Australia day

I don't know what I've done to the writing in this oh tech probs again it looks like weird old and tiny computer text oh we'll will see how it posts, if I can read it. I am lazing around in bed playing with the ipad, it's Australia day there are lots of events planned and fireworks but we will just stay home and one of us is going back to work after holidays, not me so someone will be a bit miserable today. I have been looking at a new app I done loaded called houzz it is really good if you are interested in interior design, who isn't. Well quite a few people really. I said to one of the golf lady's we were reno- ing a bit, she said we don't change anything and I thought that would be a relief but we do have to do the downstairs bathroom it is like a 70s pod bath but there are stress marks in the plastic I'm afraid we'll be sitting in the foundations. We went to ikea again and the Picasso exhibition. I don't know what I feel about Picasso you can feel the greatness and the inspiration the playfulness the great technique but to me he is a mystery of a man a kind of minatour in a laberynth. A bit frightening and dangerous that pulling apart of women's faces is really threatening. I had a dream that I was being chased by my killer and I was running away then I found a studio and shelter there someone said art is your answer you have always been an artist. Well I don't paint or do art really but I have always loved being in studios and around art. We are watching a collection of videos I bought called the life of a painting, they look at a painting such as the Primavera and the Nightwatch and tell you it's history. Ikea's was good again but we have to learn to pace ourselves we carried too much around and we got too fuddled and tired. We bought some lovely sheets and towels and more of their nice candles and had a good look at their bathrooms. Will have to measure up and pick the things. Gotta get up, hungry.

There is a crack in everything

thats how the light gets in, thank you Leonard (Cohen), it is playing while we are taking down the Christmas tree and I want to cry, my mothers decorations my sister's ones she gave us, the childrens ones made at school. Way too many. You cant live in memories and it all goes so fast. My favourite one is a santa ball made of beads because I bought it at the church shop and it would have taken so much work to do and was made by an person I dont know. I'm not religious but who in our age doesnt owe a debt to Jesus and his way of kindness and enlightenment.

Night Duty

I worked last night and then tonight, 10 hour nights are too long for me. One of the girls went home sick she looked terrible, problems with drink we think but no one really mentions it. Thats Australia no one does interventions. One of the other girls (well girls all over 50) says we have to nurse her along, get her son grown and educated. I think it goes in binges with her, good for a while then not. Drinking is seriously scarey in this country people call me a "light weight" because I cant drink much and I think thank goodness. Lucky have passed the trait on to my daughters they are not good at drinking big amounts and I'm glad.
I call this time of year the drinking season, it goes from school break up till Australia day on the 26th, but then its any excuse for lots of people, playing sport, watching sport, having a baby, getting married funerals etc. We went to my friends fathers funeral and every photo of him he had a drink in hand. If you say anything about drinking you are a wowser and you get called names. Its such a worry with your children. I have a good friend who gets so nasty when she is drinking, or when she is waiting to start I dont see her so much any more. I mean we do like having a glass or two of red and enjoy having beers of the world at Christmas. I guess in health jobs we are aware of the other side of the fun.
Anyway got to go to bed

ipad

The darling girls gave us an ipad each for christmas, motherhood pays off at last, I got a white one and he got the black one, well black bezel and silver back. It is completely obsessive and I should figure out how to write this blog on it but I like my computer too so I'll do that later, I've been downloading lots of stuff but its very slow at downloading movies so I'll have to do that on the computer. I had to upgrade this computer as it didn't know what an ipad was when we connected them up, funny.
I've miserable a lot as usual all kinds of bad thoughts. Like Buffy back from the dead and not entirely happy about it. Difficult to explain to anyone especially as no visible signs people still asking about it and me still saying I dont talk about it. 2 horrible years in February I think I shouldn't be here you wonder if you should be alive, like a butterfly beating its wings in the amazon causing a hurricane. The things you do and effect. Then you read people deciding they will do great charity stuff but I'm kind of Christopher Hitchens about the mother Teresas of the world. Everyone seems on to that stuff, charities spring up like weeds. For sure some are of good intent but a lot of founders seem to driving the charity cars and going on the charity flights. Not my thing in nursing you see the results of care can  be mixed.

