By the time we hit St Vincents, I mean Canberra Hospital

Old junior has had to go back into hospital for a few days. This time he stayed in Canberra. It is much easier being in hospital in your home town, or at least it is easier on your parents.

He has now been in hospitals in Barcelona, Brisbane, Canberra and Sydney. There are many letters in the alphabet yet to go, but I am hoping we complete none of them.

I am supposed to be having a little rest before I go back to the hospital for the night shift. But it is too hot to rest and I have eaten too much chocolate to feel rest-needy even though I am quite, quite tired. The husband has done the past two night shifts on the creaky folding bed in the ward. I am tired because last night I went to watch Paul Kelly's L-S show at the Canberra Theatre. Night Three is a mixed bag, he said and he was right.

The kid and I were supposed to go together but this whole hospital event put a stop to that. It was very kind of the husband to insist on me going.

Hopefully the kid will be discharged some time tomorrow. His numbers are going in the right directions, and he is feeling pretty much fine apart from the irritations of blood tests and drips and so on and so forth. I think he is missing the specialists in Sydney, though. No one here is quite as funny as them.

Australia Day

Read the Honours Lists. I like lists. No one I know won a public service medal this year. Sandra Sully won an award though, for services to foreign affairs reporting and rural reporting. Jacqui Weaver was nominated for an Oscar. The Oscar award choosing process seems a bit more transparent than the Australia Day Honours choosing process.

At the supermarket this morning there was a sign exhorting the check out people to wear Australian colours, either yellow and green or the flag colours of blue, white and red. My check out person was wearing a white t-shirt with 'PEACE' written in blue, with a deconstructed US flag underneath. I liked her style.

A man pulled into the car park in a station wagon, opened the boot, pulled out a shopping trolley and trundled it over to the trolley parking bit. He was embarrassed, and volunteered the information that the trolley had been at his son's house for five years. I wondered if returning it was patriotism. My mind sprang to milk crates and missing street signs, and I wondered if the man was going to be driving all over the territory returning things today.

Carting a book around wherever you may go

I find that if I don't have a book in my bag I start to feel little twitchy, incomplete, lost and as if I am not quite myself but vulnerable to colonisation.

As long time readers will know, I do a lot of reading on the bus. But presently I am carpooling with a friend-and-colleague who has recently moved into the neighbourhood. Lots of advantages, including sleeping in or doing some yoga in the mornings, nice conversation, driving in the T2 lane, not seeing every house in the suburb before I get home and so on. No disadvantages at all, really.

However, there is no need for me to bring my book. I don't often get a chance to read at lunch time (although I appreciate it when I do). People seem to like to talk to each other at lunch time in my work. Or I go for a nice walk in the sunshine or something.

So my bag is bookless.

It's only been in recent years that I have stopped carrying around three books in my bag. One that I am presently reading, one that I think I will probably read next and one in case that one is not to present taste. Heavy. I stopped because it was incompatible with carting around baby and toddler stuff and not ending up with floor-length arms.

But I was wondering about you all - do you have a book in your bag all the time? Do you have one right now? What is it? Do you sometimes or always have more than one? How do you cope if your day no longer includes random reading moments? Am I acting like a nine year old instead of a thirty-nine year old and should I just get over it?

Transport and communication

In the olden days transport and communication were put together into one government department, because they would build the telegraph and the road or railway together in long, long lines across the country, and the infrastructure went together.

In the present day the phones are down in Gailes and the roads are still blocked between Gailes and the airport, and my son is in Gailes and frankly I think it was time he was home.

Excess water is bad for transport and communication, but that's not why they used to be in one department, actually. It is always nice to catch a train so you can visit someone and say hello, though.

Floods

It seems that most of our Brisbane and Ipswich friends and relations have houses above flood levels. Mark that up to codger-power, and tales of the 1974 floods.

The kid has been staying with his Nana in Gailes, but latest reports say the water lapped the house but didn't come in. Now I am glad she doesn't live closer to the train line.

I guess he'll get home when the roads are passable again. Lucky Nana always has an amply stocked pantry.

I am baking cake

Well, not right this second, but soon.

Given that I am never quite sure if cooking is relaxing or stressful, it is probably a good thing that the family is interstate. Not intestate, though. Legal minds can tell us if you can be intestate while you are alive or if you have to be dead.

It will be a chocolate cake. It will contain nuts. It will not contain raspberries because I am a chicken.

This post is a nightmare for the literal minded.

Happiness of the day

A new co-worker who seems to fulfil all the dreams of the team and fill all the gaps of knowledge and general failures of the other team members. Who is also funny.

Outlaws who send chocolate and pictures of nieces.

A weekend away to dream of.