This time next week

it will be Election Day.
The campaigning will be over. The Leaders of the various parties will be filmed putting their voting papers in the ballot boxes.  (And I will wonder what it feels like to see your name on the ballot paper and vote for yourself.) The media will make last minute predictions about individual seats. Exit polls will be conducted.  Carefully chosen members of the public will be interviewed.
Some people seem to think that election is all but over now. All the opinion polls appear to be going in one direction. The respective leaders of the incumbents and the coalition of the opposition are looking less and more confident.
Yes, it probably will go the way the opinion polls and the media are suggesting but I doubt either leader is taking anything for granted. They would not be leaders if they were doing that.
And I wonder what would happen if suddenly we could not vote? How would Australians react?
I had to do a hospital visit yesterday. One of the reasons for going was to assess whether someone who has had a stroke, can no longer speak and will need someone else to mark the ballot paper was still mentally competent to vote.  The person responsible for making the final decision wanted a second opinion. Taking away someone's right to vote is not a decision to be taken lightly.
Next Saturday I will also mark the ballot papers for several people who are not able to mark their own. In most instances this will be easy. They can speak even if they cannot speak clearly. They will be able to tell me what they want. The process will be almost as fast as it is for anyone else. I hope they know what they are doing. In one case I am not sure the person really understands what the election is about but his name has been placed on the electoral roll and he is required to "attend" the ballot box.
And there is one person who wants to vote "below the line" on the Senate paper. I have no doubt at all that he understands what he is doing. He will have thought long and hard about it. He will have read the material. He will have listened to the debates, to the news and the commentary.  He wants to line up in his wheelchair along with everyone else and get his name marked off in the same way. The one concession he will make is that he is, he promises me, coming prepared with the order marked on a piece of paper his brother will have taken down for him.
This man nearly didn't get a vote at all. He can communicate only using his eyes - up, down, left and right. I taught him to read once - and had trouble convincing other people he could read. He reads a great deal. There is not much else he can do. But he has a vote and he is going to use it.
The vast majority of people will go in and mark the ballot paper as their first candidate of choice has told them they should direct their preferences. He is going to do things differently. He is really going to use his vote and it is going to be an enormous pleasure to help him do it.  

Mediaeval knitting

apprentices were required to produce a lengthy list of items. In among the gloves, stockings and caps came a "carpet".
Of course it was not what we think of as being carpet today. What they called a carpet was often a highly ornate tablecloth or wall hanging. They were not just examination pieces for entry into the guild but often designed and made to the order of wealthy and aristocratic families.
But yesterday I did see what amounted to a knitted carpet or floor rug. It was a piece entered in the annual "Royal Show" here and it was extraordinary.
The piece of work measured 2m by 2.8m. I suspect it is the biggest piece of knitted work that has ever been put into the show. It was made from recycled yarn, a remarkable thing in itself. The pattern is similar to that of a Turkish kilim pattern. If you are knitter and reading this and I say "Kaffe Fassett" style you will know what I mean.
The entire thing was back with the sort of felt which is designed to be non-slip. The edge was knotted.
How was it done? The judges and stewards from various sections were crowding around it when I arrived to help.
"Cat? What do you think?"
It took close looking and that made it even more extraordinary. I had immediately guessed that the carpet had to be knitted in strips but I had expected them to be long, narrow strips going the length of the carpet. That is the normal way to knit pieces which are too big to knit in one piece. This was not.
The strips were knitted across the carpet so each piece of knitting had to be two metres wide. The weight of the yarn used meant that the strips had to be knitted on a very, very long circular needle or two circular needles.
Each strip was quite narrow and, again almost unbelievable, the knitter had woven them together with what knitters call "Kitchener Stitch" - that technique used to give the toes of socks completely smooth joins. It was so well done that, although it was possible to see the joins because of the multiple colours in the carpet, it was also very difficult to see.
It, rightly, won best in show for the hand knitting section despite the magnificence of a pair of Latvian wedding mittens and a well researched pair of socks made in the way an early Egyptian might have made them. There were some other lovely things too - and some fairly ordinary things as there always are. We never mind the fairly ordinary. We just think it is lovely that people are willing to try their best and then put it in for judging and display.
But the carpet? It was a privilege to see it. Like the one twelfth scale model of Milan cathedral that took eighteen months to make (in the woodwork section) I suspect that the carpet took a very long time to design and execute. It is the sort of entry that makes all the hard work of putting the show together worthwhile.
I will probably never meet the person who made it but I will always wonder at their skill and determination.

