Thursday, October 27th …..

We’re still in Wollongong, even though I had planned to go back to Tasmania today. We’re staying at our friend, Robyn’s, place as she is in hospital having a knee operation. It seemed a nice plan for Marilyn and I to have a few days together while the opportunity is there. When we get back to Tassie, we’ll be straight into the madness of the Craft Fair so the relaxed time is a bonus.

We took Uncle Archie out for lunch yesterday at the Golf Club. We needed to arrange a disabled taxi and that meant long waits until one was available. People who don’t have disabilities wouldn’t tolerate having to wait up to 45 minutes for a cab, but it seems that people with disabilities don’t have the same rights. Of course, the drivers are apologetic but the reality is that there are not enough cabs available for the people who want to use them. The Golf Club is only 100m from the nursing home but our excursion for lunch took almost 5 hours, much of it waiting for a 2-minute taxi ride each way.

Very little else is happening. Every morning I check the freebook website as I always do. Most days, there are about 100 new books up-loaded every night by some magic process. Perhaps it’s caused by elves, or fairies but I’m just delighted that the supply seems to be endless. Most days I find a few of interest, but today there was nothing. Lots of romances, of course (it’s amazing how many romantic novels contain the words ‘highland’, ‘laird’, ‘glen’, or ‘chieftain’; as my friend Dianne tells me, romance is not dead in Scotland).

Just to digress, Dianne forwarded to me some lonely hearts ads from a Scottish newspaper. Here are a couple of samples:

Chartered Accountant, 42, seeks
female for marriage. Duties will
include cooking, light cleaning
and accompanying me to office
social functions. References
required. No timewasters.


Bitter, disillusioned Dundee man,
lately rejected by long-time fiancée,
seeks decent, honest reliable
woman if such a thing still exists
in this cruel world of hatchet-faced
bitches.

…and many more.

I tend to look at authors rather than titles although, from time to time, a title will catch my eye and I wonder whether I should take a look. Today, I noticed:

‘The Female Man’ (I’m not game to even open this one)
‘Sad Monsters, Growling on the Outside, Crying on the Inside’ (the mind boggles)
‘The Morbidly Obese Ninja ’ (Hmmm!)

I might stick to my crime novels; you can’t go wrong if the title contains the word ‘death’.