I woke up this morning a little later than usual. It was almost 6:30. But no rush. I needed to leave the flat at around 8:45 for my appointment with the hand therapist at the hospital. Plenty of time.
I rang Jim, in Mount Helen - and woke him up. He had been having a bit of a sleep in too.
Ian, in the flat, was not having a sleep in. He was up bright and early.
Lindsey, in Mount Helen, was also up, preparing for her Tai Chi meeting.
Ian wandered by and asked if I had Skype on my computer. Alas, I do not. I stopped using Skype some years ago and closed my account.
I went for a shower. When I emerged, Ian asked if I knew if Lindsey was doing anything unusual this morning, for she was not answering her phone. Not that I was aware of. I rang Jim. He didn't answer his phone either. It was all a bit odd.
Ian was supposed to be having a Skype conference with someone at 8:30 but couldn't see a contact request from the other person. Eventually he managed to raise Lindsey. She couldn't help with the Skype issue, try as she might. And she was distracted because while she was outside, doing the early morning jobs, Rupert had tried to join her - bouncing straight through the brand new, fancy and very expensive fly screen, effectively destroying it. Lindsey said she heard a bang behind her and came to investigate, finding the destroyed fly screen but no obvious culprit. Jim says that following the bang Rupert flew into our room and onto the bed as thought the hounds of hell were after him!
Ian didn't have time to worry about that. His video conference was fast approaching and he had no Skype. In the end they had an audio conference.
So I am showered, dressed, packed for my therapy appointment and just sipping a cup of coffee when my phone rang. It was the hospital. Your therapist is off sick, very sorry. Can we reschedule you for next week. Alas. I will be in Tassie. Can't come again until after Chrissie. She heard me say that I couldn't go until after the 6th. I didn't argue. I now have an appointment on the 9th. Perhaps by then my hand will do some of the things the therapist wants it to do!
The only irritating thing about this is that Ian and I were in Melbourne last evening purely because I had the hand appointment. Otherwise we would have headed back to Mount Helen when Ian had got back from work yesterday. Oh well. It was quite nice having a night in town when I, at least, didn't have anything specific that I needed to do.
So. Ian is on his now audio conference. I am in the second bedroom doing useful things on my laptop. Lindsey has gone to Tai Chi. Jim is at the house with the dogs. One of whom decides to chew his slipper. This is not unusual. Rupert likes Jim's slippers. Jim does not like Rupert chewing his slippers. Slipper is removed. Ok, thinks Rupert. I'll chew his shoe. Jim doesn't like him chewing his shoe either. Shoe is removed. A bit later Jim went looking for him and there he is chewing on my Akubra-style hat. Not absolutely sure how he got that; I had thought it was out of reach. Obviously not. Rupert is removed from our room. So goes down into the lounge room and chews on one of Lindsey's Christmas decorations and destroys a bauble from the tree. Rupert is clearly in a chewingly mischievous mood.
Meanwhile, back in Melbourne, Ian and I prepared to leave. Ian wanted to go to the Victoria Market and to a nearby kitchen shop. Fine by me. I'm more than happy to go to the Vic Market and to the kitchen shop. While we were there we had an early lunch in a deli by the market.
Time to head back to Mount Helen. Off we set. Hit the freeway and almost immediately came to a halt. One by one the outside lanes closed so that eventually only the inside two were taking traffic. After three or so km of VERY slow traffic it became clear that there had been some sort of incident. In fact it was on the inbound side rather than on our side. I don't know what had happened but it looked as though a truck had hit the bridge and there were cherry pickers and all sorts making emergency repairs. This, of course, also occupied our side of the freeway what with emergency vehicles and other things.
We got past that. On we drove. Finally we reached the Western Freeway. Ian turned the radio off and opened his window. Listen, listen, listen. What do you think that noise is, he asked. I have to admit that I hadn't actually noticed a noise. Cars and freeways are often filled with odd noises. But now you come to mention it ... We pulled up in a roadside services and Ian got out to investigate. It seems that the plugs holding the insulating material under the front bumper had all disappeared. The matting was flapping about and hitting the tyres. Ian was a bit worried that the matting or the bumper would fall off, or that the tyres would be damaged. So we made an unscheduled stop in the Bunnings in Melton where Ian bought cable ties and gaffer tape and more or less stuck it all together.
It's a bit like building a rocket with blu-tack and string. But it got us back to Ballarat with no further drama. Ian has bought some more plugs. His car is in dock because it needs some quite specific tyres which he can't get in Ballarat until they have been ordered and delivered. Lindsey's car is going to the airport tomorrow. He had been intending to use the Honda but doesn't want to use it much while we are using bubblegum technology to hold it together. I think he is hoping to plug it all back together over the weekend.
And now he and Jim are trying to reassemble the fly screen. Rupert and Sam are down the other end of the house, lest they try to help :-D
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