"They have referred me to a

specialist in Parkside," one of my knitting acquaintances told me. It is nothing serious, indeed easily fixed. It seems everyone gets referred to a "specialist" for almost everything these days - the sort of thing the GP would once have dealt with without a second thought.
But that was not why she was telling me the story.
"When I got the appointment the young girl at the reception desk told me, 'I've never heard of Parkside? How do you spell it?' and when I told her she wanted to know whether it was one word or two."
This woman is now in her eighties and she was clearly shocked by the young receptionist's apparent ignorance.
Parkside is an inner suburb, one of the oldest in the city. It used to house a big mental health facility.
The young girl at the reception desk admitted that she had lived in the city all her life. She lives about five kilometres from the suburb in question and works not much further away.
How could she not have heard of a suburb that appears at least with reasonable frequency in the news? How could she not know how to spell it? I wonder if she drives a car. If she is like most young people she almost certainly does and quite possibly has her own car as well. How does she find her way around?
Perhaps I am being unreasonable. There is GPS these days. You don't need map reading skills. Quite possibly she has never looked at a street directory and may not even have seen one. It is likely that even her parents use a GPS system.
I don't have a GPS system on my very, very basic phone. I can look directions up on my desk top computer. I did this the other day - and then promptly found a much easier way to get where I wanted to go because the GPS system does not take into account the different capacities of cats who ride tricycles. :)  I could have looked at the street directory we own too but the Senior Cat was looking at that for another reason.
I like looking at maps and street directories. I really feel rather sorry for the young receptionist. No doubt she can find her way wherever she needs to go but she will never have experienced the pleasure and satisfaction of working out the way for herself. She will never have seen the names on the way and wondered about the people who live in those places. Perhaps there are compensations.
But, I still like maps. I can travel anywhere with a map - even if it is just in my mind.

"It's quiet,"

she tells me. The woman on the temporary stand advertising blinds and gutters has been in our shopping centre several times before. She stopped me on the second occasion because she wanted to know something - and I stood there and guarded her little stall while she rushed back and shifted her vehicle to a place where she would not be fined for leaving it too long.
I wonder about these little stands that pop up in the shopping centre. There is always a charity one of some sort or another. Sometimes it is just someone with a tin and a sign and that is it, sometimes they have literature available - but most people just pass straight by. It is not just "compassion fatigue" but other things as well - lack of time, lack of money, embarrassment, lack of interest, irritation.
And there are the temporary stands that seem to appear at irregular intervals. There are the people who sell water purification systems.
"No thankyou. We have rainwater."
"But..."
I prowl on. I have no interest in their product.
There are the boys who sell "paintball" games. Thankfully they ignore me. I must look much too ancient for them - and my nephews think the "paintball" idea is ridiculous so they wouldn't be able to nab me to buy a present for them.
There are the people who sell cleaning products. They don't even make a claim to be "organic" or "environmentally friendly" so I am even less interested than I might be - and, thankfully, they are talking to each other.
There is the company trying to sell space in a yet-to-be-built "retirement village". Even if I had the three-quarters-of-a-million for the initial investment (plus on-going costs) I would not be interested. It does not even offer "end-of-life" care. 
There is the company selling "gophers" and walkers for the elderly and the disabled. Thanks but I can still pedal my tricycle and I don't quite need a walker yet. I suppose they must do some business though because there are some older people in the local community.
There are others too - and there is the woman with the blinds and the gutters. She has never tried to sell me anything. She has been there often enough now that she recognises me - and has not forgotten that I once spent a few minutes standing there so she could move her vehicle. She is always on her own. She spends her day standing there, smiling. Occasionally she talks to someone about the products and makes an appointment for someone to visit a house. Most of the time she just stands, smiling. People smile  back. She isn't seen as a threat.
Does it pay her to be there? I asked this question once. She shrugged and said, "My boss seems to think so. It's a job and I'm glad to have it."
It would cost him less to have her there than it would for him to run a showroom. She does the rounds of the shopping centres in the east and south of the city. Someone else does the west and the north. 
We  both agree that it costs less to run the business that way than it would to stock the clothing shops adjacent to her stand - or the toy shop a little further along.
It is a mystery to me how any of those places make enough to cover the rent. I don't know how her boss makes enough to cover the cost of having her there either.
What I do know is that it is nice to have her there. She smiles as if she actually means her smile. 

