Saturday 11th January – Chopping Tree
Day
Bronwen and her Dad came over to chop down the tree in the back yard which the neighbour has been complaining is lifting his concrete garden. We all spent a few hot hours doing this, pulling on ropes and collecting branches and leaves, and then the power failed. 
It was an amazing coincidence—the electric chainsaw-on-a-long-arm had just got jammed, and took some freeing. 
Then, once it was free, it wouldn’t go… we checked the power lead (because earlier on in the day the other power lead had failed), and there was no power. We checked the power point, and no power. We checked the suburb… no power. Apparently there was an accident which took out the power to the whole suburb.
Bronwen and her Dad took a load of branches and leaves to the dump while I started cleaning out the ivy which had crept into the garage. They arrived back a while later with a generator and a petrol chainsaw. Using the generator, Bronwen’s Dad got the rest of the tree down, and took another load of it to the dump, leaving one load for tomorrow.
Night
I removed the rest of the ivy from the garage. It’s now concrete again. 
I also removed the control unit from the washing machine to have a look at the water inlet, temporarily making a remote-control-wireless-washing-machine!
Sunday 12th January – Much Tree
Day
I had a lazy morning, and then Bronwen and her Dad came over to pick up the rest of the tree, and last night’s garage ivy, 
and I got all sweaty moving logs and leaves around.
After that, I had a relaxing evening doing a bit of housework, disturbed only by the neighbour coming over to complain that his new BBQ cover was not suitable, and that it was rude and inappropriate for Bronwen to have gone and put it on.
Night
I headed to West End to have dinner at Nandos with Maz, then stayed up late sorting through my photos picking out ones of Bronwen for Bronwen’s Mum’s photo book.
Monday 13th January – Working Again
Day
I went back to work. Half of work is sick. I had lunch by myself at the Burrito Bar.
Night
I went to ALDI.
Tuesday 14th January – Pizza
Day
I worked.
Night
Bronwen and her Mum came over at night, bringing pizza which I ate for dinner.
Wednesday 15th January – Sushi
Day
I worked, getting to work around half past nine—traffic is much better that way. I had sushi from a place in Park Road for lunch with Bronwen. Then I worked some more, leaving work late—one of the downsides of starting work late.
Thursday 16th January – Brewski
9:30am
Work.
Lunch
I had lunch with Bronwen, 
and got an $82 parking ticket.
Night
I had dinner with Bronwen at Brewski, then after transporting her bike from her work to her parents’ place, went back to work myself. I didn’t leave work until midnight.
Friday 17th January – Moving Office
Day
I worked. We moved everything from the office to the new office.
Night
I arrived at the corner of Milton and Baroona Roads on my way home from the new office, just as a cyclist was hit by a car. I was there for over an hour. I did a little traffic directing. It was quite traumatic. The hit cyclist made some very concerning noises. It took almost an hour for the ambulance to get him from the ground into the ambulance, and the intersection was shut for several hours while the forensic traffic police took photos and did their investigation. All north-bound traffic was directed down Baroona Road. I learnt that large trucks are not allowed to leave Milton Road, and had to be allowed to go straight ahead over some concrete dividers.
After this, I went to Pie Face in the city for dinner.
Saturday 18th January – “47 Ronin”
Day
I spent most of the day at New Farm Park. I had initially driven to Rosalie, where I sat in the Rosalie Park being eaten by ants for a while,
and then drove Bronwen to New Farm Park, where she had a going-away-party for a co-worker. I then finished off the Calendar book I had been reading a while ago, before going for a walk along the river path until it ran out somewhere in Teneriffe.
Night
After getting a pie from Pie Face in the city and a burger from MOS Burger for dinner, Bronwen and I went and saw “47 Ronin” at South Bank, in 3D. While I did enjoy watching it, really it was quite awful. The acting was bad, the… well, everything was bad. Not recommended.
Sunday 19th January – Cedar Creek
Day
Bronwen and I drove out to Cedar Creek (the north of Brisbane one, not the south of Brisbane one, confusingly) and had a nice laze about in the water.
Night
I had an Indian curry dinner with Maz at West End.
Monday 20th January – The New Office
Day
I went to work in the new office, which is nice and cold—unlike the old office. Also, much bigger. There wasn’t any internet initially, but it was on by around midday.
I drove to Bronwen’s work to get her, and we drove to Ray’s Pattiserie in Newmarket, having been told it had great pies, and had a pie and a pasty for lunch. The pie was good but still just a pie—probably not worth driving to Newmarket for too often.
Night
I had a quiet night at home.
Tuesday 21st January – Hospital & Ear Scans
Afternoon
It was extremely hot. I drove to Bronwen’s work to drop off my camera so she could take some photos for a co-worker’s departure, and then drove to the Royal Brisbane Hospital, where I managed to find some on-street parking which only cost me $10.
