friends also love food but "wouldn't have all of those spices".

I have all of those spices. (and oh look, you get to view it in JeanieVision(TM) )

So while I made them up for Christmas, I made extra for myself.

It was nice.

But Not Madras.

The Ditch

 I got to pondering tonight about...

• The difference between the life that I led when I wrote my first ever (well second, but first "real") blog posts. I wonder who that first ever commenter was?
• The ditch between my culture and that of my husband's family's locale;
• And the distance between the start of the month and now.

Apparently there are similarities - I still whinge verbosely, we share a vernacular and it's still April. (Still?! Already!)

V is home and actually haler than he has been for some time. He now realises that the agonising pain that he had been in for the best part of this year - and the lack of energy and drive - had a root cause and was not the sum lot of his life.

The close call last week has opened the door to his heart blockage being fixed - and released him from about 5-6 points on the pain scale. He said tonight that it is easier to be happy when you're not in pain the whole time.

I have a generally very busy job and am lucky that my work can be done from home, so I could be with Paris during school holidays and work around V being in hospital and then recuperating at home.

I don't ever discuss my work on here but believe me that it has been crazy busy for the last 2 weeks and me not going on a planned trip with my dad to visit an old relative right now meant it only got to boiling point today rather than exploded spectacularly.

But then there's this...

And I have an RDO tomorrow, and the promise of a beautiful, fine, early Autumn day - and a rewarding job with my beautiful child and a ute to fill.

And V can supervise and smile.

Puzzle

 I was doing Sexaginta-quattuordle this morning. (I do it most days at varying times).

This is a word game where you have 70 goes to work out 64 five-letter words. (Although it does have an auto complete mode so technically you don't have to actually nut out ALL 64 words).

There is a technique that I have learned for this game. You can get up to five words incorrect, so the first three should use all the vowels and as wide a variety of oft used consonants as possible.

If you are lucky, you might jag one, but BEWARE! Don't go down the rabbit hole chasing a nearly got word or trying to do the above in only two words - that is the path to ruin.

I tried "great" and "could" and "spiny" but no dice - although that did point me towards the first word.

"Tough". Which is what this morning had been. 

It was going to be tough anyway as the first day back after a long weekend, key team members taking leave because of school holidays, invoicing and updating public holidays and meetings - plus enforcing screen restrictions at home with intergenerational peace negotiations and possible removal of devices looming on the getting to work on time horizon.

But I didn't end up doing any of that.

The next word that worked for my puzzle was "hoist".

I had to instead hoist the 14yo out of bed twice this morning. Thematically that fit.

My sixth word was "trunk" - which is going out on a limb in the "match life's curve balls with a word game" attempt here.

At 2am this morning, V had pain that went from the front of his trunk to the back.

The next correct word was "heart", which was indeed a bit of a word of the day, as the inability for one of the pathways in - or out, not sure - in V's couldn't pump, so that really kinked the morning all around.

"Soapy" was the next word. Hmm. Perhaps my second indicator that life doesn't emulate internet word games.

And the next was "corgi", which indeed threw it so far out of the window that I gave up.

"Angiogram" is not five letters, and although "stent" is, it wasn't one of today's words.

And apparently "vegan" is not oft thrown around at the hospital even though it is what V has been throwing around here in order to defy cholesterol and bad choices in his youth.

Hopefully though, words 14, 15, 17 and 24 all ring true for today and the future ("fixed", "rapid", "mirth", and "awake").

We will find out - hopefully - on Dr's rounds tomorrow what the moving forward plan may entail.

Kanonikos Plaki

 First, allow me to apologise to the Greeks for appropriating your cuisine and possibly misusing your language - or not. I mean, I don't understand Greek so I don't actually know how wrong - or, jagged it perhaps, right that title is.

But anyway, I digress.

In a way this dish is on the way to being another Jeanie Easter tradition - I am so easily led into making everything a set pattern - but this dish ticks all important boxes for any table which will be surrounded by a variety of requirements. This is its second year of gracing the table.

