What a week!

My goodness but that was quite a week.

I worked 46 hours, which was a significant increase on the 21 I usually work and even quite a lot more than the 33 I was expecting.

There are people away, so I knew I would be doing extra on the desk.  I knew I was working extra on Monday, not finishing until 6 or so.

I was not expecting to have to go in on Thursday, though.  In addition to the people who were away on leave, suddenly we also had people off sick. I agreed to go in to cover lunches and the afternoon, early evening. It's quite pleasant driving to Melbourne mid-morning.  There's not so much traffic about.  I got to Reservoir with time for a sandwich for lunch before starting on the desk.

I was just about to say that I would head off to the flat at a little after six.  The last few patients had arrived. The phones were nice and quiet.  There is usually only one person on for the last hour or so.  As I opened my mouth to speak there was an  ENORMOUS bang at the front of the pharmacy, accompanied by lots of yelling and commotion.  My colleague picked up the phone and called security.  I closed our barrier gates and locked them shut.  There was ongoing commotion and yelling. I didn't know what was going on (and wasn't going out to find out!) but whatever it was, we didn't want it coming into the surgery and nor did we want the patients to go out into it.  We unlocked the gates when the commotion had died down and we could see people walking up and down in the centre.

It turns out it was someone who  had raided the pharmacy till and then tried to jump over the little fence they had where they display the tissues, washing powder and other household stuff that some pharmacies sell.  One of the pharmacy employees had grabbed him in a headlock and he had crashed into the little fence (that was the bang that we heard).  Would have been very much more sensible to have grabbed the cash and then run like the wind out through the door rather than trying to hurdle the fence.  But then I guess that trying to raid the pharmacy till isn't a very clever thing to do anyway.

So that was Thursday's excitement.  The surgery in lock down and all sorts of commotion in the pharmacy which, as commotion often does, spilled out into the rest of the shopping centre and then went away.

Friday started peacefully enough.  I opened up.  Thursday's colleague came back. The sick people remained sick. Things were trundling happily along until we thought that the phones, which had been ringing steadily, were now being remarkably quiet.  We checked.  They were indeed quiet.  So quiet that they were disconnected.  No lines in or out (although the internal lines were working).  I rang Telstra and then spent a happy hour chatting to our contact there whilst clambering around in the communications cupboard trying to find the various pieces of kit he wanted me to turn on and off.  One of them was all-the-way-high-up-there.  Lindsey produced a ladder which I didn't realise the surgery had. She climbed up it to look at things.  Then she came back down and I climbed up to look at things.  I turned things off and on.  Nothing helped.

So Telstra helpfully diverted calls to my mobile phone and sent someone to look at the exchange.  It was all very well having calls diverted to my phone - when I was at the reception desk.  If I wandered off and took my phone with me it was no help at all!!  My phone stayed at the desk when I went elsewhere.  The phones returned to normality mid-afternoon.

Television programs give you to understand that working as a doctor's receptionist is a nice, quiet, peaceful occupation.  Much like the impression they give of life in libraries, now I come to think about it.  Do not be deceived. Neither of these is true!!!!

Saturday was election day in Australia.  I stopped  on our way out to vote at the little primary school in Warrenheip.  There was the obligatory sausage sizzle, run by the local fire station. There was a cake stall and a plant stall, fund raising for the school.  It was a lovely morning and there was a queue of about ten minutes wait to vote. Was lovely and peaceful standing in the sunshine.  There were people standing around in the playground, eating their democracy sausages and chatting.  I didn't buy a sausage but I did buy a tray of biscuits from the cake stall which we had with our afternoon cup of tea.

I rejoined Jim who was waiting in the car and we drove on down the freeway, stopping in Ballan to re-fuel the car and to buy toasted egg and bacon sandwiches.  We went to East Melbourne so I could go to the (peaceful and quiet!) library to collect a book and then we motored on down to Mount Martha. It was a lovely day so we didn't take the direct route along East Link but went along toll free freeways and highways.  I think it took about ten minutes longer.  We will do it again - it was a nice drive.

We had seafood for dinner - prawns, lobster tails, whiting and chips and wiled the evening away watching the election results on the TV. A surprise win for the Coalition, who had been widely tipped to lose to Labor.

And now it is Sunday morning. It is peaceful and quiet and sunny in Stella's retirement village. There will be kippers and toast for breakfast and, probably, lunch out.

I could learn to like peaceful and quiet. However, I have bought flights to Singapore in August to celebrate our tenth (!!!!!!!) wedding anniversary.  The extra hours at the surgery will provide a nice cache of spending money for then.  Plus I am saving up for a trip to Canada towards the end of next year. I will have to defer a life of peaceful quietness for now.

Sunday sunrise, Mount Martha