I had barely turned the shower on this morning when my mother started banging on the bathroom door. "Shower quick!" she shouted. "Come outside, quick!" So I showered and dressed as quickly as I could and came out of the bathroom to find her hopping up and down in the garden. "Look, look!" she said, pointing up into the magnolia tree. So I look, looked, and this is what I saw:



It climbed to the very top of the magnolia tree, where it curled up for a nap... until the birds found it. The crows kept circling the top of the tree, the magpies sat on Next Door's roof and stared at it, and a very angry mudlark got right in the magnolia and cheeped loudly at it. So it climbed down and stomped down the driveway and along the street.

After that bit of excitement, I went to the bakery, which was staffed by two teenage girls. As I came in, one of them was saying to the other, "So I told him to go and he went out the door, then he came back and I had to chase him out again." She was in the middle of serving me when the other girl said, "Look, there he is again!" I turned to see this persistent rowdy customer, but it wasn't a customer at all. It was a wasp. They were still trying to chase it out the door when I left.

Friday evening had the weirdest atmosphere. Just... off-kilter. If this were a film, Friday night would have been a build up to someone being kidnapped by aliens or whatever. It's autumn here, so the nights are drawing in, but on Friday the sky darkened like a bruise mid-afternoon. Ominous clouds looming over us looking out our full-length office windows.

Friday was the last business day of the month, which is a long shift for me doing month-end reporting when everyone goes home. Come five o'clock, everyone packed up, and by quarter-past it was just me and the night. At five to six, the rain finally started, and at six, I was done, so I put up my umbrella and headed out into the deluge. Black sky with orange street lights reflected on the rain-slicked roads.

Because I never know what time month-end will finish, it's our takeaway night. I drove to our preferred fish and chippery, based in the shopping centre at the north end of the city, windscreen wipers going full tilt. The car park was black and orange-slicked too, ringed with dark Norfolk Island pines, and something had set the corellas off*, a whole flock of them circling overhead from treetop to treetop while making the most dreadful racket, flashes of white against the dark grey clouds.

Inside, the fish and chip shop's numbering system was haywire. I gave my order and was given number 120, but almost immediately after I stepped away, they called for number 133, and a man who had clearly been waiting for a while came to collect his order. After him, they called 96, 115, 119, 125, then me.

Back home in the rain, dinner, then a brief break in the weather. Alistair wanted to go for a walk in the dark. I put his little harness on and he charged down the driveway and onto the footpath. I looked back into our garden and there was a big white cat with bright blue eyes staring back at me from our doormat.

A house further down the street was having some sort of gathering, which involved an hour of setting off maritime distress flares and howling. Not dogs howling. People.

The wind was so heavy during the night that my magnetic shutters were blown open twice, even though the windows were closed.

Saturday morning woke calm and sunny with the lawn full of nectarine leaves. (We don't have a nectarine tree.)



* Non-Australian readers: see this YouTube video for a flock of corellas making a daytime noise in a Norfolk Island pine. Imagine that in the dark and the rain.

I am now on a week of leave. So far I have: been back to the neighbourhood second-hand book shop that is closing down and bought some more Chalet School and Miss Silver novels; driven past a car accident with flashing police lights everywhere; been to the lakeside farmers' market and witnessed a fight between two swans right in the middle of the market; seen a two-tailed lizard running along a fence; tidied my handbag and found a Nestlé Crunch bar I didn't know I had. Two-and-a-half days of non-stop action and unexpected thrills.

The car accident was the second time this week I have seen the Crime Scene Van in action (that's painted on the side of it). I walk to work past a building site on the TAFE campus, and the other morning the Crime Scene Van was parked nearby and there were two people in those pale blue hooded coveralls and two men in high-vis vests and hard hats looking at something down the side of the building.

(It occurs to me I should clarify when I say "swans" I mean black swans, so you can more accurately picture the fight at the market.)

February questions

25. What is the least inspiring/interesting meal you've eaten?
I'm sure as a student, I had plain buttered noodles as a whole meal at some stage. Once in a restaurant, I ordered a side salad and received a bowl of lettuce with two slices of tomato hidden in it. Once when I was little, my grandfather and I were alone for dinner, and he was so excited to make sausages the way he liked them, instead of the way my grandmother cooked them for him, and the way he like them was boiled. Boiled pink flesh with grey skin flaking off, they remain among the least appetising things I have ever seen. He hoed in with Rosella Sweet Mustard Pickles on top. I loved my grandfather dearly, but he had terrible taste in sausages.

Oh, and cakes! Sometimes in a café you might see a lovely cake, beautifully decorated, but it turns out to taste underwhelming. I'm looking at you, overly sticky and sweet orange and almond cake at Club Warrnambool. There are few things more dispiriting than a disappointing cake.

