Busy Week

My busy week has been successfully navigated.

Monday was a public holiday in honour of the birthdays of my Younger Brother and my Eldest Child, plus the first anniversary of Mother's move to Ballarat. I stayed in the flat in East Melbourne overnight, which had the significant advantage that on Tuesday morning I didn't need to leave until 07:00, rather than the 05:50 that I would have needed to leave if going to work from Mount Helen.

I had taken food with me for the evening, which had the alarming (😂) consequence of setting off the rather oversensitive smoke alarms in the flat. Fortunately, I know better than to open the door out onto the landing, which would have set off the building fire alarm and cost me a Very Large Amount of Money Indeed for calling out the fire brigade unnecessarily.  No, no. No opening of the front door for me. Instead, I put a pillow along the bottom of the door, to prevent smoke seepage, opened the balcony door as wide as it would go and put my frying pan out on the table on the balcony.

The sensitivity of the smoke alarms would annoy me if I lived there permanently, although I might run an extension cord out onto the balcony so I could "barbecue" my stuff on the induction hob properly. Or, of course, use an actual barbecue.

My view on Monday night:

On Tuesday night I stayed at Ghost's house. I had a take away for dinner. No smoke alarms to worry about. Ghost was pleased to see me. She was also pleased to see cat treats and for the electric snuggle blanket to be turned on.

My Tuesday night view:

That's a cat treat packet at her feet!

Wednesday night I was back at the flat then on Thursday night, having run out of cat feeders, I returned home after work

Thursday night view:

It was busy at work during the week. I am not used to working full time any more but it wasn't too troublesome, just a bit tiring. Plus, of course, it was only a four day week. The individual days were quite long, though. It was a bit like being at SHU in October, only no students and no classes. Just the constant jangle of the telephone and lots of people milling about.

I was quite glad when it was Saturday and there was no need to leap out of bed and rush around, ready to leave at a specific time. It was a nice leisurely start to the day.

It seems that the Bridge Mall market has decided to expand its empire and to open not only on the first but now also on the third Saturday of the month. I think they also decided to keep this a secret. I only knew it was open on Saturday because somebody mentioned it on Social Media. I believe it started last month. Who knew?

It was only a small market, but we scored a Tim's toastie and a wander around. I wonder if they had also failed to tell the stall holders, as well as the shoppers. I expect it will grow, given time. And it's no hardship for us to swing by. It's on the way to, or close by many of the places we regularly go to.

It was a quiet weekend, on the whole. I didn't do very much apart from some shopping and visiting mother and Jim. I caught up on an Everest of washing, did a little tidying and cleaning and more or less pottered the weekend away.

A three day week at work this week. I'm glad that today was not one of them. It was under 0d when I got up this morning and the car was covered in frost. The garage door isn't working properly and I have weighted it down shut so unauthorised intruders can't intrude in an unauthorised way. I have arranged for someone to come and fix it - although they haven't offered any suggested dates yet. I suppose I should chase them up and see what they're doing.

I also started looking for a window cleaner this morning. Online. Through a website. The first person to contact me gave an initial quote of $220, preparatory to them coming out and having a look to see exactly what needs to be done. $220 seems an awful lot to have your windows cleaned. I'm sure it didn't cost anything like that to have the windows cleaned in Tupton, although there weren't as many windows to worry about. I suppose I really should do it myself. It's not arduous work, nor dangerous. Clearing the gutters, on the other hand, is definitely something that needs doing and that I am not going to do myself. I am much too old to be shinnying up ladders.

Things I saw on a shop wall in Ballarat on Saturday: