MIA

I've been missing in (blogger) action for the past couple of weeks; indeed on and off for months.

Over the past ten days or so I have been diverted with three house guests visiting from warmer climes in Australia.

This was not an imposition. On the contrary. So pleasant was their presence and so relaxed did I become by the time of their departure on Thursday that I lost complete track of the days. As a consequence I kept thinking it was a Monday (not Friday) back at work making me look and sound like a goose to patients several times yesterday.

Well I better get back to normality because I have cinema and theatre visits to record and overseas trips to make.

Yes, there are four - count them, one...two...three...four - booked for the next twelve months or so.

First up in just two weeks time are first time visits to Sri Lanka and the Maldives travelling with Mb. Later, at Christmas, a solo, R&R stay in Honolulu. In mid-2019 another solo trip, albeit with an escorted group; a tour from Montreal to New York City. Followed a couple months later with visits to Spain, Portugal and Morocco with Mb and Cz.

Sign of the times

An awful day at the hospital today. Many patients about and insufficient staff to attend to them. Some of the staff who I saw present in the morning had mysteriously disappeared in the afternoon.

It was only when I signed off for the day that I learnt from my supervisor that several dozens of staff received 'their envelopes'.

I didn't understand at first. The hospital's organisation is being restructured (economising) and some positions will disappear along with their occupants. A pity. A dearly loved and respected institution in our city being torn apart in the name of making a profit.

Safety, please

Three workers on the roof of a nearby multi-storey building. No safety fences and no other safety features evident.

A hospital meal

(The Treasury Casino)

The hospital entertained its volunteers at the annual Christmas lunch today. The photograph above is not an image from our volunteer lunch but - as captioned - from an advertisement for functions offered by an Australian casino.

The hospital is very generous in its acknowledgement of the work and participation of volunteers. Our lunch took place in a hospital function room which was decorated in grand and tasteful style. The three course meal was beautifully presented and very tasty. A seafood selection for starters (prawns, oysters, salmon, crumbed calamari and crumbed fish pieces) was followed by ham and turkey and vegetables for the main course. Christmas pudding and custard, coffee and tea, mini chocolates for dessert completed the lunch. Oh, and wines, orange juice and sparkling water accompanied the meals.

The theme for the lunch was 'a splash of silver'. I wore a silver bow - in reality a decoration for present wrapping - poking out from my shirt pocket 'kerchief style'. Cs was a bit of a stick in the mud pointing to his grey hair as his splash of silver. No-one, though, could match our volunteer manager dressed, dare I say it, gayly, with his silver coloured crooner style hat, silver sequinned jacket and silver coloured shoes.

Housekeeping, buggies, a surprise, orange

When you are at an island resort the last thing you expect at 8.15am is the sound of housekeeping announcing themselves with loud banging on your hotel door. It was clear they weren't going anywhere until I presented myself which I did with a towel covering the modesty of my not so modestly sized torso. A young woman gazed back at me rather sullenly as though my appearance was lowering the tone of the resort. Behind her was a young man with an even more sullen gaze whose youthful beauty would have had me inviting him in with alacrity in my own youth. But those days are long gone.

I asked them to give me a few minutes which, as I type this, they apparently interpreted as 'housekeeping is not required today'.

'What to do today' I wondered over a breakfast which included the curiosity of lamingtons amongst the croissants and Danish pastries. I sat myself down and read some of the literature promoting activities and decided on a full day cruise through the Whitsundays, which I booked at the Resort Centre. Booked for  tomorrow, that is; as I had missed today's cruise delayed, of course, by my unexpected early visitors.

So I was still left with the question, what to do today? I decided I would hire a buggy. The island is packed with holiday makers and indeed residents and workers criss crossing the limited road network on buggies.

As it turns out I was too late for a buggy. The hirers were overbooked and had a waiting list only. I decided to take the Green shuttle bus across the hill and to the marina area with its shops, eating outlets and general people watching activities.

