While Not Working

 We took the roads less travelled from Ballarat to Bordertown, winding up and down and all around through countryside bleached by summer.  Combine harvesters chuntered up and down wheat paddocks and fat bales of hay clustered in the corners waiting to be taken to sheds.  We stopped at Elmhurst Recreation Centre for morning coffee with a backing track of cicadas. In Elmhurst I could have had a hot shower for the princely sum of $5, paid into the honesty box bolted to the wall of the community hall.  For $10 I could have camped for the night with the added benefits of electricity and a covered picnic table.  Were I a vegetable thief I could have foraged for tomatoes, zucchini, and pumpkin in the community garden.  I'm not a vegetable thief so I didn't do that and besides, the zucchini and tomatoes were all still green. Elmhurst also had a bell which just asked to be robustly rung, so I complied. That was fun, wasn't it? In Stawell we sat outside the Bakery an...

Melbourne could have been a graveyard as we drove out on Friday morning.  What with New Years Day yesterday and Saturday tomorrow, anyone who could (and probably lots who really couldn't) took the day off and went anywhere else but Melbourne.  I saw not a soul when I walked the dog on a crisp morning that didn't feel like summer. Having walked, the dog quickly realised that something was up and retired to her sad place to sulk as we cleaned and tidied and packed our bags.  She turned her back on me when I tried to say goodbye with a traitorous treat. BD had no such qualms, embracing the chance of one last lunch on Mum and Dad's dime and expressing regret at the fact that we were taking our transportation with us and she would, once again, be reduced to shank's pony to carry her groceries back from Woolworths.  I'm sure she'll miss our company too.  Her cat declined to say goodbye  We drove to Ballarat, escaping the suburban sprawl and driving through paddoc...

Well, what with having spent 5 months of the year gallivanting the globe, and the past 6 weeks ping-ponging from Perth to Adelaide to Melbourne to Sydney and back to Melbourne with a dash of Bright thrown in, all of a sudden Christmas is tomorrow and my head is still stuck back in September somewhere. It hasn't helped that I'm paying the price for having so much time away from work, and I'm the lucky duck who gets to press her nose against the grindstone right up until 17:30 on Christmas Eve. Lucky for me Roger has been able to run around battling Christmas shopping crowds and ferrying BD hither, thither, and yon. The one thing he can't do is take the dog for a walk. In the dog's world walks only happen with a woman and I am the chosen one.  The streets of Malvern are dressed for Christmas.  No gaudy lights or tinsel here: safely ensconced behind privacy fences with security intercoms, the denizens of Malvern have a coordinated suburban chic of red tulle bows on tre...

I left Roger and Fluffy to each other's tender care, collected BD, and thec two of us headed to the hills for the weekend. That wasn't as exciting as it sounded, mind you,  involving a couple of hours following Google through endless traffic to escape Melbourne's suburban clutches and then high speed concentration on the motorway, dodging potholes (shame on you, Vic Roads) while dessicated paddocks marched past the windows. Tasked with finding dinner in Bright, BD was overwhelmed with options. Bright dressed itself in lights at night, and tourists congealed at the bakery,  the American Diner, the pub, and don't forget the ice cream shop in seductive lollipop pink. Saturday saw us on the road again, winding our way up the hill to Mount Hotham and Dinner Plain. The mountain was quiet, taking a breath in the hiatus between the end of the ski season and the beginning of the summer holidays. A few hikers were out and about and the Bycra Boys had completed their early morning...

Barely had Roger unpacked his toothbrush and taken a crash course in Fluffy's routine when I packed my bags, caught the skybus again, and jumped on a plane to Sydney. Tragically I was granted a middle seat, with a window seat buddy who spent the entire trip buried in her kindle with not a glance at the cloudless day outside. I think airlines should enforce mandatory viewing time for passengers lucky enough to have windows. I had a moment of confusion when the hostess delivered me a cup of special tea, with a wink that encouraged me to quell my questions and just take the damn cup. Special tea came in a takeaway cup complete with lid and dummy tea bag tag, but was born in a bottle with bubbles and that's all I'm going to say about that. Having visited one son and his beautiful wife in Huddersfield, and BD in Melbourne, it was important that I complete the offspring trifecta so off to Sydney I went. Sydney turned on a stinking hot day. I got up early and went for a walk in th...

Just like the last cat, the little fluffy dog had aged since we cared for her several years ago.  Her owner explained that she injured her back in a fit of silliness last Christmas, and spent 8 weeks unable to walk. "I thought I would end up with a wheelie-dog, but she came good."   Little Fluffy dog had a daily Physiotherapy regime and was strictly forbidden to play fetch due to her habit of sudden turns and injury-inducing slides on the wooden floor of the long hallway. We went for twice daily sedate walks instead, Chickens! and she spent lots of time supervising me while I worked.   On the assumption of summer I had brought minimal jumpers with me to Melbourne, and took even less with me to visit my Beautiful Daughter (BD) in her new share house in Kew. Rain slapped against the tram windows on the way to Kew, and the Melbourne air had a cruelly un-summery chill. On the return journey I regretted my lack of wardrobe planning, waiting for a tram while rain spla...