The Australian Electoral Commission

is apparently currently investigating "almost 19,000" cases of multiple voting. They claim most of those are due to "clerical error" and/or "misunderstanding" in the elderly, the illiterate or those who do not understand the process.
They are apparently referring "a small number of around 128" cases to the police for further investigation. Right.
Our elections are not fraud free or perfect. The decision to re-run the election for the Senate in Western Australia because of the "lost" ballot papers has shown up problems. The loss of those ballot papers was perhaps just a little too convenient.
I was talking to someone the other day. Her father voted twice. He was living in a nursing home. His daughter arranged a postal vote for him - and saw to it that he voted. Then a mobile team went to the nursing home and he voted again. He had by then forgotten that he had already voted. In his case I don't doubt it was genuine. He was getting very confused.
The AEC is to blame here. They should have mechanisms in place that prevent such things happening.
But I suggest that is the least of the problems faced by the AEC or the State Electoral Commission. Anyone can turn up and vote for anyone. All you need to do is turn up and state a name and address and say you have not previously voted in this election. Someone will mark the name off, pass over the ballot papers and the individual can enter a carrel and mark the papers. There is no form of identity check. How could there be? We don't have compulsory photo ID cards in Australia.
And the problem does not end there. There are multiple other ways of obtaining more than one vote, especially in nursing homes. A mobile unit may attend but, all too often, staff "assist" people who are no longer able to mark their own ballot papers. If someone is in hospital another member of the family or a friend will "vote for them". People see nothing wrong with this. "It's what they would do." But do they really know?
I know of someone who will have a vote in the forthcoming state election. In my opinion she will not know or understand what she is doing. Someone else will fill out the ballot papers for her because she can no longer do it herself. That person will claim she knows what the other person wants. To me that is not the point. The other person is no longer able to express such opinions. The right to vote is not one which should be lightly be removed - but in this case it should be because the individual is not able to make decisions about the simplest of matters let alone make a complex choice. It is not sufficient to say, "But this is what she has always done."  
I don't know how the Senior Cat votes. I can guess but I have never asked him. It is not my business. He does not know how I vote. Many people assume they know how I vote and would, no doubt, be willing to mark the ballot papers accordingly. They would almost certainly get it wrong.
Our electoral system is riddled with fraud. The notion that there were "almost 19,000" cases of multiple voting is almost certainly way off the mark - even 190,000 is probably an under-estimation.
Many of those would not see it as multiple voting or even believe they have done the wrong thing.
We need major changes to the system. They would be unpopular and are unlikely to happen any time soon.

Sometimes, just sometimes,

you can instinctively do the right thing. Mind you, it does not often happen to me.  I usually have to think things through, consult the arrangement of cat hairs, obtain advice I may not follow, hesitate, dither and then decide - sometimes followed by more indecision and anxiety. Did I do the right thing?
In work matters I am fine. I trust my judgment. There are often rules to follow. Sometimes those rules are stated in black and white. Things must be done in a certain way. At other times those rules are what must happen if the overall project is to work. There are things you just know.
But there are other things you know you may only ever do once and there are so many unknowns. There might only be one chance to get something right, especially where humans are concerned.
I can remember when one of our neighbours committed suicide. We didn't know him well but he had been living with his brother and sister-in-law across the street. I knew what had happened before they came to tell us. The absence of his car and the awareness that I had heard it drive away in the early hours of the morning told me something was wrong. The presence of two police cars for several hours and the awful picture on the local news feed told me all I needed to know.  I also knew it was going to be incredibly difficult for them to tell anyone.
I know I greeted them with the words, "You two must need a big hug right now."
I had never touched them before but yes, on that occasion they needed a hug.
On Monday afternoon our neighbour came over again. She has not been feeling well lately and had news for us. Today she is going to have a colonoscopy. Naturally she is anxious about it - and what the results might be.
It seemed a casual enough visit. The Senior Cat happened to be in the front garden. She happened to be outside. But I strongly suspect she was waiting for one of us to appear so that she could apparently just casually walk across the road and tell us. Her family are very close knit and supportive but, sometimes, it can help to tell an outsider. Of course we will be thinking about her - and hoping for a good outcome.
And I wonder if she would still have come if my reaction to their other visit had been more conventional? If I had just stood there and said all the things that one is expected to say would it just have been an uncomfortable experience for both of us? Would they have just gone on being people we were "friendly enough" with but nothing more?
There is no way of knowing that but I am glad I trusted my instinct on the other occasion. It made this time much easier.

My great-niece is currently in

hospital. She has been ill for some weeks now. My brother first alerted us to the problem.
She stopped walking and would cry if she had to stand. She did not want to eat. At sixteen months of age she does not have the language to try and explain where or how something hurts. Nevertheless it was obvious that something is seriously wrong.
Her parents were fobbed off at first, accused of being over-anxious they were told that she was just looking for attention. As she had been a particularly amenable child until recently that seemed so unlikely they ignored that and sought further help.
Then she fell off the sofa while playing a game with her sister - and broke her left arm in two places. It is now in plaster.
And the other problems continued. My niece and her husband are exceptionally good parents - a fact noted by many other people. My niece trained as a teacher. Her husband has been a hands on father from the moment of birth. The two little girls get a great deal of love and attention. Like all children they have their moments but their parents also expect them to behave well and appropriately for their age. My niece encourages them to be active and, when possible, outside.
A third child is expected later in the year. No parent needs the worry of an ill child, particularly if another child is on the way.
So, ignoring the doctor who suggested it was attention seeking they sort the advice of another doctor - who sent them straight over to the children's hospital. And there someone did believe the problem was serious, serious enough to call in a specialist paediatric neurosurgeon on her day off. She had further tests done as a matter of emergency and diagnosed "discitis". It is an inflammation of the spinal column. It is not common but common enough for it to have at last been diagnosed.
Fortunately something can be done about it too. Antibiotics via a drip for a week and then a long term course of antibiotics. Yes, it's serious but the long term prognosis is excellent. Even by the end of the week things should be looking much better.
Keeping a small child on an intravenous drip for a week is not going to be easy - and the hospital, rightly, wants one of her parents there at all times. My amazing sister-in-law will help so will my nephew-in-law's mother.
They are a thousand kilometres from here so there is nothing I can do to help in the way of child minding or meals preparation - or is there? I am going to prowl off to the cheap remainder store at the edge of the shopping centre this morning and buy some activities for Big Sister to share with Little Sister. If it keeps them quiet for ten minutes that might help too.
And it might help Big Sister believe that she is helping to look after Little Sister.
 

