There are goats too

I like it here. I like my job. I like deciding after a long day to keep driving past my driveway and getting lost on dirt roads between recently mown lucerne fields and knee high corn plants dancing in the wind. I like the way the dust billows out behind the tyres, and how the ruts shudder up into the steering wheel as the galahs and cockatoos rise out in front of me.

I like sitting up in bed and getting a call to come in and doing something helpful and useful. I like filling in my diary at the end of the day and working out my billings. I like sitting back on the couch in absolute silence with the BBC's production of Emma (very pretty, almost as good as P&P).

There is something about big lungfuls of crispy clean air that makes life very worth living. But at night, curled up in my single bed in the deep dark silence, I miss Bingley. I know he's missing me too.

Running on empty

I've really truly got nothing. My brain is a big ball of empty. I'm tired and grumpy and vaguely weepy and emotional. Cognitive processes are taking a backseat to all of the above.

See you tomorrow.

qwerty

I'm lying on my childhood bed, in my childhood room watching a Sandra Bullock movie and feeling about 16 years old. It's so strange to be in my parents' house again, in my old room with the window that let in the light every day of my adolescence. I had so many dreams here. So many fears. But every day the sun would rise over me, and that friendly warmth always reminded me that there will be a tomorrow.

I didn't often feel warm there. I was gawky; unlike other girls. I didn't know who I was or what I was going to be. I wanted to be accepted but I wanted to be different too. I wanted to be something, so unsure and yet so certain that there was something out there that I was supposed to do. Something that mattered.

There are no ghosts here. I thought there would be, little hauntings of that girl. A little girl with almost black hair down to her waist with no style that had only ever seen the scissors of her mother. Eyebrows that desperately needed a wax so that anyone else could notice the longest black eyelashes that most people had ever seen. Such a stupid thing to be attached to, but the only thing she knew that was perfect about her.

A little girl who listened to Pachelbel and read Tennyson in between drawing diagrams to prove Pythagoras' theorem. I don't do enough of that any more. Or enough watching terrible romantic comedy movies that have me crying even though (Or perhpas because) they're terrible.

I worked 64 hours in 4 days.

I think I might lie down now.

Wistful

I love the way that the road out the front of the hospital curves away. No grid pattern streets here, instead a meandering country road that diverts for no apparent reason disappearing into the horizon. I stood watching it this afternoon, the wind whipping my face and making me shiver as it streaked across the wide open plains. I gulped it in, all that beautiful fresh country air smelling of honey and dust and grass and something wild and sweet. My hair getting in my eyes as I hungrily ate up the glorious sunset and the Summer bright hues where the sky meets the trees.

Today was busy, but steady busy, not hectic. I drove in this afternoon to watch the sheep grazing together and felt content instead of a spike of adrenaline. Stuffed a chocolate biscuit or 5 into my mouth and headed off for the hospital to do my evening rounds. I wore stilettos today. Sensible (if a stiletto heel can ever be sensible), black, shiny, plain shoes with a stiletto heel that made me feel happy with every clickclacky step.

Lots of variety today, some silly funny moments and some horrific ones. I miss my family so much, but in a very abstract way. It's not as visceral as I would have thought, I know they're well and looking after each other, and it's OK that I'm not there because I can give them a call and know that they're doing just fine. More a wistful sort of way. In that way I was a little homesick when I first went away to college.

Wandin Valley, Day Two

By 0730 I had admitted 2 people to hospital, pronounced someone dead and written up the complicated meds for a palliative patient.

By 0930 I had seen 4 patients in clinic before being called to emergency to look after an unstable 11 year old girl before transferring her to a more appropriate hospital.

By 1030 I was back in clinic with a backlog of patients and my "breaks" being filled with more patients.

By 1230 I had caught up enough to eat lunch.

By 1630 I was all caught up with my clinic patients, had made 3 phone calls and accepted 2 patients to be admitted to hospital.

By 1730 I was feeling cocky and started cooking dinner.

By 1830 I was sitting in a one room emergency department with 3 unstable patients, taking bloods off one, asking for oxygen on another and realising with a jab of fear that I was in charge of this chaos. That the two nurses were looking at me for what to do. Then Bingley called and I chatted to my girls and wanted to giggle at the ridiculousness of chatting about how art class went today and what they made in the sandpit as I sorted out troponins and ECGs.

By 2030 I had sorted everybody out and I came home to eat my half cooked lukewarm dinner.

By 2130 I had fielded 3 phone calls about my full hospital and had changed finally out of my work clothes.

By 2230 I hope to be asleep, as I have to get up at 0130 to take bloods and I also am fully booked out at clinic tomorrow.