Apparently it costs

an average of $712 to register the 'average' family car for a year - at least that is according to a recent article in the paper. The article went on to suggest that the government was considering allowing people to pay their registration monthly - and by direct debit.
I am probably much too cynical but I suspect that, if this option is taken up, the cost will rise a little further. There will be some sort of 'administration' fee. It will not matter that any direct debit arrangement will be handled by two computers.
I had to transfer some money to London recently. The amount of paper work involved was extraordinary. It was going from one bank to another bank. Both banks have offices here in Australia. They must make similar transactions hundreds, probably thousands, of times a day. Despite that the way it was handled could only be called 'cumbersome'.
Oh yes, things came up on the computer screen. I read it all as the bank officer was dealing with it. She knows me quite well. I read out a very long number to her and then she read it back to me after she had typed it in. I had to produce three different forms of identification - even though the bank officer was well aware of who she was dealing with.
It is, supposedly, all about ensuring money does not get 'laundered'. I doubt it does anything of the sort. No self-respecting criminal would front up to the bank and ask for money to be transferred like that. What it really does is allow the government to know exactly what we do with our money.
After I had done that I went into the supermarket in the adjacent shopping centre. I do not normally shop there but I had promised to pick up three items for someone and deliver them on my way home.
At the checkout I was reminded of why I do not shop there. I went to pay cash and I was asked for my 'rewards' card. I told the check out assistant I did not have one. The information was greeted with shocked silence,
        "But you should have one...it would be cheaper..."
I smiled sweetly at her and said,
        "No, it would not be cheaper. I don't normally shop in here. This is for someone else who does not mind paying a little extra just for today. The 'rewards' card just brings the cost of the goods down to the same price as the supermarket I normally shop in. All the 'rewards' card does is ensure people shop here because they believe it is cheaper - and it allows the company to know exactly who is buying what if they use it. It costs the customer to allow the company to invade their privacy like that."
There was silence. My change was given back in silence. I was given the docket. The assistant did not say, "Have a nice day."
I heard her start talking to the next customer and the next customer saying,
         "Before you ask I don't have a 'rewards' card either - for the same reasons."
I felt a bit guilty. Perhaps I should have told the checkout assistant to 'have a nice day'.

It seems that the need of parents

are once again being considered more important than the needs of their children.
There was a serious suggestion in the press several days ago that the school day should be lengthened - to accommodate the needs of working parents.
The idea was that children would be at school between 8:30am and 5:00pm. They would do their homework there and have their other after school activities there. That way their parents would not need to care for them until after 5:00pm and they would not need to supervise homework.
Oh, there was supposed to be an advantage for the children too. They would  have everything finished by 5:00pm. The "pressure" they feel would no longer exist because, when they were picked up, that would be an end to their working day.
This seems muddled thinking to me. Many children are already in extended day care at school. There is nothing to stop these things happening already. The real question is whether school hours need to be extended.
The local state schools start at around 8:45am (secondary) and 9:00am (primary) and finish at 2:30pm (for the first year of school) or 3:30pm. The fee paying schools tend to start earlier and finish later. The Whirlwind's first class starts at 8:45 but she has to be in her form room at 8:30am. She finishes at 4:00pm. There is also supervision for preparation until the mid-secondary years after which the girls can stay behind and work if they wish to do so and their teachers are available until 5:00pm. If not called upon they use that time for their own preparation. It is what the parents are paying hefty fees for. I believe the other fee paying schools have similar arrangements.
But out in rural areas children often need to travel long distances too and from school. My father ran a very big rural school where one of the bus runs (and buses were driven by teachers) started at 7:20am. The smallest children would fall asleep on the way home. It was a very long day for them. When the children reached home they would have farm duties as well as homework. 
Starting the school day earlier in an area like that simply would not work.
But I also wondered at the other reasoning. This was not about making things easier for the child. It was about making things easier for the working parents. It was about allowing them to hand over yet more parenting responsibilities to others. They would not need to supervise "homework" or sport or ballet or music lessons. Someone else would take that on.  Some grandparents already do a great deal of that but at least they might be able to watch the progress a child was making and take a personal interest in what they are doing.  Other grandparents are still working,
Like my concerns yesterday about parents not being able to attend school events this seems to be another area where the many consequences of having both parents in paid work seems not to have been considered. Having both parents work is nothing new. It has happened right through history but it is where and how they work and the type of community we live in which has changed. Without the "village" or "local" environment in which to be cared for some children seem to lead lives which are regulated almost entirely by the needs and desires of their parents rather than having a balance between the two.
Perhaps it is why some children feel so isolated?

