The Final Count Down

I don't follow the football.  Despite this, I became aware that the AFL Grand final was on at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, just a stone's throw from where we sat with BD in Hospital World.

Out in Football World, the final would play out between the Geelong Cats and the Sydney Swans. State rivalry being what it is, Victorians all elected to support Geelong against the interlopers from interstate. The whole state had a public holiday for the momentous event: random people in the streets proudly paraded Geelong colours; buildings and businesses applied paint, flags, and signs to declare their alliegence; sneaky Geelong posters and badges/caps/scarves were evident throughout the hospital; and there was even an occasional Swan's supporter providing a spot of scarlet in the seas of black and white.

Nailing your colours to the mast door.

On Friday there was a parade in which the two teams chugged down the river on punts before being loaded into utes and paraded along streets lined with adoring fans to finish at the MCG.  Victoria was momentarily consumed with angst by how difficult it was to see your favourite footy fellow when he was jammed in amongst his team in a punt in the middle of a river, and the pros and cons of punt parades were hotly debated on social media.  It was all really a bit over the top, and made it a bit tricky to do stuff like drive to and park at a hospital near the epicentre of football foolishness.

Actually the parking was surprisingly easy, given no one was actually at the hospital. Getting to the hospital in order to use the available parking? Not so easy.

Back in Hospital World, I gave even less of two hoots about the football than I did in Real World. Hospital World was a parallel universe where the rules of Real World didn't apply and Football World didn't even exist. In Hospital World the count down toward discharge proceeded at an ordered and uneventful pace; everyone was happy with the numbers; the specialists popped up once a day and didn't stay long; and the closest thing to a parade was the visits from catering staff  bearing all sorts of goodies with hobbit-like regularity.  I didn't want to get ahead of myself in the complacency stakes and the road ahead was a long one anyway, but compared to the last couple of Hospital World rollercoasters, this ride was happily lacking in surprises and BD was traveling well.

Out for a walk with Roger, under supervision of the proxy cat.

On Saturday, as the Grand Final crowds rolled through the streets below our window, 

the surgeon wandered past and made first mention of the D-word (discharge, for those of you who not familiar with Hospital World), thereby starting a cautious countdown far more important than any frippery that might happen on the football field. Then he ruined it by asking which team we supported, and BD and I had to confess to having absolutely no interest in football in general and the whole Grand Final Fandango in particular. The poor man was truly shocked and horrified, but put on his best surgeon poker face and agreed to keep treating BD to the best of his ability.  After all, her problematic failure of football fandom was probably directly related to her Queensland roots, a handicap which I'm sure he recognised as not being her fault at all.

A gratuitous photo of hospital stairwell lights. Because they are pretty.

By the time we left Hospital World on Saturday evening the Grand Final was over and sad Swans supporters walked disconsolately in the streets while Geelong supporters went out to party. We dropped by BD's house for a quick spot of cat maintenance which ended very quickly because the cat, once maintained, was far more interested in playing zoomies/thunderfoot with the other cat than it was in talking to us. 

Home we went, where the dogs effusively demonstrated why dogs, rather than cats, are known as mankind's best friends.