It is vegan, gluten-free, low-fat, high-fibre, and tastes delicious enough for people who are scared of the words vegan and gluten-free to delight. 

Added bonus is this year I eschewed the recipe and winged it.

The basic instructions for it (as I took no pictures) is:

Soak white beans (not, however, gigantic white beans as the resident V-man doesn't trust big beans so I didn't have any even if that fact wasn't part of the equation) for a bit and then cook until tender. 

 Put the beans and about 1/4 cup cooking water into a greased enamel bowl and put on top 1/3 chopped onion, 3 chopped cloves of garlic and about a dozen tiny cherry tomatoes from the struggling vine at the back door halved. Pour 1/2 tin smooshed tomatoes over (you can salt and pepper it too if you wanted) and do a couple of stirs but not too particular.

Place in a moderate to hot oven for about 20 minutes or however long other stuff is going on.

I didn't today but would probably sing even louder if fresh parsley or lemon juice were a final touch but was delicious and declared a winner on the cold out of the fridge a few hours later by V.

Oh look - I did take a photo - from back - beans, broccoli and  steamed beans, Traditional Cauliflower Cheese, roasted pumpkin/onion/carrot/garlic/potatoes, roast beetroot in foil and roast lamb.

The traditional Easter cauliflower

 Perhaps this is the way family folklore begins.

See, my parents are in what Dad likes to call bonus time. And of late bonus time has become a bonus in a myriad of ways including sarcasm, because the busy-ness of life has been encroaching from all areas.

Extended family health issues and work-related unspoken issues and international peace issues and bridges falling down and being a sideline party to "an adolescent and her phone" relationship and organising a road trip to see elderly relatives with other elderly relatives and I can bore myself with the soap opera that seems to surround - or at least I can spin it that way...

When in reality my life is if today is what day I will eat this and wear this and do this and watch this and from the moment that I wake up on any given day I have it prescribed and proscribed down to the timers going off advising me the next step - and writing blogs have fallen off the rigid routine.

But anyway, I went on an overnight trip to visit my folks and cook them a meal for Easter and my sister and her husband joined us.

She arrived carrying a hot potato salad and much chocolate.

I had brought frozen fish fillets from the freezer section at Aldi because I had time to do so on Wednesday afternoon - and calamari rings and carrots (is there a theme?) and corn - and (as I apologise to my sister for lack of sweets reciprocation) "the traditional Easter cauliflower".

For the Traditional Easter Cauliflower Cheese at dinner.

(Photo credit to Bush Babe of Oz)

Do you think that it will catch on?

On carrots and music...

 I must have triggered the carrots algorithm, because tonight social media put forth to me a recipe for a Korean Carrot Salad with a side lesson in history (who knew that there were Korean enclaves in Uzbekistan and Afghanistan courtesy of Russian domestic history). 

It did look kind of interesting, but given the spectrum of reactions that have been given to the French jelly thing (I have made it again with the zest and juiced oranges as opposed to the bottle - a different experience), ranging from 

• the "oh wow! That's really good" with surprise to
• "oh, well at least it makes carrot edible" 
• (who knew my father had such strong food convictions! He eats anything anytime with scant regard to food safety practices 
• (he holds them in the same regard as wind-powered generators - 
• which is confusing as windmills were a big part of his life - 
• although makes sense because there was nothing he hated more than constantly fixing them
• )
• )
• ) 
• to the absolute refusal of a colleague over the partition
• ) 

I might give it a pass for a bit.

Last weekend I went to my parents to take them to a nearby Bigger Town to take care of paperwork required for them to get "medications at a reasonable price" (because they have both paid taxes for over 65 years) (and we failed and the 🕸️ of officiousness continues to make them squirm...) and then on to Bigger Bigger Town to meet with my sister and get The Old Fella an appointment for his teeth.