26. What really needs to be modernized?
A good few of Australia's politicians, media and business class need to modernise their ideas. We're currently in a bout of nonsense about some senior female politicians apparently being "mean girls".

27. "What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger!" Do you believe hardship make a person stronger? If so, under what conditions and at what point is it too much hardship? If not, what makes a person stronger?
No. What doesn't kill you physically is likely to get you hospitalised or leave you quite unwell for a long time, and there's no reason mental or emotional stress would be any different.

I think a person's reaction to hardship depends so much on context: their personality, their circumstances, what the hardship is, and so many other factors. And what is a strong reaction - persevering, overcoming, trying something else, or walking away?

28. What's invisible, but you wish people could actually see it?
After two years of Covid, it would be nice if people who had it grew, I don't know, bright green freckles or something. Not permanently. And not sore like pox. Just temporary, painless, surface-only markings during the contagious period.

Nothing like the existential threat of not having a journal to make me want to post in it.

Everything hurts. I've pulled my right calf muscle. I have tendonitis in my left wrist. I have a weird callus on the ball of my left foot.

On my way to work I have to walk past a row of townhouses that are let out as B&Bs. This week there was a family with two little girls staying in the end one. They stood on the balcony every morning, shouting"HELLO" at everyone who walked by and jumping up and down when anyone (me) waved back.

Friday morning, they were gone. Instead, there was an older lady in a dressing gown, standing in the little front garden. "Oh, you're so beautiful, won't you take some bread?" she said as I passed - not to me, but to a magpie that was standing on the path.

The buckle came off my watch band during the week, so Friday afternoon I took it to a jewellery shop to get a new band. The woman who served me had to take my details for a form. "What's your surname?" she said, and wrote it down. "And your first name?" I told her Alicia, and she said, "Oh, of course, I just read it engraved on the back of the watch." She laughed. "And that's why I'm not a detective."

There is a lovely little second-hand bookshop round the corner from here, sadly closing down. Well, sad for me, anyway. Not the owners. I took a stroll down there this morning, and found they're retiring to a beachside cottage in Portarlington. So that's nice for them. I found a couple of mid-series Chalet School books I've never read before and a couple of Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver novels (my current reading jag). They've got three weeks left before they close, and I've half a mind to go back later in the week for second helpings.

February

13. What was the last song you listened to of your choosing? What was the last song you heard that was imposed on you (e.g. background music at a store, in someone else's car, etc.)?

I had music on shuffle while I was outside with Alistair earlier, and what came up was "Ti Amo" by Laura Branigan.

(I started writing these answers during the week, so this was written on a weekday.) The last song I heard that was imposed on me was in my work's weird upstairs foyer. There are a couple of armchairs for people waiting for something/someone, but mostly it's a place for passing through to somewhere else, and yet this is the one place in the building that gets piped music. I suspect it's our hold music, and it's a weird hodge-podge of pop songs from the seventies to... well, not to the present, exactly, but I have heard early Britney, so to the early aughts. You never know what you're going to get when you wander through. Today, I got this:



(I've never seen that video before. Those shiny suits are amazing.)

14. Do you play mobile games on your phone? If yes, what is the most addictive game you've played?
I have Merge Magic on my phone, which is one of those ones where you merge three plants to make one bigger plant and three eggs to make a dragon and so on. On my laptop I have Gardenscapes: New Acres, which is a match three game. They are both chronic time sucks.

15. Do you text more or call more? Why?
Text. I'm not big on phone calls.

16. Most important in a partner or best friend: intelligence or sense of humour?
What sort of intelligence? What sort of humour? I'd say kindness tops both.

17. February 17 is "Random Acts of Kindness Day". What random act of kindness would you like someone to perform for you?
It wouldn't be random if I had a say in it, would it?

18. What are you going to do this weekend?
Today is Saturday, and I had to go shopping this morning for assorted things: cat food, cyan and magenta toner cartridges, a USB adaptor cable, a cleaning brush that will fit into my olive oil bottle. In the afternoon I set up my new iMac. Tomorrow, I might go to the farmers' market in the morning, and that's as far as I've planned ahead.

19. Would you rather have all your meals prepared for you, but not have any say in the menu (outside of certain dietary restrictions e.g. allergies), or sleep eight hours every night, but not get to choose your bedtime?
How are either of these things ever going to happen, unless I end up in some sort of prison? I suppose I'd choose the food one; it might mean I've hired a personal chef.

I received a text message today, reminding me to update the vaccination certificate on my phone so it says I've had three vaccinations. I thought it did that automatically, but okay, I'll do that. You'll be shocked - SHOCKED! - to find it didn't go smoothly. I was not feeling up to dealing with that, so I'll try again tomorrow.

The reason I wasn't feeling up to it was that my iMac was playing up, constantly rebooting itself and opening up with a pink and white striped screen. Very pretty, but not really what it's meant to do. Long story short, I think I'm in the market for a desktop computer.

