Ground control to Major Tom: you've lost us!

Our weekend has revolved around seeking medical and veterinary attention for our daughter and our rabbit respectively. Thankfully neither has swine flu!

Our bunny, Waldorf, has a torn ear and has been inoculated against myxomatosis and the calicivirus; our daughter has tonsillitis, had a severe migraine and has had a penicillin injection! Waldorf hopped the coop on Friday and was missing in hellish cold rainy weather for hours. We only recovered him, bloody eared, from a neighbour’s garden 5 minutes before the last episode of the US version of ‘Life On Mars’ was shown at 10.30 pm.

He must have squeezed out under the side gate (and grazed his ear in the process) at about 9.15 that morning when I left for work. Then, unbeknown to us, he had roamed the street – being spied by various neighbours throughout the day - and finally made his way to the house over the road (where Lesley came from and where 2 of Lesley’s siblings still roam free) in search of company and a chance to do what bunnies do best.I wondered, if cats have 9 lives, how many do rabbits have? It would have to be fewer I think and he is courting disaster by breaking out like that. My husband took him to the vet for the aforementioned inoculations and to have his ear tended to on Saturday morning

Within about an hour of his return to the bosom of the family our daughter was suffering visual disturbances and searing pain in her head that no kind of analgesia would touch. 1 GP visit and 1 penicillin injection later she was still in great pain and it was RPA Emergency here we come. It was 8.30 pm when her dehydration was finally overcome and the series of painkillers I’d administered earlier kicked in. My husband went in search of fish and chips which was what she fancied after eating virtually nothing all day. We consumed them while ‘Mr Blandings Buil(t) His Dream House’ (on ABC2) for the umpteenth time! Today she is feeling much better and Waldorf has been hiding under the house all day in protest at our curtailing his love life.

Shame about the ending of the US ‘Life On Mars’ – although not in the same league as its British inspiration we had been enjoying it. The dénouement was extremely silly. You had to feel for the actors neatly and sentimentally making twee sense of the series engagingly implausible premise. I am no enemy of the pun, but 'this is going to be one successful gene hunt'! Pulease!

Philip Glenister and Harvey Keitel (UK and US Gene Hunt respectively) look disappointed in the final episode of the US version of Life On Mars which was all wrapped up too cutely.

No saccharine for me!

I am not diabetic. I know because I had a glucose tolerance test at the weekend. A dear friend pointed out that I must be relieved to know that I am overweight completely as a result of greed and not any kind of imbalance! Of course I am; now I know that all I have to fall back on is my willpower (or a non-existent entity as I prefer to think of it).

The Eurovision Song Contest was a huge disappointment this year. I rely on it to provide me with endless cheap laughs at the expense of the gauche and tacky acts it generally showcases. Well, blow me down if most of them weren’t fairly ordinary and inoffensive. The only ripple of delight in the time I stayed with the broadcast came from the larger than life appearance and lack of musicality of one of the Israeli entrants (she was like an unflattering caricature of Paul Capsis in drag!) It was mild in comparison to the paroxysms of laughter I have experienced in past years. Globalisation has a lot to answer for!

Separated at birth?

Post script to my Perth visit: daylight saving has been defeated in the 4th (?) referendum on the subject and a Green candidate has unseated Labor in Fremantle after they had held the seat for some 80 years! I took an interest in these news items having been in WA so recently. Apparently the Fremantle outcome was the result of a protest vote where the only alternative to the incumbents on offer was the Greens; the Liberals didn’t field a candidate for some reason. Two of my hosts while I was in Perth explained why most Westralians don’t want daylight saving. One said they already have ample daylight all year ‘round and putting the clocks forward stuffs up early morning swimming and crayfish pot checking. The other said they’ll be damned if they do something just because the eastern states do. I suspect both are true.

Doin' Time in Freo

Thank god for WA CATS!

I have just had a week in WA. It was my first visit and it is unlikely I will get back in a hurry as even with cheap airfares and having to pay for just two nights’ accommodation, it put me back about $1,500! The trip gave me the opportunity to catch up with my nephew and a friend from my high school days - neither of whom I had seen for over a decade - and to meet their families. An absolute joy in both cases!

I flew over alone meeting up with my sister there but, as she was attending a conference for much of the time, I explored alone for the first few days. Perth is a logical grid of a city so I found my way around okay and when my legs got weary there was the CAT (central area transit) series of free buses operating in continuous figure eight routes throughout the city every few minutes.

I had one day in Fremantle (nowhere near enough time) which is not so grid-like in layout as Perth and where I meandered around without finding the Arts Centre/Museum for quite a while. Instead I found Fremantle Prison and thought I'd pop in for a squiz but ended up doing a 90 minute guided tour which was both fascinating and poignant. The gaol operated almost continuously for 150 years from the 1850s, first for convicts, later for wartime internees and later still for high-security inmates. Even in its 20thC phase it was harsh and primitive and the thought of prisoners’ long hours in those tiny un-sewered cells and an exercise yard that lacked shelter until 1968 was replete with sad and tragic associations. In the year leading up to its closure prisoners were allowed to decorate their cells (previously forbidden) and the preponderance of Aboriginal motifs and themes testifies to the high proportion of indigenous people locked up there.

Highlights of my trip were:

• dinner at The Indiana Teahouse on Cottesloe beach (quite reasonable in comparison to run-of-the-mill cafe prices in Perth) and the preceding sunset
• a day on Rottnest meeting cute tame quokkas and enjoying an ocean swim
• sampling the wines of the Swan Valley
• looking at the Yr 12 art in the state art gallery
• the Fremantle Arts Centre/Museum (which I did eventually find) with its great combination of sociological exhibits and avant garde art installations.
  

See pictures of some of this in my Picasa album.