Well, most of my time's been taken up with my Community Service driving and trying to work through the Local Government electoral system.
So first things first:
Driving the frail and elderly to medical appointments can be quite rewarding, even if I do only get $5 for petrol money for each trip from Minjup to the smoke in the ute to pick up the Support vehicle -- invariably a Ford of one flavour or another.
Even on LPG, it doesn't cover my costs.
And the irony is that I routinely have to drive back in this direction to get the client!
However, I was suitably rewarded the other day during a trip to a hospital which shall remain nameless -- except to say that it has the same name as a car; one down from a Rolls-Royce.
Client deposited at "Aged Care Outpatients" and off to find a place to park the car; bloody miles away but.
Sat down on a nice bench in the hospital grounds, sunny day, good reading: more McCall Smith though I'm afraid -- kinda "Haggis Lite".
Few minutes later, head down in book, on comes a nearby sprinkler and I get soaked.
Found the blokes who were testing the system (Western Irrigation) and asked if they carried a towel for such emergencies and, if not, they bloody ought to.
They laughed.
And you also get had a serious lend of on some trips.
The other day, I got specific instructions to do a pick up at the back of a house off Albany Hwy.
Seemed strange ... but I found the alleyway as per instructions.
Lady appears through a door in the back fence: fit, healthy, sprightly, younger than me!
In she gets, just as a truck is starting to block the only visible exit from the alley.
There's a gate up ahead leading to a transport yard.
So I unbolt that and take the bloody horrid red Ford Focus through the yard out on to the highway.
Probably a technical case of trespass.
Patient deposited at the GPs somewhere further down the highway.
Go to get a coffee waiting for the call back for the return trip.
After an hour ... nothing.
So I go into the surgery and they tell me she's gone off shopping and that I'd probably find her in the bakery.
Which I did after much driving around one of those outer-suburban shopping centres that all look the same.
I politely informed her (though she didn't speak anything I could recognise as English) that I wasn't going back down that alley again -- no not for her, not for anyone -- and that I'd drop her and her many baskets of shopping at the front of the house.
She didn't seem to like this idea.
When I got there, I saw why.
Double fronted half-acre block with two Mercedes parked in the drive!
O yeh, and there's a strange story about how I ended up at Hillary's Boat Harbour one sunny morning while looking for an eye specialist in Duncraig.
They really shouldn't let a country bloke who drives a Holden loose North of the River in a Ford Falcon!
On the other matter: it's Election Day tomorrow.
After everything I've heard about Local Government in general and Minjup Shire in particular, I'm seriously hoping I don't get elected.
Seems like I'd need a flak jacket and an armed escort.
