What Happened Next

Don’t you hate returning from holiday? Always such a feeling of coming down, plus having to wind yourself up again for work. Never mind. Consequently I’d actually got something arranged for the Sunday after dropping back into Adelaide. Saturday night was enough time to get the washing done.

By being away that weekend, I’d managed to miss everyone doing their primary exams. I’d also missed the evening out on Friday. But Jo wanted to go out for a walk on Sunday. In the end there were 5 of us (Me, Jo & Seb, Ina and Janneke) and we went up to Black Hill, which is just around the corner from Amber’s Gully. A quick walk considering Ina was working at 2.

I had to take the car back to the rental company on Sunday morning (Adelaide is so much the centre of things that they close at 2:30 on a Saturday). I was slightly early and Jo & Seb were late, so I had 30 min standing on the street corner waiting for them. Good job it was 9am on that particular street corner, although it would be providing a pretty specialised service wearing walking boots and a rucksack. I guess you never know.

The walk was a simple, but long drag upwards to the summit of Black Hill, which isn’t much special but does have spectacular views over the city. Down was actually initially like walking in the UK, a steep, rocky path along a narrow shoulder through the trees. Obviously no problems there until I got onto the flatter, well-made path and I managed to turn my ankle on a random tree root.

Thankfully we were not far from the car park, and I eventually managed to hobble (and swear) my way back to the car after the obligatory lying on the floor while my blood pressure came back up. Happens everytime, and there was no coke machine this time to provide temporary ice packs.

Oh well. We went into North Adelaide for a pretty good dinner afterwards. Great place (even if the service is a little slow) which has a deli with tasting tables attached. The sort of place you could sit for hours and just read the papers on a Sunday. It was getting cold by this time, the sun was long gone and possibly the fact that we move tables to sit inside contributed to the wait. The chicken / sumac salad was good, though.

The next challenge was limping round Coles. Obviously having been away for 10 days meant that I had very limited food in, certainly not enough for evenings. Even the freezer was running low. For once I actually bought chocolate. Just had to, really.

Monday morning, quite predictably, and my ankle was too stiff to walk on, even after pain killers. So one phone call later... and by the evening I was bored silly. That explains why I’ve got back on Facebook quite so much. Although not working the evening meant that I managed to see the last part of Sinchronicity, which I started watching before leaving the UK but had missed most of.

I was working the weekend, too (penalty for having a holiday). For lots of very irritating reasons I didn’t leave work until 2 on Monday morning . Mainly because the CT radiographer went home just before doing the scan we wanted and we had to wait an hour for the next one to come in. Particularly annoying as the patient turned out to have much worse injuries than it looked like he had. Grrr.

Back at work on Tuesday evening, although I swapped sides to spend most of the evening sitting down. And driving home was a challenge. A combination being tired (finishing at midnight), trying to protect my ankle and having driven around 1000 miles in an automatic car. Could I work out why I kept stalling every time I hit the brakes? I’m cursing having a manual car currently.

The rest if the week was full on, just one of those weeks where most people are away and the same faces keep turning up for shifts. Except the Registrars many of who managed to phone in sick. I did manage a night out on Friday. Ina and I went to the pictures to see “The Black Balloon”, which sounds very dour (it’s about the family of an autistic man), but I would definitely recommend if it gets released in the UK. After that we went for a beer and then curry. And I knew that wearing heels would be a Bad Thing, but sometimes you just have to wear blue shoes. (And sometimes I just have to feel a bit taller.)

Monday and Tuesday were days off, and I spent a lot of them cooking. I made the curry I’d been promising to cook for a long time – found a recipe for Pathia in my spice book which is probably my favourite curry, and Ina came over on Monday night. Knowing she likes baked cheesecake, I thought I’d try one of them, too. I’ve had the recipe for years; never tried it. Interesting. Particularly as I couldn’t find cream cheese as I’d know it and had to use creamed cottage cheese instead. Lots more stirring needed. But it tasted OK.

Friday (today – this is being written in bits) is Anzac day. It’s so much more full-on than Nov 11th (although I imagine that this year Remembrance Day may be bigger as it’s 90 years since WWI). There are overnight vigils, dawn services here and in Europe / Turkey and the TV is full of it. Maybe it’s part of being such a young country with such a wide national base and trying to mark a place in the world. But to my cynical British eyes, it’s almost incomprehensible that these events are so marked with such patriotism. I understand that Gallipoli was the first time the ANZACs really fought (we watched the film at school) and there was little before. Veterans are held in much higher regard here, too. (Peterborough and RAF-Wittering-uniform-wearing anyone?). There was a march in town, and obviously Jeffo is there (which I’d forgotten until I saw him and Krystal at Ina’s place) but part of me feels that it is none of my business, really. A bit like wandering into the middle of someone else’s church service.

So Ina and I went for a (very gentle) walk. Actually the ankle wasn’t too bad, but obviously it doesn’t really like uneven ground and won’t for a while. Maybe it’s time to finally get some physio and try and stop this happening yet again.

And now I’m eating rye bread and feta cheese and looking for recipes to cook rabbit.