Laaazy day
Mmmm. Home and sleepy from a friend's 40th... Pasteis de bacalhau, Bifinhos a Ze - sorry, no accents on this rotten keyboard - accompanied by a lovely unfamiliar dry white, a superb apple & rhubarb crumble, beautifully astringent long black, and a very nice Tawny Port. Friend trying to organise ski week/weekend/something with the guys at the moment - not holding my breath tho'. As a bunch we're not good at "organise".
Not that I'm up to snowboarding right now anyway :) but dammit I don't want to miss out again this year. 8 years since our last *proper* group outing to the snow (no, I don't count three-day stints where one or more of the girls get stuck on Auntie mode while the boys disappear). Not good enough, chaps!
Otherwise: took advantage of beautiful, crisp, clear-blue-skied, sunny winter's day and bought books. Lots and lots of books. Beaky's, Dymocks, then aimless wandering and early bus-catching to dinner venue, which meant stumbling across two new (to me) shops, one of which was having a sale on history/biography (The Book Grocer, fellow Canberrans). So. Got me a nice pile on English fascism; cholera in 19thc Hamburg; WW1 generals; new Pelecanos and Johnston novels. Should keep me happy for a bit - sadly I'm not quite at the halfway mark on Evans vol 1 so it'll be a while before I can dive in.
Friend is first of our group to have known (if indirect) contact with swine flu victim - seems a chap at her work's down with it. Not a good time to be in one of those classic public service airconditioned boxes, I'm afraid...
As OHS Officer I got our boss to confirm the Centre's position on SF at the staff meeting the other night, just so's the girls are all clear on procedure - essentially it's c'est la vie. Either we'll get a case or we won't; if we do, either we'll be shut down or we won't (up to the Authorities innit). So. No point worrying. We've already had three families volunteer not to attend until they got the all-clear after travelling; what with school hols and Visits To The Norf there's bound to be more.
As of yesterday, management have no official position on where a mandated closure leaves workers :) - Unpaid probably covers it. And fair enough, really, but us secure bats are a bit worried about where that leaves the younger girls - it's hard enough for them to pay rent as it is. An enforced week off wouldn't be good.
Not that I'm up to snowboarding right now anyway :) but dammit I don't want to miss out again this year. 8 years since our last *proper* group outing to the snow (no, I don't count three-day stints where one or more of the girls get stuck on Auntie mode while the boys disappear). Not good enough, chaps!
Otherwise: took advantage of beautiful, crisp, clear-blue-skied, sunny winter's day and bought books. Lots and lots of books. Beaky's, Dymocks, then aimless wandering and early bus-catching to dinner venue, which meant stumbling across two new (to me) shops, one of which was having a sale on history/biography (The Book Grocer, fellow Canberrans). So. Got me a nice pile on English fascism; cholera in 19thc Hamburg; WW1 generals; new Pelecanos and Johnston novels. Should keep me happy for a bit - sadly I'm not quite at the halfway mark on Evans vol 1 so it'll be a while before I can dive in.
Friend is first of our group to have known (if indirect) contact with swine flu victim - seems a chap at her work's down with it. Not a good time to be in one of those classic public service airconditioned boxes, I'm afraid...
As OHS Officer I got our boss to confirm the Centre's position on SF at the staff meeting the other night, just so's the girls are all clear on procedure - essentially it's c'est la vie. Either we'll get a case or we won't; if we do, either we'll be shut down or we won't (up to the Authorities innit). So. No point worrying. We've already had three families volunteer not to attend until they got the all-clear after travelling; what with school hols and Visits To The Norf there's bound to be more.
As of yesterday, management have no official position on where a mandated closure leaves workers :) - Unpaid probably covers it. And fair enough, really, but us secure bats are a bit worried about where that leaves the younger girls - it's hard enough for them to pay rent as it is. An enforced week off wouldn't be good.