My current car is their old car, and as I am too short to put the antenna on (our garage is j-u-s-t tall enough for the car, but not quite tall enough for car AND antenna) and the drive too distant to get any radio signal without, I created a Spotify playlist of songs. Songs Mum used to play on car rides like Val Doonican, Cilla Black and Anne Murray and Dad used to play in the truck like Slim Dusty and Jimmy Little and a few songs that I have liked through the years and some songs that my daughters have introduced.

Unfortunately there was also no internet signal on the road and the downloaded songs ceased and the only other sound option was the cd that had remained in the car since forever. Helen Reddy's Greatest Hits (and wasn't that a rabbit hole - who knew Toni Lamond is her half-sister?)

When we went to see my Dad's sister and my Uncle the next morning, they got to talking about older times and how Uncle S had first met his wife to be - he has always been a bit of a character and so the tall tales and outrageous lies sprinkled with enough truth make you wonder - it involved polocrosse and country music and crutches - which  led the discussion to this song:

Mum danced and Dad and Aunty F sang along.

BurGer Memories

 Back in the 80s (funny to think of that as a point in history), my friend D and I went to university together - and we had a Tuesday night ritual of testing cocktails at the University club bar and then hitting downstairs at The Terminus in The Valley where there was no cover charge and great music to dance to and the crowd was filled with people who were either gay or gay-friendly, and the thing about being a gay or gay-friendly crowd was, bedsides the not being hit on, was the lack - or near lack - of violence within. 

The only violence I remember in The Term were when hate groups - or amped up young men from elsewhere - would invade. (*)

Sometime after midnight we would have been making such monumental decisions as - Kebab and The Beat or Catch a Cab and head Back to Mine for a BurGer.

Back in the 80s, the local Woolies had a number of initiatives to entice certain demographics to their stores.

One of the great things about being a supermarket is EVERYBODY is your target market. Theoretically, you should not fail to make a living (unless you run into modern economics where it's all about controlling the market - or even worse, some other bastard controlling the market. Ahem.)

The local Woolies had had a recent revamp - uber trendy (for the yuppie croud), quiet mornings for the seniors and the harried young Mum's had certain zones of time for their optimal shopping. Apparently if you went on a Thursday night and put your bananas in your basket a certain way you could get more than good bargains from amongst the clientele.

And back in the 80s, they had a red and black and white cardboard box with No-Name Hamburger Patties (Warning: Do Not Thaw Before Cooking) that was found in every university share-house freezer in The Big Smoke - because it was cheap as chips and it was BLODDY MAGIC in soaking up alcohol and ensuring a good night's (or 2-3 hours) sleep before our Wednesday lectures.

While the Pan warmed, our preparation was undertaken. Whatever bread available - this would depend on the local economy or whether anyone had baked or visited family on the weekend - would be slathered with cheap spread and mustard. Salad ingredients included herbs from garden pots and onion - always onion. Sometimes mushrooms. Sometimes egg. Spicy red sauce.

We would expound on philosophy, art, music, literature, fashion - you know, the self-important intense discourse often found  back at 3-4am in the 80s in student share-houses.

It's funny - a rather buff (you know that my eyeshot is shit - and D was a wearer oh spectacles too - so he looked buff at 3-4am from my kitchen window) bloke a house behind and up the hill would often emerge in the kitchen window and appear to be doing something similar - or perhaps involving a baby's bottle, who knows - and our burGers would be sizzling too.

Always absolutely DE-bloddy-licious.

(Review of said burgers on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/brisbane/comments/6c8ox2/those_beef_patties_that_are_like_a_centimetre/ )

(Podcast about The Terminus in the 1980s https://lostspacespodcast.com/kurt-luthy/

* - the above podcast mentions a lot about the police brutality and politics of the early 80s. I was there during the Fitzgerald Enquiry which brought to light a lot of what was going on them. According to the podcast, The Terminus when I went was when it was getting lame. Ah well.)

