There and back again

I’ve been to Rottnest Island and come back, but am still working on getting my computer to recognise my camera’s SanDisk so I can download my photos!  It’s suddenly decided not to.  I’ve gotten expert advice from the Number One Ladies Computer Agency [that’s my friend and fellow rat person Liz!] and let’s say investigations are ongoing.

It was good to have a break and to be somewhere where I wouldn’t keep seeing things to do.   Rottnest isn’t that far from home, I guess.  Going there involves a train ride of about 50 minutes to Fremantle port and then a 30 minute ferry crossing.  So it was over a small area of sea.  

On the first day I walked about the island, fairly close to the settlement.  On the second day I went swimming, despite it being about 8^C cooler than the mainland, so about 22^C.  Then a nap, then a hike around the salt lakes where a squad of quokkas tried to mug me for my lunch. 

In the evenings they positively swarmed about the Lodge where I was staying.  I counted at least 50 quokkas feeding on the fruit dropped from a single huge Moreton Bay fig tree.  Quokkas are so protected that they don’t even bother to look up as you walk among them.  Vehicles have to wait for them to move, so it can take awhile to get anywhere.  The only vehicles are the ones required for construction or other work or to manage the tourism aspects of the island.

On the third day, my friends Rob and Leece visited with their Me-Movers, which are non-powered versions of the Segway,  is how I think of them.  I hired a pushbike, finding that the bike place had suffered a server crash so were operating under mid 20^th century conditions.  “Have you got cash?”  We then rode around, visiting the old gun placements and other remains from WWII and the less populated end of Rottnest.  The guns were never fired under theatre of war conditions, but they were certainly ready had they been needed.

I headed home the next morning, where my first job was to water all the pot plants, who’d been enduring quite hot weather of 30^C and then to crash, since I was still really tired from the day before.  Friday was pottering around at home.  Saturday I had to visit M who needed assistance with various stuff.  I made her go for a walk with me outside.  I don’t think she does enough of that.  Possibly only the shopping trip with the elder care minion on Wednesdays.  Her first reaction when you suggest anything is to list all the reasons she can’t do it, which is very annoying.

Then Sunday was another train ride down to Mandurah, which used to be a quiet retirement community built around an estuary system but is certainly a lot busier these days.  It took me about two hours all up to get there but 20 mins less to get back.  This was to attend a picnic for Rob’s birthday, where there were ten people including me, count them.  I can safely say that’s the largest gathering I’ve been to since the plague began at the start of the year!

Monday was more puttering about and a Runequest familiarisation session online with Leece and John, the gamesmaster, who is in Canberra so it would be online whether there was a plague around or not.  That was quite tiring.  I don’t usually have to use my brain when on holiday.

Then today was off to have my quarterly blood test and then await Liz’s arrival to examine the computer and most recently a ride to Bunnings Hardware to get a high-vis vest for night riding.  I’m now the proud owner of a tasteful fluorescent yellow vest and will get photos once, as I say, we’ve gotten my two pieces of tech to talk to one another again the way they did only a week ago!  Liz can’t find a reason so we’re going to try another cable, since that plugs into another socket on the computer.  She’s bringing that around tomorrow.

In last news, I’ve temporarily closed my account with Curious Fictions.  I feel my authorial progress is so slow right now that I need to take a complete break.  I’m an exemplar of a quote I saw not long ago titled Resolutions for Lockdown.  “Write a novel!”  What actually happened.  “I have forgotten how to read!”