While Not Working

 The consequence of one of us having frusemide for breakfast was making sure that the first couple of hours driving included adequate toilet stops.  Not any old toilet stops either, they had to be toilets of a suitable height for someone with a compromised right quad to get on and off.  Sadly, cafe toilets were of a height that the user could well be compelled to call someone to help stand up from the throne.  How do we know this?  Pure speculation, of course. I pored over the map for suitable dunnies, noting our proximity to Glenrowan.  "We're in Ned Kelly country," I told BD, who displayed a distressing lack of excitement at this news.  I inspected the map more closely.  "There's a Big Ned Kelly in Glenrown!"  Well that settled it: Glenrowan was on our must-stop list and the toilets would just have to measure up. We spent a happy half hour taking photos of Ned in all his glory, conveniently brushing aside all the inconvenient history of thu...

Reluctant to pay for months of accommodation, I bounced around house sits in Melbourne as BD bounced around the Royal Melbourne Hospital, through ICU, HDU, CCU, and a veritable avalanche of medical acronyms. Every day after visiting hours finished I dragged my weary self home to clean Guinea pig cages (Bentleigh East), console needy cats (Hughesdale), and walk exuberantly friendly dogs (Bentleigh and Alphington).  BD joined me and we crashed her little transit wheelchair over cobbles on our daily visit to HITH (another acronym!) where I took lessons in wound care. Along the way we collected a swag of medical accessories: bed stick, toilet frame, shower stool, walking stick, knee brace. I packed the car like the tetris pro I was. On Thursday morning we dragged ourselves free of Melbourne's centrifugal force, put on our brand new Grandma/Auntie hats, and took to the road, Sydney-bound. There was a brand new baby in Sydney just waiting to be cuddled, kissed, and generally doted upon. ...

If I could have ridden away from Bourke I would have done so in a heartbeat.   I would have ridden toward the head of the river, so tantalisingly close, along the little gravel roads and riverside bush camps that I'd plotted and planned for, across the 14 river crossings of the Cambanoora Gorge where the Condamine tumbled in its hurry to leave the mountains. But I didn't. On Monday I worked in Bourke while rain clattered on the roof and outside of town the claypans turned to sheets of raindrop-dimpled water. Bourke was the final part on the Darling,the point where the steamers could no longer navigate the fickle river. Rain just starting to fall. From the verandah, Port of Bourke Hotel. "My doctor's gonna ring you," said Daughter on Monday night.  Doctors don't usually ring the mothers of adult daughters just to chat now, do they? For the last couple of months, while she played with her cat and caught the tram and went to work and took photographs at soccer a...

  Red sky at night, shepherd's delight.  Red sky at morning, shepherd's warning. I wasn't a shepherd but I considered myself warned.  Time to get up and moving. Rain was forecast and would fall very conveniently while I was working in Bourke, and hopefully not in such quantities that it could close any of the roads I planned to ride on.  I was excited about the rain: I hoped that it would put a little colour into the dessicated landscape through which I'd been riding. As I was packing up a ute roared into the campground.  Two hefty men and a dog jumped out and rapidly set up swags, one on each of the tables in the day-use shelter.  They took off their boots (just the men, not the dog), jumped into their swags, and by the time I wheeled out of town the swags were snoring and I had no idea where the dog was, but it was whining.  I rode the long way out so as not to disturb them. The tabletop snorer's camp. Now why didn't I think to sleep on my table....