Sundays in Paradise

 I am slightly impressed with myself today because I cooked a French recipe. Online. And only needed to dash to the shops once for forgotten ingredients. Link to the video of the thing that I cooked

It was  some sort of healthy sweet. The recette start with whole very French looking carrots and a cast iron pot with water boiling artfully on the gas hob.

I was pretty smug at that point. I had done a decent run to the shops earlier, with the one or two things that I needed remembered, and the half-dozen things that would be good to get (whilst also bravely resisting the myriad of things that were chocolate and not really required on my hips or blood test results). 

I had carrots, although their roots were more Antipodean.

The writing across the screen was French and no doubt referred to how well the carrots were to be boiled.

As I was also making pesto, cleaning the kitchen, parenting (or at least imitating an adult legally in charge of someone who alternates between judging you on your proficiency, blatantly disregarding it and watching Mean Girls while rearranging furniture) a teenager and helping V interpret the pita options available to him - as I was also doing all of that I did let some time pass between the above and the below.

Thus the carrots did not have the evocative shroud of steam as the carrots were put into the perfectly-sized food-processor bowl - nor do I have the perfectly-sized food-processor bowl.

The carrots in my huge food-processor bowl seemed a little grainer than that of the French offering - yet I persevered.

The next text on the screen stopped my momentum.

I had failed to get orange juice. 

But that was okay because I could solve this problem. It makes for a nice change, given that I have recently received the award for worst Mum ever (my acceptance speech could have been polished but had some sparkly bits) and my magic touch does as much for healing those in pain as it has done for world peace.

Paradise is blessed with a little shopping centre, with two supermarkets - and as I had already done my earlier outing to the Colesworth, the German one got my patronage.

I had my little battle regards volume vs economy (volume won - a V8 bottle bought on the internal advice on the latter still recent enough to sway the jury) and had perused the specials before going to the counter with the green light.

The clientele was sparse but all well worth watching. A very generous lady ahead offered me speed (as in cutting in line rather than anything illicit- not THAT sort of paradise), but she nodded understandingly when I declined citing air-conditioning and teenagers.

The gentleman ahead had run short paying the ransom on his icecream. A couple moved in behind me. They were discussing the merits of iced coffee and how to pay for their waffles, drink and mountain of snacks. I had a feeling that other substances had been involved in their appetite (and possibly their economy) (so maybe that sort of paradise for some) but that was an extremely judgemental call given all that I had to go on was eavesdropping.

I paid for my little bottle of OJ and returned to my labours.

My sporadic attempts at studying French stood me in good stead.

Sugar.

Cornflour.

Darn.

I did not venture forth a second time.

They still tasted good.

Will be testing them on workmates tomorrow.

Pommes

 I remember when studying Communications at Uni, we had a mad, red-haired Semiotics lecturer of much renown in the small world of academics in that field. She adopted wholeheartedly the associated culture of her marital name's Russian heritage.  It was her cloak of Dostoevsky novels and swan feathers of sparkling white. She once was asked if she ever went to the movies just to enjoy: She was smug in her answer - "Never."

She was the reason my first free movie tickets when I worked in advertising were wasted.  

The epic ("Dances with Wolves" for those playing at home) opened with an iconic battle scene: Mud and gore and enthralling music and shadow and light and colour and sound colliding to the finale of an apple, stark and sharp, atop a post.

 I spent the NEXT THREE HOURS trying to find the hook to this literary device. I was one of the last to hold out but it defeated me. I determinedly made it to the end.

Sigh. Sometimes I dream of closure in disappointing movies.

This dream has become a living nightmare, however, in the shape of the constant reminder that we have a teenaged girl in the house.

 Post-apple detritus akin to the breadcrumb trail of h&g fame.

(Meanwhile, hidden in the fridge until the weekend are two of these - http://www.carcamoscaramelapples.com.au/product-category/gourmet-caramel-apples/

'Salina visited The Big Smoke on the weekend - and one of the regular temptations on a trip to The Big Smoke is such - she made the offer of couriering some.