The Senior Cat has been invited

to attend a "Special Persons Day" (sic) at a local primary school tomorrow.
The invitation came via the little drummer boy next door. Talking to his mother about we discovered that the school can no longer have Mothers' Day, which was the common thing when I was at school. Fathers' Day is also out.
My nephews had Grandparents' Day but that has gone too.
It seems that all these people are busy working. They cannot get to a school to see what their children and grandchildren are doing.
I remember Mothers' Day at school. Even most of the working mothers managed to turn up for that. They would take half a day's leave. Their employer was expected to give it to them too. 
Everyone turned out trying to look extra neat and clean and tidy. Every classroom was tidied. The desks were straightened up. (We sat in four straight rows facing the blackboard back then.) Any jars containing water on the "Nature Table" were freshened up. The "best work" was pinned up for mothers to see and we had to put our exercise books in a pile on our desk so that our mothers could look through them.
Of course my mother was a teacher so she did not attend. She was busy attending to other mothers who came to the school for the big day.
I know that, by the time I was in the primary section, it did not bother me. My mother was all too prone to look at my books anyway.
When I was in the infants' section though it was different. I wanted my mother to be there like everyone else's mother. The very few of us who did not have our mothers there felt left out of it.  Sometimes other mothers would be kind and pretend to take an interest in what we had done but I knew it was a pretence. They were really only interested in what their child had done. I don't think their children were too pleased either. After all, their mother was there to seem them!
Fathers' Day was an even rarer event. I can only remember one. My father of course was teaching at another school by then. I knew there was no chance of him attending. Most of the fathers who turned up looked uncomfortable. They came in their suits because everyone owned one back then. They congregated at the back of the classroom and listened to us recite poetry and looked at the work on the walls but, even at that age, I sensed they were glad to get out of there. Bringing up the children was women's work!
My nephews had Grandparents' Days because, by then, so many mothers went to work. My parents dutifully went off to school and I suspect they quite enjoyed themselves. School was a familiar environment for them. My nephews were doing exceptionally well and were unlikely to embarrass anyone. From the start they were much more actively involved in showing the visiting adults what they had done.
The Senior Cat has not set foot in what is now called a "junior primary" school since my youngest nephew left his fourteen years ago. Things have changed dramatically since then. He wonders if he will even recognise a classroom as being a classroom.
I think he will. He still loves mixing with children and talking to them. They seem to like talking to him too. And, even more importantly, it means that the little drummer boy next door is going to have someone there to help him keep in time with everyone else.

