Christmas

Christmas seems to have arrived very quickly (or perhaps suddenly) this year. I'm sure that it was Christmas only a couple of months ago, and all of a sudden another year has gone.

I've gone with a baubles covered in gold glitter look for my nails this year. :-)

I nominally finished work for the year on Friday last week, but spent from then to Monday night working madly on trying to complete unfinished work. I got about a third of the remaining work finished, and most of the remaining jobs at least started, then fell in a heap. The pressure of trying to finish it all before Christmas was too much, and I ended up with a headache that made it impossible to concentrate enough to get any work done. As a consequence, I expect to be working on paperwork (but not answering the phone) between Boxing Day and New Years Eve, which is my next nail appointment.

Incidentally, contrary to my last post, there was a court injunction handed down today against the closure of the railway line into Newcastle on Boxing Day. I have no idea whether they will stop running trains into the city, but they aren't allowed to start removing infrastructure such as level crossing boom gates and the overhead wires, so there is some chance that I'll still be able to catch the train into town for at least one more waxing appointment. :-)

Oh, and it's well over a month and I still have a girl photo as the profile photo on my Facebook boy profile. It turns out that it simply isn't an issue.

End of an era

Today, as I've done many times before, I caught the train into town (Newcastle) for a waxing appointment. This time, I also walked to Civic to pick up some contact lenses that were on back order last time I was there, then caught the train home. By the time my next waxing appointment is due, there will be no railway line into Newcastle. :-(

The railway line is being shortened, with the last 3 stations (Newcastle, Civic and Wickham) being closed permanently, and a new station being built near the old Wickham one as a new terminus that is supposed to become an interchange to light rail, but it's not clear when or if that light rail will happen.

As a matter of principle, I won't pay for parking in Newcastle. So, from now on, my waxing appointments will either be on Saturdays, when pay parking doesn't apply to as big an area as during the week, or I'll drive and walk a long way.

Similarly, visits to my optometrist, which is not open on Saturdays, will be by car, parking several blocks away and walking.

A couple of interesting things happened. One was that the staff at the optometrist's practice again behaved as if my last visit had been perfectly normal.

The other thing was far funnier to me. When I got to Civic station, a rather scruffy looking family were waiting on the platform. While I was watching, the mother walked across and spat down towards the tracks. A boy then tried to copy her, but ended up spitting on her. Eww...

I checked the time that the next train was due and, upon finding that it would be about 15 minutes, went to the take-away food outlet next to the station and bought a drink, walked past the family and sat down.

A few minutes later, I'd finished my drink and the train was still not there, so I walked past the family yet again to put the cup in the bin, then past yet again to get to the right part of the platform for where I wanted to be on the train. The final time that I walked past, the father noticed my red nails and, to me, looked idiotic when he pointed to them and shouted to the family to look at them. I walked away with a big smile on my face. :-)