Well it was fun but....

having very small children around is exhausting. The Senior Cat prowled off to bed rather early last night. He did not get his usual post-prandial nap in on either Saturday or Sunday. He played games with his great-grandchildren instead.
The eldest great-grandchild talks non-stop. She has imagination in lorry-loads. She is demanding of adult attention - that they do as she wants in the game she has invented.  I think the Senior Cat was allowed to be exhausted after flying into outer-space with assorted animals. We had to hear her version of "The Gingerbread Man" several times after she had been given the jigsaw puzzle of a gingerbread man made by the Senior Cat. (It is rather difficult to do.)
They went "swimming" in the pool at the beachside resort they stayed at for the weekend. (A rather wonderful, cheap but very clean complex that actually caters for children.)
The younger one got rather cold in the breeze and demanded "out, out". He was passed over to me and, once wrapped in an over-size towel, cuddled in to me - and did not want to let go! I felt honoured but...
I would not want the responsibility for bringing up small children now. My brother, whose grandchildren they are, agrees. I think you reach a point where it is wrong to try and bring up small children on a full time basis. It is not just the energy which is required - and you need a constant flow of that - it is the distance between you. Their world is so different from ours.
I can imagine their world, of course I can - but they cannot imagine ours. There is nearly ninety years between the Senior Cat and the youngest great-grandchild. There will be more than ninety years between him and the one expected in June. That's a lifetime away. I know, at one level, what life was like for the Senior Cat when he was young. I know that he grew up in a world where most people did not have a phone - although his family did because of his father's business. The Senior Cat was in high school before he made his first, unsupervised phone call. The almost-four year old can already make a phone call - although only to her grandparents. 
Yesterday the younger great-grandchild here, not yet two, was playing a game on his father's phone. It was a simple game - designed to teach a child to count - but it was still a game on an electronic gadget that had not even been thought of when the Senior Cat was that age. Little One knows how to play it - and the Senior Cat does not.
But some things still have not changed. We sat on the floor and Little One cuddled into me again because he was feeling scratchy (he has allergy-induced eczema). And we played "this little pig goes to market..."
The Senior Cat played that too.

A cousin of the Senior Cat

died yesterday. We expected the news - although it came more quickly than anyone expected.
He was younger than the Senior Cat - just 88. The remarkable thing is that he lived as long as he did.
He was a risk taker. He did some dangerous things. He did dangerous things from the start. His childhood was, apparently, full of things like climbing trees which should not have been climbed, riding his bike across the railway bridge, almost drowning in the river (and being rescued by the Senior Cat and his own younger brother) and setting the garden alight on Bonfire Night. (They had Bonfire Night back then,)
By the time he reached his teens he had a "reputation". Before he was old enough to have a licence he was driving a truck (lorry) for the Oldest Cousin (not the Senior Cat!) who was something of an entrepreneur. How he never got caught is a mystery to this day.
At barely sixteen he and another cousin decided to visit Grandma (my paternal great-grandmother) who was still running her retirement project - a dairy farm on the river. They had no money for the fare so they "hitched" a ride on a goods train. Instead of staying hidden in one of the open coal trucks Cousin had to travel the length of the train - and back again - while it was going at speed. His other cousin remained where he was - petrified.
Cousin went on to distinguished service as an engineer in the navy and remained passionate about engines, particularly steam engines, all his life. He married and had children but still managed to go all over the world to see trains and ride on them. He drove the length of Britain more than once and then across Europe and into Asia. Later he drove across the United States and then back the other way through Canada. Everyone else held their breath. He was an appallingly bad driver and only got worse as he got older.
And, while he drove most of us mad with tales of his exploits, he was kind. He would always be willing to do something to help. He never had a bad word to say about anyone - oh he would criticise but it was always done in a positive sort of way.
He would occasionally phone the Senior Cat - they lived in different states - and spend an hour or more chatting. He would phone other cousins as well. He was gregarious and always doing something.
But I sometimes wondered if he wasn't a little insecure, a little uncertain of himself. I wondered if the mad exploits were not an attempt to prove to himself that he was able to do things, that he wasn't a failure.
His Little Brother is still working - part time - and had a much more stellar career I suppose. I will always wonder whether he wasn't trying to outdo Little Brother. Perhaps he was.
Whatever people will say about him in the end though they will be able to say of his relationships with other people, "He meant well."
It's not a bad epitaph.