We seem to have an unhealthy addiction

to opinion polls, and even more so at present.
One of our neighbours gleefully announced to me yesterday that the political party she supports had risen again in the polls. I refrained from saying anything but I wanted to point out that the "1%" rise she was so excited about is meaningless. It comes within the "margin of error" and that is usually considered to around 4%. In other words there could be four percentage points difference between the figure given and the actual votes her party gains on the day.
Indeed, although the opinion polls and the political pundits suggest the Opposition is in a winning position at present there is absolutely nothing certain about this. Anything could happen. Indeed there are many in the government who still genuinely believe they can win.
But, the media makes much of opinion polls. They are published on a regular basis. Politicians claim not to take any notice of them. This is why the government recently recycled the Prime Minister. They were not (perhaps) taking any notice of the opinion polls.
Of course they do.
Opinion polls are, as I have said elsewhere, an inexact science involving samples of the population. We rely on them for all sorts of reasons, not just politics. They give an indication of what might happen. They can be right - and often are. They can be wrong - and often are. Those conducted by some of the big, well respected researchers provide essential information for the development of government policy and for those involved in social activism. They have their place.
But a movement of 1% is meaningless.  A movement of 5% would not be. That would suggest there is a shift in opinion large enough to influence the outcome of the election.
In my humble, or perhaps not-so-humble, opinion the media is spending too much time reporting on these things. It is lazy journalism. It makes for quick and easy reporting. It fills in a nice large space in the print media and can take up a minute or more on air.
It would be good for all of us if those opinion polls ceased, at least for now. It would be good if, for the rest of the election campaign, they were not mentioned. It would be even better if the media concentrated on telling us what the policies of the various parties are. We get a little of Labor. We get a little of the Coalition. We get an even smaller amount of the Greens. Katter's Australia Party has had the occasional mention, as has the Palmer United Party. Little detail has been mentioned. Wikileaks has rated a mention but no real analysis.
Oh yes, you can look the details up for yourself on the internet if you are a political junkie. Most of us are not that interested. I know of only one person who is likely to do it. Her hobby is politics. Mine is not. Most people are not interested enough to do a search.
The major parties are relying on that. They are relying on the loyalty of voters to "their" side of politics.
I do wish the media would spend less time on opinion polls and more time on policies. It might make those opinion polls mean something.

I do not often

hear about the end result of any of my work. I do what I am asked to do and send it off. Sometimes I do not even get a "thankyou", not because the person using it at the other end is being deliberately rude but because other people see it before it gets to them. There may even be more than one person who uses what I have put together.
Sometimes I will work with other people and we will set up a communication board for a very specific purpose or a single individual. Surgeons in particular often have individual ideas about what will work best for them. That's fine. It is what I am there for. We all want it to work.
And sometimes I get the chance to work with people who are doing the incredible job of caring for unaccompanied and injured children in war zones. I still don't know how people can do this. It is perhaps the most emotionally and physically demanding job on earth. The "burn-out" rate is high. People need regular rest breaks - and they do not always get them.
I won't even try to explain the extent of the physical and psychological trauma that some children experience. The children we see each night on the news footage are the lucky ones, the children that those responsible for giving us the news have decided are not too distressing for the rest of the world to see.  Most of those children will still speak, will still have the capacity to speak.
Behind all that are the children with far worse injuries. Some of them do not survive, those who do will never fully recover. There are always some who will not be able to speak because of their injuries and some who have simply stopped speaking. They have shut themselves up in their own tiny individual world.
Writing communication boards for those children can be a long, slow process as people try to find out what these children might actually want and need to say when it seems they do not want to say anything at all. Some of them could speak but they have chosen not to. They do not want to make eye contact with anyone. They do not want to be held at all, let alone hugged. They trust nobody.
A communication board is both a barrier and a bridge in these circumstances. It can provide a child with the means to communicate without making eye contact. In other places the approach might be quite different but in a war zone or a disaster there is no time for therapy and getting information as rapidly as possible is often a priority.
Some months ago I worked with several people to provide a communication board for a boy we think is about ten. He was taken into a makeshift hospital in the suburbs of Damascus. His injuries were horrific and he was not expected to live. Contrary to expectations he has. Nobody knows who he is. His face is unrecognisable. He cannot speak and, even if he could, he might not. He kept avoiding any eye-contact for weeks. The first time he was shown the communication board he pushed it away. It went on for weeks. The people working with him finally just left it by his bed.
Yesterday they sat him in a chair for a short while. It is the first time in months he has been able to do even that. The communication board was apparently on a box by his side. He pulled it towards himself and "told" the surgeon who had saved his life, "Thankyou."
I don't often get to hear about those things but thanks for letting me know Michel. It makes it all worthwhile.