Wheeeeee

Day One

I'm so tired. I went to the local supermarket after I finished my clinic, put some healthy food in my trolley with the idea of coming home and making something tasty. Then unlocked my room, pulled on my college jersey and ate a carrot. With yoghurt chaser.

Too tired to eat.

I woke up in the silence, I got ready, had a shower, ironed my hair, did my make up, put on my japanese cherry blossom silk blouse and my pencil skirt and my heels and then sat on the couch and wondered what else I should do.

It's bizarre laying back here at arsenic hour, when usually life is so hectic and noisy and the only sound is the aircon that my flatmate insists on using (even though it's balmy outside) and the birds. I could get used to this, if only I didn't miss them so much.

Echoes, silence, patience and grace

The first thing I noticed, long before the cows and the sheep lazing around outside, or the big old trees bent and withered and aged with harsh westerly winds, was the silence. It was so loud my ears hurt. I drove and drove through the silence, wipers swishing as the rain sluiced down and I crept through the deep fog. Turning off the radio because it didn't fill the silence but amplified it. The big emptiness in the car.

I got here and opened up this strange house and felt like a burglar, wandering around wearing someone else's shoes. It was so strange. This is not home, and yet for a few more weeks it will be. The cheap fixtures and paint in the unattractive colours and the narrow single bed. The very low ceilings so unlike my cathedral high airy room at home and the tiny little wardrobe where hangs my beautifully ironed clothes.

I drove here from Mum and Dad's house tonight, marvelling at how big the sky was. The dome endless, ringed with clouds with starry lights twinkling away. And I felt so horribly alone. Usually the car is filled with noise, even when asleep there are the little whistles and snores and that sound of warmth and life. Of feeling sated and full and surrounded by family. But none of that here, in this strange little house with cows leaning conspiratorally over the fence and gossiping to one another about the strange goings on.

As I pulled off the highway onto the exit for the little town that now counts me as its medical superintendent I was suddenly aware of light, in the car, on the graceful limbs of the majestic trees, as sailing from between drifts of clouds came the moon. Perfectly round and silver in the very big sky she filled the car with light and took away the silence.

I am not frightened any more, the task does not seem daunting any more. I know I will be OK here, sitting crosslegged in the middle of my ugly single bed, with my computer on my lap sorting out my brand new (and ludicrously expensive) dongle.

Twas the night before...

I stalled for pretty much as long as possible, to the point where pretty much everything ironable in the house is now on hangers. Something that happens at best twice a year. But now I have a very heavy suitcase sitting next to me, and a bag with 7 pairs of shoes. Because I decided I needed spiritual reinforcement and also because my very good friend - the aforementioned fellow shoe fetishist - has broken her ankle and asked me to wear heels in her honour.

So now I have a proper rainbow of podiatric perfection and am starting to get that anxious, heavy chested, twisted stomach anxiety that precipitates a big exam, or going on a big holiday and wondering if both everything's packed and if all will be OK when I get there. I had a little cry last night when I went to bed, because I am a bit of a baby. But also because I had this swamping wave of anxiety about how I would handle a bad day. When I have a bad day here - and let's be honest, in my line of work it happens relatively often - I go to bed at night, and curl under my feather quilt and snuggle into Bingley who lets me talk it all out until I'm an exhausted mess, and then I cuddle the Possum when he wakes up and it's all ok.

But there I won't be able to do that. I will be all alone. And I'm so scared. I know that it's ridiculous. I'm an independent, adventurous, intelligent 29 year old woman. But there's a part of me that's wanting to drive every night to my Mum and Dad's house a little while away from where I will be working just so someone can look after me.

So to cure my fit of imaginative morbidity I'm watching Zoolander, and it's pretty much an exact antidote. David Duchovny is making me giggle in spite of my wild imaginings of dealing with terribly sick children while wiping plague from my brow. "World's greatest hand model" rofl.

It will probably be just hard and long and relatively monotonous, and I'll be going home at night to wonder what to do with all my time and my full nights of sleep. But I can't help the little macabre imaginings. I think it's just a way of preparing for the worst case scenario. And a way of distracting myself from the fact that I won't have a giggly, snuggly little boy giving me rapturous cuddles for 2 whole weeks.

Tired again

Rinse repeat. Very busy day. Nothing on tomorrow besides packing. The thought of it brings a lump to my throat so here are some things that take it away.

Ascii Curtains

I'm too tired to write much tonight, and I forget all of the good ideas I had for posts. One day I will learn to write them down instead of only capturing faint echoes days or weeks after the initial completed composition. But that will probably only happen when I become a grown up once and for all, and I'm not quite ready for that.

Today we hung up curtains and put up a picture rail and went to Ikea and bought candlesticks and had meatballs. Then came home and went to swimming lessons and bought birthday presents for the various school parties over the next 2 weekends (four at last count, not including the BBQ we're having tomorrow).

