Saturday 4 April 2015

A big day in the rain

This morning as usual I went up to see mum in the hospital. Over the past few days she has had a new neighbour who evidently has a mental problem, as this person does odd things with her hands, placing them just below her chin and sighing repeatedly in a loud voice. She does this kind of thing for an hour at a time, sitting upright in her chair and sighing through her raised fingers, and over her palms held up near her chin. She has a daughter who comes to see her. They are Arab Christians I think, and the daughter always brings the old woman a box of sushi to eat for lunch.

I don't think the woman eats the sushi, and the daughter doesn't seem to know any better since she appears to leave before lunchtime arrives. I stayed for lunch today and did my bit for sanity by encouraging mum to eat her food, and then I left the hospital when visiting hours ended at 1pm.

After I drove home on the sodden motorway - with the traffic screaming along at its usual frantic place, and idiots in 4WDs doing their best to get everyone within a radius of twenty metres killed in a burning heap of steel and rubber - I had a lie down in bed. Then my flatmate came home and we went out, taking a cab to Taylors Square. From there we walked through the wet streets with their old houses down to Stanley Street and had a late lunch - I had prawns with fettuccine - before heading east on foot over the hill and over the bridge into Paddington. We walked up to Five Ways then through to Hopetoun Street and up Paddington Street to Jersey Road and then turned right to come out on Oxford Street.

After arriving on Oxford Street at Darlinghurst again we caught a cab down to Chinatown where we ate again and headed home with full stomachs. At home it was the right time for me to do my laundry, have a shower, and drink a couple of glasses of wine while watching the evening news on the ABC. We walked for about three hours today so the rest at the end was well-deserved. A big day for me and I think I'll sleep well tonight. I'll go back up to see mum again tomorrow morning.

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