I abstained. The combination of age, medications, inertia and a chocolate jar too close to me at work means that I have to be a little staunch, and I know that (a) I am better at resisting temptation when the item is not within getting distance, and (b) even if I did succeed in resisting temptation, someone else would not, and those people would likely be (i) a loved one, causing discord and familial disorder, or (ii) a burglar. While (i) is the more likely, I don't like entertaining the thought of (ii).)

I will leave you with this - at least this way, it shall not lead me into the diabetic coma that it promises in real life.

Muffin Vegan a la Pomme et au Chocolat 

It's vegan, it's got to be healthy!

So, how's them apples?

Deny, Deci, Desol and the fire that is

 2024.

Ten days.

Public holiday. 

Anniversary of when my workload suddenly intensified with the sudden retirement of a workmate (2023 came out swinging).

How about a work fire?

Not a big one - 2024 is quite subtle - iron fist in kid glove deal - a little one. A laughable one.

Two hours - felt like 10 - in the afternoon sun carpark waiting for clearance from the firies. Well, it was a little one - in the plant room- who knew buildings still had to deal with such antiquated concepts? So, a little one that had put itself out before the firies even got there. Just need the all clear from someone else. Maybe the energy company?

I am actually pretty sure that the office manager knew what was going on, but we were the rabble in the gutter on the cemetery side of the carpark awaiting directions while watching workmates wave wildly at total strangers out of scientific curiosity (forgive us, we work in finance).

Energy company handballed to electricians who climbed the roof and scratched their heads.

Such a little fire, but combined with staff shortages, back from compulsory office closure and end of month - well, working from home - in a heatwave - and my foresight in booking in appointments close to work backfired spectacularly.

Still, air quality is such an important factor in the whole breathing thing, really.

Day 3, and the hospital called to tell me that my health fund won't cover my upcoming operations, as their 12 month waiting period was imposed on all pre-existing conditions and the "2 months if something new" codicil was to do with symptoms, not 🚫 diagnoses. I thought that I had kept ahead of the curve but they probably could call the fact that I have had imperfect vision all of my life a known factor and therefore I may have to delay being able to see clearly delight until August.

The court is still out on that one. I have put in more paperwork.

And so what could Thursday throw me?

How about the car service. In a way this has ongoing repercussions. Amongst them, the "Sat Nav update" as part of the service has resulted in an advice message on starting "Please insert" some computer bit or other. I can still drive it - just have to find my way anywhere using my memory or the old-fashioned phone technology. (Whatever happened to the Refidex? What was it called where you were?)

Friday I went into town to get my annual mammogram and ultrasound for the BC surgeon. Did I have my last scan disk, the radiographer asked. Apparently she was the one who did the ultrasound on my cyst years ago.

While I was there, I found out what my hospital fees would be should the health fund say no. Do-able but would strain some circumstances. I then rang the other players in the game. Each would fall into the "do-able but would strain some circumstances" category by themselves, but combined... 

All through this I was working full-time, trying to be half my workmate who was sick all of the first week back, half my rosterer who was on leave, and half my job - while another team mate was half workmate, half me and half herself - while the newbie - well, you get the picture. And from home.

During a heatwave.

On school holidays.

A weekend was had. There were bits.

Another week started.

The whole team was back but all still working from home.

We had 2 days of very intense work. Very. Intense.

Today - I have had today and the next 2 days booked off for months.

Tomorrow is V's birthday.

Friday I am meant to be going to see Mum and Dad. With Paris, she tells me.

Today was that other day.

Today I slept in.

Today I washed.

Today I budgeted.

Today we shopped like champions - but not glorious champions, more the well-orchestrated, restrained, fist-pumping in-and-out-of-shops-and-home in record time type of champions.

Today I made a beautiful timetable for this year's school. My poor child has never known what it is to create such a thing.

Today I will leave you with this:

It's always fun when a forebear has a common name and so you find stories far and wide.

The trove link Intercolonial News 26 August 1875 page 4

(Today is now yesterday. Happy birthday V)