Salt and corrosion

I've spent a lot of time this year reading mid-century (as in last century) mystery novels. This week: yet another instance of a detective describing a criminal as "groovy", as in "having a consistent MO". That's the second time I've seen that, so I gather that was a perfectly cromulent usage. Also, in a book from 1949: the idea that a young woman wearing pyjamas was, if not outrageous, slightly unusual.

Supermarket update: the toilet paper supply is fine, as it has been for months, but the tinned fruit shelves are empty, Alistair's favourite treat, Party Mix, is unavailable, and there is a four-per-shopper limit on lobsters.

This week's Friday Five is about weather (ETA: for the City by the Sea):

1. How much rain do you get as a yearly average?
According to the Bureau of Meteorology site, it's 892.7mm (about 35 inches for the imperially-minded).

2. How much snow do you get as a yearly average?
Not a single flake. Plenty of hail. And wind. So much wind. But no snow. Ask me about humidity instead, because that's on the BoM site: our average relative humidity is 73%.

3. Too much sun or not enough?
Too much at the height of summer; probably just enough the rest of the year. (Oh, the BoM site has that too: average annual daily sun hours is 2,330.)

4. When was the last time you looked for shapes in the clouds?
That's not something I do, although I do like looking at clouds.

5. What was the worst weather event to hit your area in recent years?
We had a one-in-fifty year flood in October.

(That is quite the cure-all.)

This time last week I was itching to get out. This week: not so much. We've had three days of window-rattling, brain-hurting, howling gales. I took Alistair out before, at his insistence. Once out, he put his ears down flat and ran up every tree in a wind-induced mania.

Tonight I braved the elements to pick up what has become our regular fortnightly restaurant takeaway. Tonight we decided to order from a traditional bistro, having classic chicken Kievs and roast vegetables; good, but not as good as the gourmet pizzas from last fortnight. (I haven't yet had the warm chocolate fudge brownie for dessert, but it smells amazing.) The restaurant was interesting: it's all takeaway and delivery now, so they've pushed all the tables to the centre of the room with the chairs on top, and taken all the pictures and mirrors off the wall and leant them against the tables. Maybe they're planning to paint?

April books read

Knitting ate into a lot of my reading time this month.

* Around the World in 80 Trees - Jonathan Drori (2018) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* The Thirteen Clocks - James Thurber (1950) ★ ★ ★
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Sunday, being 30 June, is the last day of Australia's financial year, which means in practice that tomorrow is really the last day. I'm feeling anxious about next week, which is layered with all sorts of things happening at once: year end, pay week, colleagues away. And only tomorrow left to prepare.

I generally feel too hot rather than too cold, so I don't need to bother much with keeping warm, but during the cold snap last week — a proper cold snap: the milk froze in the fridge! — I bought myself a wheat pack. It goes in a cover that looks like a fox, so it's very cute, but more to the point: the foot of the bed is warm! It's the best. Why did nobody tell me?

Well, someone did, I suppose. The late Miss Pink had one for her old bones. Just the thing for old cats, apparently. Not for young ones: Alistair prefers to attack the fox cover and gnaw on its ears.

I'm so glad this week is nearly over, f-list. It's been one thing after another. Which is how things normally happen, I suppose, but there does seem to have been a lot of them this week and all of varying degrees of stressfulness.

Monday to Wednesday we had a storm. Three days of bone-slicing wind and pounding hail, just to give everything an apocalyptic air.

Alistair had his annual vaccination last Friday, which always knocks him flat. He's all right now, I should say, but he spent four days sleeping, not eating or drinking, and generally looking sorry for himself. He's such a chatterbox, it's just not right to have him silent for four days. "I never thought I'd miss that racket," said my mother, "but the quiet is unnerving." I'm now expecting his whiskers to fall out, which is what happens whenever he gets stressed.

Monday afternoon my boss, who is in a different state to me, called to say he and the powers that be had decided not to renew the contract of one of my accounts officers when it finishes at the end of June. Nothing to do with his work, but restructuring. My boss said he'd do the deed, but I said i thought I should be there. So I had a sleepless night on Monday and felt sick all Tuesday until it finally happened. Not to make it all about me — it was far worse for the accounts assistant — but it was upsetting on a number of levels, from having to let go someone who does good work and whom I really like, to feeling let down by the powers that be. (I would have more to say about this, but in light of my company's policy on not talking about work on social media, just imagine me making a Marge Simpson grumble at the situation.)

I've spent all week trying to track down an EFTPOS banking terminal that was supposed to be delivered to a new shop that my work is opening in a town in another state. I called the bank to ask why it hadn't been delivered by the due date, and the guy said, "Oh, our system shows the courier tried to deliver it at seven a.m. on the day, but left as there was no-one there." Well, of course there wasn't. And what had they done with it then? Well... no-one could tell me. For four days! This one little EFTPOS machine was being driven around rural New South Wales and no-one knew where it was. Anyway, it turned up at the shop at ten this morning, which, as I said to shop manager when she rang to tell me, was legitimately the best news I had all week.

At home, I received an email on Wednesday that a parcel I was expecting had been delivered and "left in a safe space". Not my letterbox. Not the electricity meter box. Not at the back door. Even in the most idyllic weather, my front step couldn't be described as a safe space for a parcel, but this week, if any courier had been silly enough to leave it there, it would have been blown five streets away. So I looked online to see what to do about missing parcels and found Australia Post's definitions page, which defines "delivered" as: Great news, your parcel has been 'delivered'! I mean, yes. It was "delivered".

And my favourite work shoes have worn inners, so this afternoon I went and bought some new ones. They're quite cheerful, I suppose, so maybe things are looking up — but I think I've earned a lie-in tomorrow morning.

It is HOT, f-list. I'm not ready for hot yet.