(That reminds me, when I was little, the newspaper used to have a puzzle page with a logic problem on it, and the introduction every week said something about solving it with your "necktop computer". And every week I skipped over it, thinking, well, I don't have one of those. It was years before I worked it out. Clearly I wasn't ready for the puzzle if I couldn't work out the instructions.)

In happier news, look at my new dahlia! It's called Neon Sunset:



February

4. Regardless of your age, what "old person" thing(s) do you do?
I love a good cardigan. I like nice tins of shortbread, particularly if I can re-use the tin to store something afterwards. I have a bag of Werther's Originals in my car's glovebox. I take photos of my dahlias. Honestly, I'm just waiting to age into my old lady-ness.

5. Do you often get the hiccups? If yes, do you have a go-to cure for them?
I wouldn't say "often", but I sometimes get the hiccups after eating. There's no obvious reason why one day and not another. The hiccups themselves are annoyingly squeaky. I sneeze quietly, but I hiccup loudly. Quickly drinking a big glass of water fixes it. I can feel the water pushing through the... air blockage?

6. What's the best Wi-Fi name you've seen?
That's not really a thing round here. My wifi's name is the default name, and all my neighbours are the same (using the default name, I mean, not having the same name as me). Nothing very exciting at all.

It was my long day at work. Month end: I have to wait until everyone finishes so I can close off the financials. Completed uneventfully and home in time for dinner. Unlike November...

Back in November, I had colleague Brooke with me, learning what to do in case I ever get hit by a bus. That made a long day longer, as I had to explain everything and Brooke made copious notes and double-checked everything. So it was after seven when we finished, and a little later when we left our stuff on our desks and went into the kitchen to wash up our mugs... and then stayed in the kitchen when our swipe cards wouldn't let us back into the office. I swiped. Brooke swiped. I swiped again, just in case. Brooke swiped again, just in case.

This was bad. There are a number of exits, but all of them need the swipe card. If the swipe card doesn't work, we're stuck in the middle of the building with access to the kitchen, bathroom and a couple of meeting rooms. We couldn't even get back into our office, where we'd left our bags and phones.

Just as we were looking at each other, wondering what to do, the CEO's personal assistant came past on her way home and very kindly swiped us back into our office. Phew.

We have since had our swipe cards fixed to give us 24-hour access, so that will never happen again. (And if it did, I have realised, there are computers and phones in the meeting rooms, so we'd be able to contact someone that way.)


January

31. Toilet paper: over or under?
Over, and anyone who does otherwise is a monster.

Today I filled in my post-booster survey (no, I did not have any reaction other not sleeping well that night and a bruise-like feeling on my arm for a day).

My mother and I went out for lunch with her best friend, Colleen, and her daughter, Ali. Ali is a nurse like my mother. Today she was telling us about a troublesome visitor to the hospital she works at, and finished by saying, "Anyway, you just can't fix stupid."

"But you CAN sedate it," said my mother, and the two of them laughed uproariously. Obviously a bit of nursing humour.

Four more zucchini today, and a dinner of savoury zucchini crumble followed by warm zucchini brownie and yoghurt.


January

29. If you are an only child, do you wish you had siblings? If you have siblings, do you wish you were an only child?

I'm an only child and I do not wish it otherwise. Someone said to me once I didn't seem like an only child, meaning, I think, that I didn't fit her mental image of an only child as being loud and all about me. I'm quiet and all about me instead.

I woke up this morning to feel Sunday and thunder in the air. The thunder was right, but not the day. Mid-week public holidays are very confusing.

I used my day off to make zucchini brownies. I used vegetable oil instead of coconut oil and they worked well. Next time (and there will have to be a next time, as there was another five zucchini today) I'll toss in some toasted walnuts and orange zest for added excitement.

As well as the five zucchini, today's harvest also included two cucumbers and a bowlful of green beans. I could be self-sufficient for about a month, I reckon, provided I could survive an all-zucchini diet.


January

26. If you opened a business, what kind of business would it be?
My long-held (joke) dream job is to have some sort of twee little shop (selling only Golden Age detective fiction, say, or knitting supplies) that is also a detective agency for extremely minor problems. Or being a cobbler! A cobbler... who solves crimes.

Finally, I am boosted! I was a little worried because, unlike last week, they hadn't sent me any reminders, but they had me on the list and happily jabbed me, so all's well.

Six more zucchini today.


January

24. If you could switch two movie/book/TV characters, what switch would lead to the most inappropriate movie/book/TV show?
Well, this is just asking for two wildly disparate characters, isn't it? How about Winnie the Pooh and Pennywise the Clown? Sauron and the man covered in saucepans from the Faraway Tree books? Dracula and Anne of Green Gables?