Who should be the first person for me to watch but a fellow volunteer from the hospital who does the identical volunteer job to me at the hospital. She introduced me to her husband as 'Victor who does her job at the hospital' (on other days) when of course if it was me doing the introducing the correct explanation would be that it is she who does my job at the hospital. But let's not be petty.

The chance meeting was as amicable as you'd expect when one side (them) is staying at the most exclusive and expensive resort on the island behind a high wall and the other side (me) is staying at the all you can pack in, no fence at all, 'el cheapo' resort.

Not surprisingly no promises were made to catch up for pre-dinner drinks before holiday's end.

I made a quick departure just in time to catch the Orange shuttle bus for a sightseeing junket around the island which as Murphy's Law would decree included a run alongside the high wall separating my volunteer colleague and her husband in their resort from we sweaty mortals on the bus.

Don't you love chance meetings?

Weather to the rescue

The awful weather on which I commented yesterday appears to be abating a little this morning but is still unpleasant enough to be a major problem.

However I have reason to be thankful for it today. The Nursing Home where I volunteer on Wednesdays has deemed conditions to be too dangerous to load and unload the participants for Day Care who are transported from/to their homes by bus.

So, I have been given the day off.

A day off my feet. Some relief for my Fasciitis.

Blue skies

Our periodic outing for respite care folk, this time to Sydney's McMahons Point on a gloriously sunny day.

Blue's Point Reserve

You just don't know...

...the interesting past of your co-workers. This is not always the case, of course, as some people waste no time letting you into their world ad nauseum whether you want them to or not.

But what about that humble, always polite, quietly spoken and courteous gentleman who makes no fuss, stirs no agitation and whose presence in the office goes largely unnoticed? The fellow who plays bowls on the weekend and likes the occasional punt and who is so meek and mild. Such was the early 80s aged Ron who passed away quietly in his sleep last week; as quietly as he lived his life. Or so it seemed to us fellow volunteers with Ron at the hospital.

Arriving at the church for his funeral this morning I was gob smacked at the sight of a full police honour guard, bagpipers and literally dozens of uniformed top brass police officers each be-medalled as though they were Russian Generals.

The church was literally overflowing with mourners. A sizeable portion of the top echelon of the Queensland Police Force was present including that State's Police Commissioner who delivered one of three eulogies. There was an almost commensurate presence of the NSW Police Force top brass with our State's Commissioner unable to attend but present in spirit with a message delivered on his behalf.

From those eulogies I learnt that Ron, who quietly pushed the library trolley around to patients once a week, had been a career police officer in Queensland rising to the highest rank, the 15th Commissioner of his State's force, upon the sacking of his predecessor as a consequence of the Fitzgerald Inquiry into police corruption.

You just don't know.

My valentine

Enjoy Valentine's Day all my anonymous, and some less anonymous, readers. Maybe you will receive a hoped for card from that special someone. I'd be content with candy.

Valentine's Day has a significance for me but it has nothing to with love or admirers. In 1968, aged 18, I was struggling a bit after two years at University. On my father's advice I took what was intended to be a year away from studies and acquired a full time job. That job commenced on Valentine's Day.

I never went back to University. The job turned into an enjoyable public service career with the one employer from which I retired much the wiser and very contented 37 years later.

A fluke, or was it fate, proved a turning point in my life 47 years ago on Valentine's Day.

The morning after

Many people are at major shopping centres this morning participating in the annual madness that is the Boxing Day sales. Not me. I'm enjoying a quiet, peaceful morning at home which will be followed later on by the mundane task of the week's laundry ahead of interstate visitors who descend on me and my apartment tomorrow for the New Year's week.

What mixed weather we experienced yesterday for Christmas Day. The early morning was very humid and grey such that it appeared to be drizzling rain. It wasn't raining but it looked like it was. Mid morning the weather cleared into a lovely, warm sunny day. Just the day thousands of overseas backpackers want from a Sydney Christmas Day when they descend upon Bondi Beach for a boozy Yuletide and to take photos for their friends and families in home countries who are 'snowbound' and 'winterbound' for their Christmases. Then late afternoon, predicted storms arrived complete with thunder, lightening and heavy rain which continued well into the evening.