I am reading a book about mind body healing that is a bit helpful, relaxation techniques like deep breathing, funny how you have to learn the same stuff over and over again. This is our tree it is a lovely shape, we have to take it down soon but I miss it.

karma

Its friday going for a surf this afternoon then work on Christmas eve and Christmas day yuck. I read this thing a nurse wrote that she was complaining about work and someone said to her you're a nurse you shouldn't complain, you are heaping up lots of good karma. Well lets hope so. We always say about the horrors that run the place what comes around goes around and its true. Which I think means they will get what they deserve. Only people dont really and it doesn't matter much. The longer you live the more you see that even the most favoured get thumped.
My sister is home from Saudi for the holidays and agonizing over a patients dentures she may or may not have lost. I said this is the kind of crap we have been trained to worry over all our lives.
It has been raining like a monsoon climate, well nearly so the gardens full of drought resistant plants must be suffering, my rainforrest garden has gone nuts so I've bought this long pruner a chain saw on a pole, I'm not supposed to use chain saws but too bad, might get my daughter to help, the co-ordinated one, its pretty heavy. Must do a little weeding.

update or die

Havent posted couldnt work out the changes in blogger, oh why dont they run a kind of web for oldies, that doesnt change all the time, cept no one thinks they are old anymore, 70 yr olds think they are 20. My daughter said the title, update or die. Its nearly christmas and we have the tree and presents, too many, through I havent bought much. My sister is home but she is in Sydney seeing the Picasso show, I will see it after Christmas. Ordered the meat today and did aquaroebics. Its nice to have a break from tennis and golf, had the parties. Just going to do the shopping this afternoon. We are working christmas so our Christmas will be on Boxing day which works out alright as the girls can go to their partners christmases and they can owe us one. Reading the Game of Thrones it is wonderful, on the last book now. You know when you know something will be really famous one day but you cant get anyone interested in it (early computing). Oh well their loss.
Christmas always worries me, the Christmas deaths. My father dies the week before Christmas and other worst things.
Underneath the dead
in street names.
and memory
Like a thief takes the living
and strips them of connection
Until the world is a grey evening
Longing longing for what is not
Or ever will be again. I looked for you everywhere
After you died
Grief is madness.

Sydney boho

We went up to Sydney to see Sydney uni production of Into the Woods, daughter's best friend in it. We love Sondheim and this musical probably the first. Everytime I see it I get more out of it. This production was so funny, the cast was all young so they bought energy and humour to it, a little lacking in the singing  but made up for in the laughs. A wonderful live orchestra and a theatre so small you could nearly pat the cow. We parked near the railway line and walked through the lovely terrace houses to King St which is the main drag. I wish I had taken pictures but I was feeling a bit off on the walk like I couldnt feel my feet weird and we hadnt had lunch so we went to nice burger place Moo, had lunch and then coffee at knitting and coffee place. She had stacks of Mon Tricot which was a French knitting magazine from the 70's which I finally sent away a sub for and they sent back they were closing which broke my knitting heart. She wasnt selling her copies but she said I could borrow them but I didnt like to as we live too far. I said you should get a photocopier and charge to copy patterns. I think it would be alright for the old magazines. I bought 2 new magazines, Designer Knits which I think is the new Vogue knitting and a Rowan knitting book, The Milk collection and a ball of wool for socks.
We saw the new Ikea store at Tempe was opening soon, it had the chairs in the window of the restaurant  what joy if they just had wool as well. We love Ikea, one of the tennis ladies has never been to Ikea I couldnt believe it. Might suggest it for our christmas outing.
When I first lived in Sydney Newtown was our town, its just up the road from Sydney uni was cheap and sleazy just the way you like life as a young one and interesting, migrants and migrant food we had never seen. We'd eat in a Lebanese place with all the lovely cakes and wonder why all these men would go past us upstairs and give us funny looks. Later someone told us it was a brothel. I would like to buy a house there but now those tiny terraces cost as much or more than our house. Still is it only for the young the excitement of the new and different?
My best friend just loves Sydney and aches to move back but I think it is being young again that she craves. I dont feel like that but I wasnt good at being young, but then not so good at being old. I like looking into worlds but I never feel part of them. Still fun to look.