Woad House Blues.

"It's a pretty colour...a pretty colour...a pretty colour...a pretty colour," she said, as they came to take her away.

After 23 months of house hunting failure, a (by now) concerned friend suggested I retain a buyers’ agent. I have to say this is one of the very best pieces of advice I have ever been given.

However, before the buyers’ agent, I was on my own, “in the market”, up to my neck in open house inspections and real estate agents.

I did manage to become serious about one house. (See above). It had its advantages. It was modern, it had a nice pool and it was opposite a large park. The time came to sign the contract. The price was good. Everyone seemed to like the property. Why did I feel so worried?

I started having nightmares. Oh no! I've bought a house with no doors! Did anyone see any doors? Zimbles are a bit unhinged at the best of times but never before like this.

With the help of family and friends I tried my best to stay calm about the purchase. A few days later, I hastened to the building and pest inspection.

Someone up above was looking after me that day. Nev, the best building inspector in the world, asked me to crawl underneath the house with him. When I had finished bumping my head on the beams, he said, ‘Zimble, look at that.’ I did and instantly I knew I was saved.

In Brisbane, houses are built on stumps. This is because it used to rain a lot (and may do so again, one day. I know you don't think so, Mavis, but it is possible); ventilation beneath the floor boards helps to cool the home; and there are lots and lots of termites (white ants).

A classic Queenslander with ant capping but not quite what I was after...

A thin metal plate, the ant cap, is placed between the stumps and the house. Since termites cannot go through the plate and apparently do not like to crawl out in the open, upside down, to build their nest, the cap provides some measure of protection.

This here's termite country.

The House of Woad was built in 1999 and therefore, should have had ant capping. There was no proper capping at all. Someone had made a dodgy attempt to remedy the situation by applying a cuff of capping to the most obvious stumps.

‘Ant capping, indeed!’ I said in my loudest and haughtiest tone (so the real estate agent could hear me).

A phone call to my solicitor and it was all over.

To recharge the batteries, turn off the lights.

The Bungle Bungles.

Yesterday, I posted a reminder about the Earth Hour to a web forum, where I have been a member for about eight years. It wasn't an impassioned plea for us all to return to the dark ages, just a simple reminder that the event was taking place tonight at 8pm.

I expected a couple of people to say they would join in and many to say nothing at all since it was off topic. What I didn't expect was a response full of anger and indignation:

"Frankly, I don't believe in those show-off actions. I don't think I will make the Earth better by spending an hour of my weekend without light, heating, and ability to heat food or water."

What can one do when such attitudes prevail?

To counter the negativity, I've dug out an old photo I took in Purnululu National Park in Western Australia in about 2001, where I spent three days camping. Despite the ice cold bore water out-door showers and the fly-blown pit latrines, they were three of the most rejuvenating and relaxing days I've ever had, anywhere. I could easily have stayed a month.

.

'Twas the night before Easter

I arrive home from work, I put my groceries away and I check my email, to find the following messages:

Dear R, B and H,

Words uttered by my opponent this morning in court:
"And then the Plaintiff determined to bring down on my client the wrath of grapes."

Warm regards,
C.


Dear C, R and H,

Zannuck F. Darryl's production
"The Wrath of Grapes"
By Steinbeck John,
Directed by Ford John,
With Fonda Henry,
A Fox-Century 20th Picture,

Cheers,
B.


Dear B, R and C,

Critics rave about the "Wrath of Grapes":

"More pinot-noir than film-noir"
Journal of the Professional Winemakers of Australia.

"A full bodied adaptation of a vintage classic. This ensemble cask are no mere bunch."
Association of Australian and New Zealand Grapegrowers.

Best to all,
H.

I'm asking C if she buried her opponent with a hatchet.

The thirteen minute mile.

This morning was the Adidas International Women’s Day fun run. At 7.30 am, 5000 Brisbane women, of all ages, shapes and sizes, gathered at South Bank to run and walk to support the Surf Life Saving Association.

I had entered the race several weeks ago with the grand plan of training regularly for the day. Time passed, work interfered and two days ago I was thinking, is the 9^th this weekend?!

