Category: Diary

Last night was the first two cat night for 2006. I’m not sure what the temperature dropped to but Bella finally made her way to the bed (Tom has been sleeping with us for a while now, poor old man). Of course, being a Daddy’s girl, Bella slept at my side and with Tom between us I had no room to move but there’s no complaints here; we both think having a cat sleep on your bird bed is one of the highest honours a cat can bestow.

It’s funny that Daniel should mention emergency wards in his post this morning, ’cause that’s exactly where I ended up last night. I mentioned in my previous post that I had been having troubles with my foot. Taking the day off on Sunday seemed to do it good and by Monday afternoon it was feeling positively fine so I decided to walk a whole block to send of an invoice. All was going well until I took one step too many and I felt something go pop-pop-pop under my heel. I hobbled home, a two minute stroll took about ten minutes and plonked myself down on the couch.

It ended up feeling so bad I headed off to emergency with Brother-In-Law-Of-The-Year nominee Rob. Two hours, a set of xrays and a pair of crutches (not to mention a swipe of the Mastercard) later I was home with strict instructions to stay off the foot for two days. Now that’s easier said than done when you are the stay at home parent of a bouncing 8 month old. A lot easier said. A whole military like operation has swung in to effect. Local Nana is taking  Bert today, Rae is going to be late for work, Rural Nana is being trained in to town to take over tomorrow and I’m stuck here on the couch; leg up, wireless network on and seven episodes of Battlestar Galactica, season 1, ready to go.

I’m not at the Doggies v Bombers game today. I’m not sitting in the magnificent seats my mate Robin leant us for the day. I’m not enjoying an overpriced yet welcome beer or listening to 774 or marking the score in The Record. No, Rae and Stink are doing all of that but I’m not.

All because I didn’t listen to my wife.

For a long time now I’ve had a little niggle with my left foot. Nothing serious, just seemed to seize up when I had been sitting still for a while. Then it began to get a little bit more seized at smaller intervals. Hmmm, I mentioned to this to Rae who wisely suggested I should go and see the doctor. I didn’t. The foot got worse. I thought it would get better. It didn’t. Recently I’ve begun to limp – it hurts to walk and for the past few weeks Rae has been at me and at me to make an appointment. I mean, I work at a hospital – it’s not that hard. But I didn’t make one until I finally gave in last Thursday and called.

This was a good idea because this long weekend I’ve barely been able to walk and my foot is throbbing with pain even as I sit here with it up. I wouldn’t have made it up the steps to Telstra Dome, let alone walking from the car. So here I am, watching the game on the telly and listening to Albert sing to his toys while Rae and Phee cheer on the Dogs, just metres from the boundary line.

One day I will learn my lesson, one day.

Everyone, as the wise old proverb goes, needs good neighbours. It’s one thing when you move house that you can’t control but thankfully with this move we seem to have hit a winner. Last night was bin night, this morning as I fed Bert I could hear the truck collecting the garbage and recycling. I’m fairly sure they haven’t invested in new technology that allows bins to be placed back behind a fence so it seems our kindly old neighbour, Joe, to whom I introduced myself the other day, has tucked our bins away for us.

This place may yet turn out to be a home, not just a house.

In the past 15 months we have :

• Got engaged
• Buried my father
• Had a baby
• Got married
• Moved house

That’s enough excitement for a while, time to sit down and smell the roses.

We’ve done it. We’ve moved in, but not out. With thanks to the bestest people in the world – namely (in order of appearance) Rob, Zita, Tim, Knackers, Daniel and Marita we move our house from one end of the street to the other. We’re still surrounded by boxes but we have cable internet up and running and the telly was ready for the footy tonight. Who could ask for more? Well, the cats probably could – they are still at the old place. Safe and sound inside but not very happy about it. We’ll bring them down tomorrow when we’ve settled in a bit more.

Now all we have to do is clean to the old place, tidy up the garden and hand in the keys. With a little luck they may let the place early and we could get a few dollars back, but that’s only with a little luck.

I really should have been blogging about Bert’s first footy game last night but when your team is thumped by over a 100 points it sort of takes the sheen off the whole experience. Welcome to the life of a Tiger supporter Bert.

We’ve managed to get the keys to our new place a whole day early. 7 station wagon loads later the amount of cardboard in this place has significantly decreased, only thing is as we look around it seems as though we haven’t packed a thing. I have no idea how that works.

It’s time to pack up the PC so bye for now. We’ll see you at the new place.

And as it’s the first game of season 2006 for both our teams tonight (yes, of course we’re going) GO TIGERS!!

Rob’s post reminded me of an odd call I had last night.

8:48 PM, the phone rings.

“Hello” I say.

“Is this Mr Bartlett?” Oh great, telemarketing. I’m bored with packing so don’t hang up straight away and say “Yeeeeeees”.

“I’m sorry to interrupt you at this hour…”

“No you’re not, otherwise you wouldn’t have called.” say I.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” and she hangs up.

There really isn’t much to write about this week except cardboard. There is no way we had this many boxes when we moved last time, I guess our stuff has grown to fill the larger house we are in. Even though we can barely move through the valleys of boxes we still need more so it’s off to work to pick up some more this morning. Bella isn’t coping that well, she’s only seen the boxes once before, and decided to stay out on the town to all hours last night. Tom, of course, is taking it all in his stride. As long as he as Phoebe’s bed to sleep on that cat ain’t goin’ anywhere.

Also, a huge thanks to Rob, brother in law extraordinaire, who has managed to ensure my lifeline (ie cable internet access) is connected the day we move in. That’s Brother In Law Of The Year award material. Thanks Rob.

What’s wrong Melbourne? You’d hardly know that the footy season kicks off tomorrow night and if it wasn’t for Nathan Brown’s leg and his amazing revovery (Tiger tough that boy is) there’d hardly be a thing in the paper about it this morning. It’s the most low key start to the footy season that I can remember.

I, of course, blame the games.

PS Don’t forget to sign up for the footy tipping competition that could win you The World’s Ugliest Trophy. Head over to footytips.com.au and join the competition called Tony’s Tipping. It’s free, there’s a good a barbie at the end of the season and you have your chance to earn urn immortality.