It was all for the best. This morning is sunny and clear. The following photo taken from my number 3 bedroom - an aspect I haven't shown you often - reveals, only just, on the distant horizon the blue of the Great Dividing Range about 60 kilometres west of Sydney. You may have to enlarge the photo by clicking on it to see the image better.

At the extreme right of the photo and mid way between top and bottom, just above a line of trees, are four adjacent buildings of similar heights. They are buildings on the campus of St Vincents Private and Public Hospitals where I am a volunteer three days a week.

Do you hear the people sing?

An embarrassing incident at the hospital today.

I was walking the corridors from one section of the campus to another with a staff member beside me when suddenly, quite unexpectedly, the strains of 'Les Miserables' filled the air. We had just left an area where computer technicians were making adjustments to cupboards filled with coloured cables and IT equipment. I assumed they had set off the hospital's PA system.

It is not unusual for music to be heard over the hospital's PA system but the music is normally wordless and either classical or Muzak in style; not the strident strains of Hollywood/Broadway musicals.

The staff member and I looked around in surprise at this unusual intrusion in the otherwise quiet environment of the corridors and we wondered at the source of the music which at that moment seemed clear because we were walking under a loudspeaker. 'Les Mis' continued to fill the air as I travelled an elevator alone up four floors where staff looked curiously my way as the rousing choruses continued.

I returned down the four floors and moved internally through an adjoining building and still the music and singing continued. Waiting patients showed obvious signs of surprise at this unusual broadcast in a hospital.

At this point I should point out that I lost total hearing in one ear following nerve damage about fifteen years ago and since then I have had difficulty determining the direction of the sound that I do hear. I was beginning to wonder when the technicians would realise their mistake and shut down the broadcast when an embarrassing thought began to enter my mind. It occurred to me that the music might be following me. I pulled my iPhone from my pant's pocket and to my horror it was the source of the music. Somehow my iPhone rubbing against my body - settle down, readers - had caused the Music App to activate and it was me who was stirring the people to rise against their masters across four floors and two buildings of the hospital campus.

I dreamed a dream and it was an embarrassing nightmare.

It's an ill wind....

Sydney once had about 1,500 trams, 300 kilometres of track and the largest tram network in the then British Empire outside of London itself. There were 410 million passengers on Sydney's tram network in 1944; when the population of the entire country was only 7.3 million.

How tragic that the State Government removed Sydney's network entirely by 1961.

The light rail system reintroduced into Sydney in 1997 is being extended and plans have been announced for an extension that will run from Central Railway to Kingsford via the Cricket Ground and Football Stadium, Randwick Racecourse and the University of NSW. All at times are destinations for peak transport. That's fine.

The latest announcements include plans to remove hundreds of trees, albeit with the promise that replacement trees will be planted elsewhere along the route, the loss of hundreds of parking spaces at various points and even the destruction of an entire apartment block in Devonshire Street, Surry Hills.

This last point has perplexed me from the outset. Why are they routing the light rail via Devonshire Street? A narrower street for light rail could scarcely exist anywhere in Sydney. Why not use Oxford Street between Elizabeth Street and Taylors Square as did the original network so successfully? If Oxford Street does not suit nowadays then why not take the middle option and use Foveaux Street?

Additional plans are that existing bus routes from the south-eastern suburbs to the city will be curtailed or adjusted forcing passengers to change over to the light rail at some point. Included in those plans is a current service from Coogee to Circular Quay via Taylors Square. That service will instead divert at Taylors Square to Edgecliff.

Hello! Edgecliff? My ears prick up.

I live at Edgecliff. I live just one block from the bus and train stations in Edgecliff. That announcement will link my home through public transport to St Vincents Hospital, where I am volunteer; to Darlinghurst where my GP is located and to Randwick where I go to the movies so often. There is no direct public transport link between Edgecliff and those locations at present.

So amongst all those plans which upset so many people is one seemingly insignificant announcement which is music to my ears.

It is an ill wind.........

The shoe laces speak

Friday.