The zimble is not known for its running ability. A wombat runs with greater speed and style. True to form, my school report card always said, “physical education: tries hard”. This was correct, in a sort of a fashion, if you could classify habitual falls and repetitive near drownings as enthusiastic participation.

Nevertheless, the passage of time and some, perhaps foolhardy optimism can make up for a great deal of ineptitude and so there I was this morning, running shoes on, the Bee Gees singing "Staying Alive' on my iPod and 5 km of fun run ahead.

The winner whipped around the riverside course in 17 minutes. My sister ran a very creditable 27 minutes. My time was 40 minutes and yes, as hard as it is to believe, I did run the whole way. This 40 minutes is 8 minutes per km, 4.6 miles per hour, 7.5 km/h and very, very slow. It's any wonder I wasn't mistaken for an arthritic tortoise. Next time I'll listen to some Rogue Traders. You never know. It might help.

Those slimy mung bean sprouts.

The profession generally regards patient confidentiality as inviolable. In fact, my sieve, no, make that colander like memory for names usually ensures my own patients' confidentiality.

Sometimes, though, it’s very tempting to break the rules, especially when an episode involves what can only be described as unbelievably mind-boggling stupidity. So, Mr Whoever-you-were, (we’ll call you “Jack”) prepare to be blogged.

Jack, aged about 65 years, was playing bachelor for a bit. Mrs Jack had gone overseas on a (I would say) well-earned ‘holiday with the girls’: a cruise to Thailand, to be precise.

I first met Jack on a medical ward at the very moment he was vomiting over my intern, who, at only three days into his first job, had not yet developed adequate foreign-bodily-fluid-projectile dodging skills (as in, ‘use the force, Luke’).

[You know, medicine in a tropical climate must be the only occupation in the world where one can expect to see real shit hitting a real fan on a semi-regular basis. In-coming!!! But I digress.]

Jack had been left to fend for himself. The mates, hearing of Mrs Jack’s departure, had turned up fairly swiftly and had eaten, over a few good footy matches on the telly and a slab of ice cold stubbies, most of the pre-prepared meals that Mrs Jack had left in the freezer for her husband to eat over the ten days she would be away.

Jack was crook. He disembarked at both ends for three days. Finally, the exodus settled and I was able to send him home. I said to him before he left, “Jack, sometimes people who have food-poisoning can think of something they ate that might have been suspicious”, letting my voice drift up hopefully at the end of the sentence.

“Well,” he said, “after the boys left, all I could find to eat was a plastic pot of mung bean sprouts that had been in the fridge for a while. They were a bit slimy at the bottom.”

Not typical, I thought, but possible. So, off Jack went home. The next day, there he was, back again, sick as a dog.

“Jack! What happened?” I asked, mentally listing a Hugh Laurie-style differential of obscure diagnoses I may have missed.

“Well, you know those slimy mung bean sprouts I told you about?”

“Yes, Jack.”

“Well, I know you said they might have caused my food poisoning but I wasn’t sure, so I ate the rest of them last night to see.”

Not arrested, apprehended.

As the popular British broadcaster, Steve Wright might say, this was a fine piece of muppetry and he'd be right.

The night was both dark and stormy. (Well, okay, it was inner-city Brisbane in October 2000 and it had been raining a bit). I was living and working in a seaside town about four hours drive north of Brisbane but that particular weekend I'd happily driven back to attend a small bon voyage party for a good friend and colleague. She had just taken a scholarship to study epilepsy at the neurology department, the Mayo clinic, Minnesota. (Not a bad achievement for a girl from Bris). We dined at an Indian resto on Park Road, Milton and asked for the bill around midnight. I said my goodbyes and walked back to my car, which I had left parked in a side street. So far so good.

I pulled out into the street and drove up to the T-junction at Park Road. The lights were red. There were two lanes. A non-descript white sedan was in the left lane, indicating left. I was in the right hand lane. Suddenly, I remembered I wasn’t driving home to where I used to live in Brisbane but to another friend’s place, where I had arranged to stay the night. I quietly slipped out of my lane into the left lane behind the white sedan. At this point, everything was still okay.