It was the sort of lovely mundane day that is helped by watching the new flocked white curtains dance in the breeze. There is nothing that quite centres my focus on home as decorating it. Even when pregnant I never had proper nesting, I only had "interior design" nesting where balance and flow of a room were far more important than scrubbing skirting boards with a toothbrush.

I am quite content at the moment. The part of me that was seeking something this year found it, and it's strange but having found exactly what I was looking for I feel calmer. I don't ever need to seek more again, because I know exactly where it is, and that I will never find it quite so perfectly again. This is not a sad thought, but actually makes it easier to keep on keeping on.

The children are glorious at the moment. They deserve a post of their own each soon. I am in love with all of them, and as naughty and messy and loud as they are, I love them all the more for it. They are revelling in me being home so much the last few weeks, and I worry terribly about how they will fare the next few - but they have Bingley, and they have so much love they can't help but be warmed by it.



PS this is just a little extra for the LMM fans. I found it online a few years ago, and I re-read it about once a year. Hope you enjoy it too if you've not seen before. The Alpine Path

Emily

It's raining, I have the rest of the week and the weekend off and I spent hours today in bed with LM Montgomery. There is no greater perfection.

Weddings

If my Nana knew today, that Prince William had proposed to Kate Middleton, then she would be waiting for the commemorative New Idea edition so that she could keep the special portrait of the two of them. And even though she normally went to bed at 7:30pm I can guarantee that when they televised the wedding that she would be waiting up with a hankie to watch the coach pull up and for that long walk down the aisle. And then collect the Women's Weekly gold edition, snip out the official portrait and put it in a frame.

She loved the royal family, and weddings in particular. It still stings a bit that she couldn't come to mine as she was too unwell. I know she would have loved it. She loved the traditional aspect, she loved the idea of weddings and watched every Home and Away/Neighbours/TV wedding event. I think it was the hope, and the happiness mixed in with the frou frou details that appealed to her. I think it reminded her of the courtship days of her own relationship, before the horrible years, and then the comfortable happy years.

I wonder if it's hereditary then that I love it too. I love weddings, I love the idea of people being married. I always have. I love the hope and the love involved. I love the concept of forever. Of good times and bad. Of knowing that even if there will be times where there's work, that there is a bond that will always be there. I love seeing love. I love meeting couples at work that have been married longer than I've been alive. I love that love that has matured into gentleness and warmth.

I sometimes despair because I miss the heady stage of a relationship. I feel far too young to be in the comfortable stage. And yet I crave it too. I need that stability, that warmth and that simple feeling of knowing that to someone you mean the world. And not only that, but that that person feels, as do you, that they always will.

The romantic in me loves that concept, and I know in my heart that I could never be with someone who couldn't believe in forever. I would always feel that clutch of fear, in wondering when they would be tired of me, and that I would be too much work to consider continuing.I guess it's also the idea for me that if they don't believe in forever they are only ever waiting for something better to come along - and I only ever want to love someone who will never love anyone more. It may be a fanciful concept, and in today's era of divorce and transience, old fashioned and worthy of scorn from some.

And of course I love that weddings are that symbol of putting it out there that you have met your match - that you will never love someone more. And while I love sparkly diamonds and beautiful dresses, what means most to me is that faith, that while shaken will not be destroyed. That creating something with someone is worth more than all the silly arguments and tired grumbling. And that, importantly, they feel the same.

Levi's

If you were to ask me what my favourite colour is, then 99 times out of 100 I will tell you red. I love red roses. I love red lips. I love red cushions on my couch and a deep red bed spread that makes me sleep better. We have 2 cherry bucket shaped leather chairs that I love and everything from my hammock to the persian glass votives hanging over my outdoor setting are shades of red. I love red. It's passionate, fiery, It flickers and reminds me of the heart of all things. It contrasts against my black hair and my pale skin and it warms up rooms. I love walking into a strange place that has red accents. It wakes up my nerves and shivers along them.








And then of course there is Christmas, where sparkling reds and red baubles and red cherries and holly berries make me so cheerful I could just about explode from it. I wear red fur hats (even though it's approximately eleventy billion degrees) and buy poinsettias to decorate the house. It makes me sparkle.










But it's not the colour that instantly relaxes me, that when I'm surrounded envelops my soul and keeps it warm. It sneaks up on me every time it happens, we will be driving along, chatting away when suddenly there it is, and it feels like I'm breathing for the first time.

It's been raining lately and the afternoons are so humid it feels like breathing under water. But the side effect is that driving into the mounthains is like falling into Oz - the emerald of the forest and the rolling hills is so beautiful. I literally feel my blood expand, my breath catches and I want to cry.

It may only be 1 day in 100, but my love for green supercedes all.