The day program. Young adults, mostly 16 to about 22 years. The same procedure each Friday. They come into admissions, have their papers checked and then I escort them to the ward. They are due at the same time. Sometimes they arrive together but mostly they appear, like the metaphorical Brown's cows, strung out over a couple of hours.

The walk to their ward is a long one. One long internal corridor linking four adjoining buildings. They follow me. Me leading the pack like a 21st Century Pied Piper. Occasionally there is conversation behind me - the latest haircut or do, a day spent at the beach, comparisons of their medication regimes - but mostly there is an eerie silence. Each patient insular, self reflecting, or head down texting silently on their mobile phone.

The corridor has a very long straight stretch. You could attempt the land speed record on it so long is the passage at that point. Others pass us by as we also pass them but each in my group is alone with their thoughts amongst the crowd.

My thoughts turn to sounds and balance. The sounds of silence. Are those my trouser legs swishing against each other? When the footsteps behind me fade I turn to check have any patients fallen behind? Disappeared? Run away?

My balance worries me. Others don't notice but I do. I have suffered a very, very minor sense of imbalance ever since I lost the hearing in one ear following nerve damage fifteen or so years ago. Damage exacerbated after I flew with a head cold from Brisbane on my 60th birthday. Occasionally I feel I can't walk straight. Especially when walking in confined passages. Surely they must notice. Yet I know they don't. Still I wonder. Do they fear I am about to divert into a side corridor that doesn't exist? Do they fear I am about to fall?

Still the sounds. My shoe laces slap against my shoes with each step. I hear them. Do they? Shoe laces. Speaking to me as I walk. What do they say? 'Keep walking straight'? 'Don't lose the patients'? 'Will we ever get there'?

Finally, patients safely delivered to their ward, I return to my post at Admissions. The long walk back. Alone. That long straight stretch. Strangely, no balance problems evident when I am alone. No sounds come into my thoughts. My shoe laces fall silent.

And then another lot of patients arrive. And it all starts again.

I'm a twit....

...at the moment.

I'm falling behind in my blog reading at present because I have become addicted to following twits making their comments on a certain social media site. The more I follow, the more I follow...if you get my drift.

Many of the comments I read are inane although few are as puerile as my own contributions. Still I read and I follow. I'm so attentive to the site that I pull out my phone to catch up with the scrolling conversation in between arriving patients at the hospital. Very unprofessional, I know.

It is an addiction and I know I will tire of it - eventually. Until then my blog activities remain tardy.

It's a bird, it's a plane....

...it's a patient........

George Reeves, television's Superman in the 1950s

....seen at the hospital, a patient in preparation for medical imaging, dressed only in his underwear with his paper gown billowing behind him like Superman's cape.

I immediately thought of the legendary man of steel.

'Day of shame'.....

...the headline in this morning's major Sydney newspaper. The newspaper was referring to yesterday evening's sudden resignation of the Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives in somewhat scandalous circumstances.

For a moment, though, I thought it was me who had made the front page of the newspaper. I have my own day of shame. I won't go into the details but I made critical comments to a staff member at the hospital for what I considered were deficiencies in the organisation of a training course. The staff member did not take my comments well and has lodged a complaint. I concede that I overstepped the mark so I have been asked to apologise in writing.

The great, the less than great and the anonymous all make their mistakes.

At home with Russell till the clouds roll by

I'm at home (yesterday) and a young Russell Crowe is creating mayhem in the background in Channel 7's midday movie. Something to do with Japanese Yakuza, right wing racist zealots and an irritating novice blonde air hostess.

Oh and the sky is darkening slowly ahead of a promised turbulent storm of rain and powerful winds the weather boffins have promised for the past thirty-six hours is about to hit Sydney.

Why am I at home at this time when usually I would be prowling the halls of the hospital with patients in tow? Well, I took the day off. I had an appointment with 'the bank'. No, I'm not in trouble. I went to discuss finances. OK, that's pretty obvious. I wouldn't be discussing my next dinner party, would I?