Working full-time has really cut into my reading time, hmph.

October books read

* Spinning Silver - Naomi Novik (2018) ★ ★ ★ ★;
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* The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - Stuart Turton (2018) ★ ★ ★
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I planned to write about what a delightful time of year this is. End of winter citrus season, start of summer stone fruit season. Mandarins and nectarines, my two favourite fruits, in my fruit bowl at the same time. What could be better?

Only today, spring decided to do a bit of a sneak preview of summer, and the 43°C (109°F) in my back garden was not delightful at all. AT ALL. Tomorrow is supposed to be 22°C (72°F), and Thursday 16°C (60°F). Make up your mind, spring.

Too hot and not adjusted to it, I spent the afternoon flaked out on the sofa watching an old episode of Vera. And that is how I came to see an advertisement for... well, this:



There is a lot to unpack there. Not least: what is she eating to make it doughnut-shaped?

After Vera, a repeat of Grand Designs, in which the couple building the house budgeted for £800,000 and came in at £2.3 million. They were a particularly irritating couple. And very bad at budgeting. I mean, at some point, you'd just get cheaper taps, wouldn't you?

Today I found out that when the Bureau of Meteorology predicts showers, it means precipitation from a cumulus cloud. Nothing to do with length and severity, which is what I thought. Rain is precipitation from a stratiform cloud. The things you learn.

Today I brought out the ladder and looked at the top shelf of my wardrobe. The top shelf! There is stuff up there since my mother bought this house over twenty years ago. Case in point: an ancient weekend travel bag. I dragged that down to add it to the pile of stuff for charity. But what's this? It was full! I opened it with trepidation: three stuffed toys. That must have been how I carried them in all those years ago. I added them to the charity pile.

That was difficult. I am not a huge fan of stuffed toys, but things with eyes looking at me give me the guilts. I couldn't shut them back in the bag, obviously. They might suffocate. So they sat in their bag like an open-topped convertible and I felt terrible. Then my mother came home and said, "Oh, charity shops will love them, Jan buys them in bulk." Her friend Jan is seventy. What does she do with bulk numbers of stuffed toys? "She buys them for the dogs to rip apart." Oh dear lord. This is too much for the nerves. I'll be glad when I get them out of the house tomorrow. (One of them is a koala that has a joey in its pouch. Going to a dog. I'm traumatised just thinking about that.)

October books read

* Do Not Say We Have Nothing - Madeleine Thien (2016) ★ ★ ★ ★
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* All That Man Is - David Szalay (2016) ★ ★ ★
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* Hot Milk - Deborah Levy (2016) ★ ★
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* Many A True Word - Richard Anthony Baker (2013) ★ ★ ★
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All the winds of the earth. It is particularly windy around southern Australia at the moment, although I can tell that without looking at that page. The local paper today described our weather as 'an arctic blast'. Arctic. I ask you. They have obviously failed to notice the large, icy landmass to our south.

I have finished another essay, the last for this term. So that's good. Now for an exam. But that's not until the first week of June, so I can stop for breath for a bit.

I have just qualified for long service leave for the first time in my life. How exciting! I believe this is an Australian peculiarity, so to explain: if we work for an employer for a certain length of time, we get extra leave on top of our normal annual leave entitlement. My work's standard contract offers thirteen weeks after ten years. Sadly, I don't have thirteen weeks to take. It will be paid out instead when my work shuts down later in the year, but honestly, I think I'd rather have thirteen weeks off. Hmph.

I mentioned to my mother that I have been thinking about getting another cat. 'Oh good,' she said. 'If you're talking to a cat, you won't be wandering around the house talking to yourself.' I wonder what she thinks I do at home alone.

The temperature finally dropped below 40C (or 104F if that's how you roll) just after 7:30pm today. The City by the Sea doesn't do hot weather very often, but when it does, it's thorough. I had sparrows sitting on my windowsill at work today, panting in the tiny area of shade. Poor things. Same tomorrow, and then there's meant to be a change.

In the meantime, I'm sitting outside in the almost dark, making the most of the tiny sea breeze. Percy is tootling about sniffing things, completely oblivious to next door's cat watching him from the fence about three metres away. Idiot.

Here is a thing. A new cosmetic dermatology clinic has recently opened not far from my work. The building is bright pink. I was talking to someone today and she said she'd recently been there to get a mole map done. She was a little early, so the receptionist pointed her to the waiting room. 'We'll put the charge on your bill,' she said. 'What charge?' asked the patient. 'Why, the waiting room charge!' Apparently they charge several dollars per hour to wait in the waiting room. The lady I was talking to wasn't having that, so she went and sat in her car until the appointed hour, then went back into the clinic. They still weren't ready, so she told them to ring her when she could come in, and went back out to her car. I have never heard of such a thing before.

When I left for work this morning my weather station said it was 1.7C. On my way, I passed a jogger wearing a singlet and shorts, and a pair of gloves. She was barely moving. Still, I'm sure the gloves helped.

Instead of those irritating notes from the universe that I used to get, I now get a daily 'provocation', which is a short thought that's supposed to make me think. Normally, what it makes me think is, 'I must remember not to subscribe to this sort of thing,' but this week, it has made me think twice. So there's a record. One of the things it asked me was:

Name 3 things you're tolerating right now. If you had to pick one of those three to tidy up and get out of the way, which one would you pick?

I'm only tolerating two things at the moment. One is an annoying colleague (guess!) and the other is a sore gum where a wisdom tooth is trying to come through. One I don't think I can tidy up and the other I hope will settle down soon. I probably am due for a trip to the dentist, though. Joy.

stasia linked to this colour test. I scored 11. I think I could have done better, but I rushed the last one.

Also, there are two types of people in the world: Chaos Muppets and Order Muppets. I'm an Order Muppet, without a doubt.