Life Goes On

My alarm sounded at 5.30am. Lib set it using my mobile phone. Gradually we are learning to use these devices. Devices plural as we each have one, the same Pendos given to me by my Telco a few months ago to draw us into their web.

It was 6.35 when I pulled in at the farm, 20 minutes late after the said time I'd pick Jod to take him to William Angliss hospital for his appt with the knife to repair his hernia. He was tense and said he hadn't slept much. As we went up Monbulk Rd he said, "Well this might be the last time I travel up this road." He was convinced he would die under anesthetic.

I dropped him off at the admissions at 6.58 and went to park the van before walking back to see that he was successfully admitted. He was having a last fag outside and told me yes they had said it was on he was in and he just went out for a last fag.

I went back to the van and with the help of the cab light and the Melways and my glasses, to only just be able to read the map and small print, I devised a route to Rosie's house in Rowville. It was 7.20 when I arrived and exchanged Meredith's Ignis for the van and headed back to FTG to take M's car to the Suzuki dealer to have a manufacture's defect problem fixed on a recall, something to do with potential fire hazard in the ignition switch. Why me? I had bought the car through the business twelve years ago and it is registered in my name. The date I could first get the car booked in coincided with Jod's op and Meredith's weekly babysitting of her grand daughter Grace for her daughter Rosie who works part time for a vet as a nurse. Meredith's husband Roger had a seminar to go to that day so I was trying to tie it all up.

The Ignis was booked in for 8.30 and I had nearly an hour up my sleeve so I headed to Maccas on the Burwood Highway for a bite and coffee and to use the dunny. Who should I bump into as I went in but Roger who was on his way to the seminar in Hawthorn. He too was after coffee.

I was ten minutes early at the service centre and with three hours to spare before the car would be ready I walked east up the highway towards the shopping centre. I picked up cans for Jod as I went. Some had been well flattened by vehicles, those that hadn't I crushed with my heel.They were all of the usual brands of beveridge cans I find discarded - Coke, Pepsi, Mother, UDL, Jim Bean etc. I picked up some other litter such as squeeze sauce packs and paper wrap, but didn't deviate of my walking pathway. If I was focused on litter alone and picked up bottles and everything I could find I would have soon needed many bags and a ute.

But it was a pleasant walk despite the constant roar of thousands of passing trucks cars and buses. I looked at the trees along the road, quite a collection of eucalypts including iron barks, yellow box, long leaf box and some I was not sure of, and oaks and elms and various understory. Their was surprising birdlife of cockatoos, corellas, lorikeets, wattle birds, mynas, and a small wren type.

I sat in the mall for a while playing with my mobile phone and making some calls. I'd planned ahead to have some phone numbers so I could do some business I'd been struggling to find time for. I had a roast beef roll and more coffee in a caff. It was nice to have a few hours at slow pace.

Leaving the mall I saw a nice dog on a lead just outside the big sliding doors. It came straight up to me very friendly so I patted it and talked to the lady on the other end of the lead. She told me it was a whippet kelpie cross named Maggie nearly one year old. We talked dogs and shortly a little boy came out of the big sliding doors carrying bread rolls. It was the lady's son Spencer who went in to get the rolls while his mum waited outside with Maggie. We walked off down the highway together and talked as we went. She told me her name was Tina and her husband, a robotics engineer, came from Emerald. She turned off into the housing estate that is now where Ferntree Gully tech used to be and we wished each other well. She has another son at school. It was a delightful interlude that sometimes comes when you least expect.

The Ignis was ready when I got back the dealer at 11.30 and I drove back to Rosie's and swapped vehicles again. I did some shopping at Chemist warehouse and Aldi drove back to Emerald where I fueled up and did the green grocer bit and went to the farm. I picked 10 bunches of variegated pitto that had been ordered then for the last couple of hours I cut and painted blackberries in our dogwood row.

Strangely, a day I dreaded turned out to be pleasant. We rang the hospital. Jod's op was all good, he's fine and Roger is going to pick him up tomorrow. I'm home for a much desired day at home pruning and tidying while Lib and Gord are driving to Yea for the Gembrook footy.