Travel, and Public Libraries.

Baby teeth are unpredictable things, parting company with their owner at the most inconvenient times, especially if the owner wants to keep them. Inching along in an airport security queue, I watched a little girl, fiddling happily with her loose tooth, suddenly dislodge it altogether. There were tears, squeals of disgust from an older sibling, and a breathless rescue as the tooth slipped from little fingers and bounced across the airport floor.  A patient Dad tucked the ivory into a corner of his wallet and promised direct communication with the tooth fairy.  Everyone in the queue giggled and smiled and discussed the current market value of a used tooth which, I might add, is considerably higher than back when I was trying to convince weeping children that the tooth fairy would still honour swallowed teeth and we really didn't need to search for it at the other end.

The weather was perfect for flying. 

Perfect weather aside, Qantas/Alliance needed to upgrade their window-washing game.

I watched Adelaide disappear below me, followed by the Murray River wandering lazily across the plains towards the sea.

And then the lakes on the Darling outside of Menindee.

Fluffy little clouds obscured the view all the way to Brisbane, where they relented enough to grant me glimpses of Brisbane city and Moreton Bay as we came in to land.

Back on Queensland soil I had time to kill, so I got off the train early and walked in to the city along the river, past the Storey Bridge.

City Cats zoomed up and down the river.  The slow little double decker ferries had disappeared, replaced by baby City Cats called, to my great pleasure, KittyCats.

Aww, KittyCat and CityCat together.

I caught a bus which was a bit of an adventure in itself, jam-packed as it was with school students heading home after a long hot day, and then I walked uphill to my Air Bnb all the while marvelling at the things I'd forgotten about Queensland like green vegetation and hot sweaty weather.

I had booked an Airbnb out at Enoggera with grand plans of going walking around the reservoir but alas that was not to be.  Unexpected paperwork needed to be done so, sans laptop on my trip, I cast myself apon the free computers of the public library system.  This was not a bad thing: the chairs were comfortable and the libraries were airconditioned which was a bonus for someone who had definitely acclimatised to cooler southern weather.

I like libraries.

I met a scrub turkey beside Enoggera Creek, walking home from the library.

The next day I caught the bus into the city and, in between coffee and cake with whichever siblings were available, perused the computers at the city library. Let me tell you libraries get better and better all the time, what with little reading nooks with windows looking out across the square; all shapes and sizes of meeting rooms; places to plug one's own devices in; and tables set up with chess ready to play. Although I think I'll write to the Brisbane City Council and suggest that they provide a Scrabble board as well just to even things out and accommodate those for whom chess is an impenetrable mystery.

Chess with views.

Reading nook with views.

 In a rather confronting confirmation of the march of time a very nice schoolboy gave me his seat and solicitously made sure I got off at the correct stop to make my bus connection on the way home.  Two full days of using library computers for necessary but tedious paperwork was really quite exhausting, especially when every day ended with walking up a steep hill.  I channeled my inner little old lady (thank you young schoolboy. I think.), put my feet up, and settled back into my Airbnb for a nice cup of tea.

Home for a couple of nights.