That little old train: the week in review

It's been a messy old week. At times, I felt like the little old train that thought that it could faced by an apparently impossible hill. Except that the hill seemed just too great.

The week began with loss of internet connection. This reminded me (again!) just how dependent we have all become on the damn technology. The internet encourages us (among other things)  to live in a just in time world because its so bloody convenient. No need to carry cash. You can transfer some and then get it from an ATM. Pay that account at the last moment? That's fine. Then things go wrong!

My local St George Bank, a ten minute walk away, has just closed because of reduced demand. The nearest branch now is at Maroubra, a half hour walk. Walk? Who walks? Well, earlier in the year I had a minor accident in a parking lot. Silly thing really. My accelerator had been sticking. I was backing out of the bay. To overcome the sticking accelerator I pushed down hard. The car went backwards at pace, in so doing smashing the front against a pillar, damaging the tire. I was bloody lucky really. If another car had been coming or a shopper with a trolley, I could have done some serious damage!

Anyway, the accident damaged the suspension. I didn't realise this immediately. The car was still driveable once the tire was replaced. However, I can't re-register until the the damage is fixed and I need to accumulate some funds first. Half inclined to stay car-less in the short term. All this walking is doing wonders for my fitness. At the same time, it means that I can't just pop out to do things.

One useful side-effect of the whole affair is that I finally got round to joining the library in Maroubra. I used to take eldest there sometimes when she was at school and knew that it was quite a good library. Importantly, it has computers with free access for members, meaning that I could get some things done if not as conveniently as I might from the home office.

It was quite interesting watching the library at work. It's a remarkably busy place with many activities.

Now that my internet is back on, the immediate need to visit has vanished. However, I do plan to check out properly the library services  and especially the on-line data bases since many of these require subscriptions.

If loss of internet access marked the start of the week, the week was book-ended by the closure of my long-standing storage shed. I had been meaning to do this for some time, in part to save money, more because I actually wanted to sort out the books, papers and household kit stored there.

While the intent was there, the shear physical labour involved was not attractive. A few years back, I did do a clean out and then shifted and stacked the remaining boxes to the ceiling in a smaller shed. I did not enjoy the experience, putting my back out in the process! However, this time it had to be done.

Actually, the experience was not as bad as I had expected. Storage King Alexandria kindly lent me their small van, I could not have done it without that, while youngest and two of her friends came to help. Between us, we filled the van three times, unloading at the house.

My own small storage area at the back took over half the load, with the rest going into the spare bedroom, kitchen and lounge. Now I am sitting here with a bemused expression working out what to sort first. It's actually a bit like an archaeological expedition.

The box I started unpacking last night was full of crockery all wrapped in newspapers dating to 1994. Even though the box itself was newer, I must have repacked it when I shifted storage sheds, the crockery itself comes from Marsh Street and was packed when we moved out in 1994. It's a useful find given the current state of my day to day crockery. As an aside, I did manage to discipline myself not to read the crumpled newspapers!

The boxes include three sets of family papers that really should go to the archives, as well as the remnants of my book collection. Now that they are at Astrolabe, I can at least sort them properly.

While I have been otherwise preoccupied, the rest of the world has continued without me. Mr Turnbull has released his innovation statement, the somewhat strangely entitled National Innovation and Science Agenda Report. As it happened, the boxes include some of my personal papers from equivalent exercises in the 1980s. It's not clear to me that the world has changed much. I have a part completed post here.

More importantly, the agreement reached at Paris has been released. I have read it, but these international agreements are not reader friendly. More effort is required to work out what it all means.

And so the week ends. Next week back to normal activities.