I arrived for my 1:30 appointment at 1:37, only slightly late, but I need not have rushed—I then waited until 2:45 PM before I had my CT scan. The tennis was on. Tennis, as it turns out, is very boring—probably more so than cricket. I do not understand why anyone would bother watching it. The players, who presumably are the best of the best, don’t seem to be able to hit the ball to each other more than a couple of times in a row, and fail the majority of their serves. It seems quite stupid. The CT scan was quick and easy—though probably not very good for my health. I put my head in the machine, it made a whirring noise, and I was done. No cannula needed.
After my CT scan I went and met Amanda and had a chat, then walked to a nearby Hungry Jack’s for a late lunch, getting back to the hospital at 4:50 PM to wait for my MRI. I had to wait quite a while, but the waiting wasn’t in vain—the MRI was quite exciting (though this time I did need a cannula). I hadn’t had an MRI before, and had assumed it would be similar to a CT scan, but I was quite wrong. First, it takes a long time—mine took about half an hour of me actually inside the machine, and probably three quarters of an hour all up. Second, it’s extremely noisy and—to my amazement—you can actually feel the magnetism. It’s what I imagine future medicine should feel like—you slide into a tube, with a strange headpiece on designed to make it so that you can see out the tube and hopefully don’t panic due to being stuck inside a small tube, and with earphones on. However, everything is made out of non-metallic things, making it all look a bit like something out of X-Men. Then, the machine starts making noises—and I mean noises. They are very loud, mostly indescribable, and sound like overdone special effects from movies. Then, the thing that really amazed me, and which I really wasn’t expecting—I could quite easily feel the magnetism. My muscles twitched rhythmically. I pulsed and tingled. I had pins and needles. Things felt like they were moving, even though I’m fairly sure they weren’t. It was interesting.
Towards the end I was given “contrast”—a dye which shows up in my blood—and found that I could smell it, even though it was given intravenously, which I also found interesting.
Night
After the MRI, by which time it was seven o’clock, I went looking for my car. However, I couldn’t find it. This concerned me a little. At first I figured I just wasn’t looking in the right place, but after a while I started to think it had genuinely been stolen, as I ran out of streets to look for it on. Strangely, this didn’t concern me quite as much as it probably should have, which I suspect was something to do with having sat all day waiting for things, and then having the strange MRI experience, so instead of panicking I calmly retraced my steps from early on in the day on Google Maps—using up a lot of my remaining 4% battery life in the process—and eventually found my car. I then drove to Kangaroo Point cliffs, got Bronwen, ordered pizza, drove to pizza, picked up pizza, drove home, ate pizza, and went to bed.
Wednesday 22nd January – Lightning
Day
I worked.
Night
I got my camera from Bronwen’s work, and dropped Bronwen off at Dan’s place, where she was having a few drinks. I then watched some extremely spectacular lightning from the park in Rosalie.
Thursday 23rd January – Car Accident
Morning
On the expressway, just before the South Bank exit, I ran into the back of the car in front of me (at about no kilometres per hour, but still with enough force to break plastic things). 
We pulled over to the side of the road and exchanged details. The damage appeared minor, but it still took twenty minutes on the phone to RACQ to lodge an insurance claim.
The rest of my day was uneventful. I worked. I had lunch with Bronwen. I worked some more. I drove home.
Friday 24th January – Possums & Angry Shop Owners
Morning
There was a possum inside. It was cute, but unwelcome, so we asked it to leave—which it politely did.
Day
I drove to work without hitting anyone, and later to Bronwen’s parents’ place, 
and then Sassafras for lunch, also without hitting anyone.
While on the way to get lunch we popped into Hamptons Home Living at 180 Latrobe Terrace, which had clearly closed down and was selling all its stock. As my work had recently moved into new premises, I thought they might be interested in some cut-price home (or in this case, office) wares, so I took some photos to send to work. 
The obnoxious people selling the stuff took great offence at this, and told me to get out. I did, and got back in the car, but the people were then unacceptably rude to Bronwen—who had asked them why they took such offence and why they were being so rude to potential customers—so I got out of the car again and had an argument with them. The lady had some kind of break down and cried everywhere, and the man was rude and threatening, and “in my face” (quite literally), trying to get my name, the name of my boss at work, and at one point even trying to force me off the public footpath and into my car. I considered calling the authorities (as clearly these people, who were apparently the property owners, were selling the shop’s items, which is technically theft), but eventually decided to leave it as it wasn’t really my business—though behaviour like that is unacceptable, and it would have been personally satisfying to have seen them pay for their actions.
Night
Bronwen has gone to Stradbroke Island for the long weekend, leaving me to do geeky things, all sad and alone.
Saturday 25th January – Quiet
Day
I had a quiet Saturday at home.