Last Friday night, I went home and wondered how I was going to fill the weekend, with Tress still away. It turned out to be busy one, as I pottered around from one thing to another.
I had a plasma letting session in Ringwood on Sat morning and before that, a guy came over to the house to provide a quote for our evaporative cooling system. Ours is a very old unit and you could hear it blocks away. More importantly, it uses up way more water and electricity than more modern units. The guy was late so I didn’t bother asking him to remove his shoes when he arrived. After all Fay, the lady who has been walking Scruff, has been coming into the house probably with her shoes on anyway, and I had felt the house was grimy to start with anyway, so I had planned to vacuum later in the day in any event. So when the cooling guy finished, I rushed out of the house to head to Ringwood.
When the full 900ml of plasma is in the bag and I had scoffed a couple of party pies courtesy of the Australian Red Cross, I dropped into Bunnings to look at a line trimmer. My Bosch unit has been a headache with the cord replacement, and I had done some research but nothing beats actual touch and feel. A guy was very helpful in taking me through the current models on offer but I couldn’t decide so I left without buying it.
I headed off to do some grocery shopping and then headed home. I then remembered I had to pay Fay and arrange for this week’s walks so I texted her, went back to the shopping centre to get some money, and then went and met her at the oval and walked Scruff at the same time.
Later, Tress got her mum and dad to do a video call with me and it was good to be able to talk to them both, before her dad goes for his surgery later today. It would be a big procedure – he’d get a long overdue valve replacement and do a couple of by-pass. It would be a long recovery after that so I’ve been keeping him in prayers even more, in recent days.
After the call, I got to the vacuuming and by the time everything was done, it was nearly 7.30pm and I finally found time to again think about …. how I was going to fill the weekend…
Sunday we had a guy from ISCAST (Chris Mulherin)talk about “How Green is our God”. I was sceptical throughout his talk, as he appeared to make assumptions about climate change and the science of it all, but towards the end, his talk resonated with me in that we need to talk about it more, so that we can genuinely work towards loving our neighbour as ourselves. Certainly, we need to think about our own consumption behaviour. Funny however, as mission organisations are increasingly adept at flying all over the world for conferences and talkfests. All those air miles polluting the environment is something christians, along with other activists, appear happy to ignore.
After St Alf, I headed back to Bunnings and picked up the line trimmer. Another guy there was equally helpful and got me over the line to settle on a simple unit that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. I went home, assembled the unit, then swapped the cars so that I could leave the wagon at home and use the little jedi to get to the station again. The little guy and I then took a long walk.
Back home, with today’s brekky and lunch all done, I put my feet up and streamed a documentary on Paul Kelly. Dubbed “Stories of Me”, it chronicled his development from his younger days in a big family in Adelaide, to his time in Melbourne and then in Sydney. He is truly the definitive Aussie musician for me.
As I left home this morning, I caught up with the streams of WhatsApp messages that had accumulated overnight. They were mainly on Tress’ dad, together with a couple on what’s happening in the next couple of weeks, when 2 cousins would make separate trips to visit Melbourne. One from HK and the other from Singapore, they would be here on 2 different weeks and it’d take some effort to catch up with them. It’s so different and it feels more laborious to do more than the routine work, without Tress around.
Ante 