On the green signal, we both turned left onto Park Road and down to the next intersection at Milton Road. This is where my muppetry began. Since I had last been there, the intersection had changed with a new sign and I couldn't turn right as I had planned. There was nothing for it but to continue behind the white sedan, heading away from my friend’s flat.

By this time it was raining again. The asphalt was glistening under the street lights and visibility by my standards (the astigmatismatic myope's) and I imagine by Brisbane standards in general, was poor. The lines on the roads were barely visible. The sedan and I reached the next major intersection, a complex five-ways. Well, what was a zimble to do? I thought, 'I'm not sure where I am going but the white sedan seems to know where it is going, so, I'll follow it,' and I did, across the intersection.

I know this is tedious but I promise there is a reason for my terminal long windedness, all of it being part of a feeble attempt to ameliorate my muppetry, as you will see.

I realised this was now getting beyond a joke. I was still going in entirely the wrong direction. I turned in a side street and started back out into the traffic, heading for my friend's flat. Suddenly, behind me, in the rear vision mirror were two very large bright lights, very close. 'What a turkey!' I thought to myself, 'high beam in the city and this close?' As though my thoughts were read, the lights were dimmed and I thought nothing more of it. It was an uneventful trip to the street outside my friend's flat by the river at Hill End.

As I pulled in, to park across the road from the flat, suddenly, the lights were there again, right behind me. At this point, several expletives slipped past my lips, 'Sh*t-sh*t-sh*t' to be exact. Whoever was in the car had followed me all the way across town and it probably wasn't to ask for directions!

I considered my options. One was to stay in the car, lock the doors and call the police. Now, had I chosen this option 'A', my muppetry would have magnified a hundred-fold (see below). Fortunately, as it was, I chose what I called option 'B', which was to get out of the car and run like the clappers up to my friend's third floor flat.

I jumped from the car, my purse and keys in hand, slammed the door and started pelting across the road. As I did so, I caught a glimpse of two very fit-looking young men wearing jeans, tee-shirts and runners getting out of a non-descript white sedan and hurrying after me across the road. The expletives worsened. "F**k!" I said, sotto voce.

"Stop! Federal Police!" one of them bellowed.

It's at that sort of moment in life that you feel like your chest is about to cave in, never to draw another breath. I stopped and turned. Although my thoughts at this point were somewhat incoherent, I did understand that if I kept running, things could get worse and possibly involve the firing of guns. The two men were still moving forwards.

I started to edge away from them and one of the men said, "No, you have to stop, we're the police, I'm going to show you my ID."

At that point, fight or flight was giving way to pure fright, along with a strong desire to heave or collapse or simultaneously do both.

The IDs came out and sure enough, the two men were Detective Sergeant Smith and Detective Constable Jones of the A.F.P.

One said, "You can't stand there, in the middle of the road. Come back to the car".

So I did, thinking by this stage that I probably wasn't about to die. The questions from the Sergeant came thick and fast. Whilst the Constable took my drivers licence back to his radio or computer or whatever communications device the A.F.P. have in their car these days, I did my best to answer. Where was I living? Why was I in Brisbane? Whose car was it? (It was a car from the hospital pool). Why was I driving it? What was I doing at Milton? Who was I meeting? And so on and so forth.

Finally, the D.C. returned and handed me my licence.

"Well, that's fine, Miss," he said, "My partner and I are working in this area in collaboration with the drug squad and the CIB and we wanted to know why you were following us."

At that point, the full extent of my muppetry hit me like a Mack truck. I did the only face saving thing a zimble could do and burst into tears.

"I'm terribly sorry," I said shakily, "I always blubber when I get a fright."

The D.C. gave a wry smile and said, "Don't worry Miss, so does the Serg."

After that, they laughed and could not have been kinder or more gentlemanly if they tried. They asked if they could walk me up to my friend's flat and explain it all to her. I said no, thinking that I had wasted enough of their valuable time.

As I said, complete and utter muppetry.