Monday 9th September – Sickness
Day
Bronwen was still feeling sick so stayed home. I wasn’t yet, so I went to work—where I began to feel sick. In fact, I felt ok when I left home, and felt sick by the time I got to work. Fortunately I held out all day, and didn’t feel any worse (or any better) by the time I left to go home.
Night
Bronwen and I had a quiet night at home, eating pasta and cleaning, amongst other things.
Tuesday 10th September – White House Down
Day
I had a day, which was filled with work, some jellybeans, and the last of my ALDI coffee capsules.
Night
Bronwen and I went and saw “White House Down” at Southbank Cineplex, which was a surprisingly good movie. I had assumed it would be quite bad, but was pleasantly surprised to find that—while it was very American—it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as expected, and actually quite enjoyable.
Wednesday 11th September – Throbbing Ears
Day
I went to work an hour late. Throughout the day I developed a throbbing in my right ear, which was quite annoying. I think it’s perhaps filled with earwax and genius. I then made the mistake of googling “why can I hear my heartbeat in my ear”, and now I’m worried. Apparently the causes range from tumours through to extremely dangerous and likely to kill me at any moment artery problems, to the more normal “no one knows but it never stops and you have to live with it for the rest of your life and it’ll drive you crazy”. Apparently no one seemed to think it likely that I just had an earache that would get better on its own. I guess if it’s still there tomorrow I’ll go see a doctor—it was quite annoying today. It doesn’t beat all the time… just occasionally, maybe every five minutes or so, I’ll hear a few beats in my ear. It’s also hot and annoyed.
Night
Bronwen and I went to Govinda’s for dinner, and had a quick chat to Alexandra. The food was delicious, as usual. We also did some shopping at ALDI—which has a range of toothpaste made in Australia, and clearly marked as such. It is quite difficult to tell where toothpaste is made in Woolworths, but after carefully checking nearly all of it, I came to the conclusion that Woolworths does not sell any Australian-made toothpaste.
Thursday 12th September – I get my ears syringed
Day
I drove to work. After googling yesterday and finding out that I am only a sneeze away from death, I figured I had best go to a doctor, so I picked the first doctor that seemed nearby and which I knew would have parking—Paddington Medical Centre—and rang them up. Much to my surprise, the stress of calling them didn’t kill me—and to my even greater surprise, they had an appointment in half an hour, so I drove there, saw the doctor, had my ears syringed to remove the excess wax, and was theoretically cured.
Night
I drove to Bronwen’s parents’ place, where we had a delicious pasta dinner.
Friday 13th September – City of Lights
Day
I worked.
Night
Bronwen and I drove down to South Bank—magically finding parking immediately—and watched the Santos GLNG “City of Lights” laser, water, people-on-springy-sticks and lights show.
After this, we had a walk through the Brisbane Airport Light Garden, before walking back to the car and driving home.
Saturday 14th September – SpringFlare Festival of Colours
Day
I got up late, as it was a weekend. After breakfast, Bronwen and I drove to St. Lucia, and the Holi festival inspired “SpringFlare Festival of Colours”. It was, as is becoming worrying normal as we move into Summer, far too hot—but other than that, everyone looked like they were having a great time and there were heaps of people, heaps of colours, and lots of action everywhere. The pricing structure was great—free entry to all, but cost you money to buy coloured powder for seducing girls with—or whatever it was for.
After taking a stack of photos and being pooed on by a bird, Bronwen and I drove to Sizzler—getting there just before four o’clock, when their lunchtime menu turns into their expensive dinnertime menu. As usual, I ate too much.
Night
After Sizzler we drove to Bronwen’s parents’ place, then later, home—where we had a quiet, subdued, not too big, dinner.
Sunday 15th September – Gardening
Day
I had a small sleep-in, then made the mistake of doing yard work. First, I started pruning one of the trees which had, quite without asking, moved from being a tree, to being a clothesline. After this, I raked leaves. It was quite hot, and there were many leaves.
Let me rephrase that: As the temperature soared and my skin turned to leather, I realised that there were not many leaves—there were only leaves. Leaves, leaves and more leaves—leaves on leaves., leaves falling from the trees as I raked other leaves, and eventually, just powdery used-to-be-leaves, flying around in the air mocking me. I made piles and piles of them, which Bronwen then stuffed into a rubbish bin and put them underneath other trees—somewhat ironically, I suppose.
After breaking the rake and wearing out my arms, legs, and fingers, I switched to hoeing, three-pronged-fork-thing-ing, and sweeping—eventually discovering, buried deep beneath the leaves, a yellow brick road. After many years of hard labour (nothing, it should be mentioned, to do with the recent election), I had most of the yellow brick road uncovered and Bronwen had moved all of the leaves I’d raked, and I’d managed to wear out the few remaining working parts I had left over from the leaves (as well as get bitten by something that not only itched, but looked like it enjoyed it), so I hosed everything off and spent the last few moments of my heroic gardening phase blasting waster at the weeds amongst the yellow bricks, to send them a stern message.
Night
After gardening, Bronwen and I walked to Woolworths where we bought some potato salad, creamy pasta salad, and light and tasty pasta salad, along with baked beans, beetroot, underwear, and socks—for a late lunch. I then relaxed and complained a lot.