Most Fridays I go to and from work with Lindsey.

Friday just gone I went with Lindsey, but she wasn't coming back. I was on my own!

I decided that I would still go with her and would come back by public transport.

So I left work at around 3:15 and got a tram a few minutes after I got to the tram stop.  It takes about an hour to get from Summerhill to Southern Cross Station. I got there with plenty of time to catch the 16:54 train. No rush, no scramble for a seat.  Even better, that is fast train. It stopped at Footscray in Melbourne and then only at Bacchus Marsh and Ballan, before  arriving in Ballarat just over an hour later.  Excellent.  I had just missed the bus out to the University but there was only 15 minute wait for the next one. Jim met me at the University so I didn't have to walk up to Hill House, where we are spending the weekend. I don't want to walk up the most direct route in the dark - it's only a walking track, not lit and quite uneven in parts.

I have to say that it was a very pleasant trip. I read a really, proper book. I read a couple of online magazines.  I read the (online) paper which was full of articles about the day's political shenanigans.  I was quite happy.  But all up it took nearly 4 hours which isn't sustainable on a regular basis. Pity. It was much less stressful than coping with the Ring Road and the freeway, which can be very busy at that time of day, at least until Melton.

I woke up yesterday morning at about 4:30 for a loo stop. A few minutes after I had got into bed I heard the click, click, click of Great Dane claws tripping up from the lounge room. Then I hear Rupert whine a bit. This usually means that he too would like a loo stop.  Yesterday morning, though, he stopped whining. Odd. Then I heard a rattle, then a slight clatter.  A pause.  Then another rattle and a slight clatter.  Then Rupert appeared in our room and climbed gently onto the bed.  At least he didn't lurch himself at us as though propelled from a trebuchet, which is what he does when Jim is in bed after I have got up.  But how did he get in?  It seems that we hadn't properly locked the child gate when we had gone to bed and he had worked out how to nudge it open.  Hugo was waiting patiently on the other side. The gate was ajar but not enough for him to walk through. Hugo is not usually inclined to nudge things open. Unless there is food on the other side!

We shut the gate properly when we went to bed last night :-D

We had a pleasantly quiet day yesterday. Jim did a bit of gardening. The sun shone in a bright blue sky. We went out to Elaine to the farm shop. Otherwise, we didn't do much.

It is foggy this morning. And I should get organised.  We are going out for lunch later and there are things to do before then