You see, an apartment in my building is coming on the market. It's bigger than my apartment. It's in better condition than my apartment. It has a better view than my apartment (which admittedly has a pretty good view of it's own) and it's on a higher floor than my apartment.

This is the first apartment of it's configuration in my building to come on the market since 2006 and the last one to be available before that was way back in 2002. My building has a great reputation so apartments here are rarely on the market and when they are, they never remain unsold.

Competition for it will be brutal but I'm putting myself in the mix.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

A little prick

Now that I have your attention......

I am putting my hospital ID around my neck. You know the type. A bundle of plastic cards hanging from some thin stretch material with a photograph, purporting to be mine, faintly visible. For our sins we volunteers also have to wear a plastic name tag even though the formal hospital ID already bears our name and status. I have my name tag pinned to the stretch material to avoid having to pin holes in my shirt everyday.

My tag

Anyway, as I was saying before I interrupted myself, I am putting my hospital ID around my neck when I notice that my tag is missing. How can this be? The tag is securely pinned through two ends of the stretch material. At least I thought that it was. There is no evidence of it having been ripped from the material and I have never noticed the pin to have been loose previously.

I retrace my steps all the way to my locker but cannot see my tag. Maybe it has come off in my car when I swiped my ID to enter the car park? I will check my car at the end of my shift.

End of shift, seven hours later. I check my car but no tag is visible. Lost! I had already alerted my co-ordinator and she has ordered a new tag for me.

I drive home from the hospital calling into my local shopping centre to pick up some groceries. I return to my car and place my groceries on the passenger seat, carefully checking again for the missing tag. No luck.

I move around the car and am about to resume my seat on the driver's side. What's this small black object barely visible against the black fabric of my car seat? That object with a sharp looking needle pointing up!

The reverse of my tag with needle pointing up

Yes my name tag. On my driver's seat. I have driven from the hospital, almost home, sitting on this needle stick and not noticed it. Or felt it! A little prick on my bum and I never noticed.

Nothing else to say really.

Full moon

It was a strange day at the hospital yesterday with all manner of off-centre people and situations. I won't go into details to protect privacy and (more personally) my position as a volunteer. Around 2.30pm as my work day was approaching it's end I turned to my paid colleague and commented 'it must be a full moon'. Knowing just what I meant, she agreed without hesitation.

And then James tweeted this. Yes, there was something in the air.

P.S. Just noticed that the link doesn't work so here is what James tweeted...

Is it a full moon, or does it just seem like one? :)

Sparkling Passion

James has stirred interesting memories with this post about drinks of the past.

I'm pretty well teetotal not because of any principles against drinking but simply because I have never really developed a taste for alcohol. In my early twenties, though, I went through a phase of drinking Vodka and Orange Juice (Screwdrivers) and Gin and Tonics. How gay was I?

Mention of Passion Pop in the comments to James' post triggers a memory for me.

Back in the late 1970s our Department's Social Club paid a visit to the hometown of the Minister of the day; an over colourful, faintly notorious character. The region around his hometown was known for it's vineyards and a visit to them was high on the agenda for this group of Public Servants all of us aged in our early twenties, highly sexed and living for fun.

We happily flitted from vineyard to vineyard. I had already passed my short drinking phase and stuck to the fizzy sickly sweet soft drinks to which I have been more or less addicted for most of my adult life. The rest got stuck right into sampling the wines which our hosts were hoping we would purchase by the boxful.

One of the wines on offer was a confection named 'Sparkling Passion'. A bubbly passion fruit coloured - and flavoured - wine which the serious drinkers - that is; everyone but me - took one sip of and then reeled in horror at it's sickly sweetness. Naturally it was the only wine I took to with enthusiasm.

I didn't find any reference to this wine on the Net; which doesn't surprise me but I did find this gaudy advertisement for an almost identically named soft drink, possibly from the same era.

Sparkling Passiona

There is no doubting why I took to the 'wine', when everyone else shunned it. It tasted exactly like a carbonated soft drink popular in my youth and still sold to this day; Passiona.  I was somewhat surprised to read in the link - but then again maybe not - that Passiona is only sold in Australia.

Passiona