WEDNESDAY 22 APRIL     BENDIGO

A 6am knocking on the van door was grandson, come to wake us up – a task at which he excelled. Well, Grandad did need an early start!

Truck and driver departed at 7.30 and, via the newly opened Calder Freeway and Eastlink, arrived at the mechanic at Lilydale at 10am.

I remained in Bendigo and spent the morning working on my laptop computer. As I used a desktop set up at home, it took me some time to update the laptop with things like current Bookmarks. I had at least updated my share trading programs before leaving home – downloading the price data for several months took a long time! Murphy was still hovering around, though, because I lost a couple of programs I was trying to set up.

About 1.30, I was astounded to hear the unmistakeable Truck burble. I had been so sure that repairs would be major and take days, not to mention lots more dollars. After all that, when John had gotten there, after a cursory look, mechanic said there wasn’t much he could do. I was less than impressed, to put it mildly. Suspected that “not much he can do” translated into something like being too busy, or couldn’t be bothered to properly look for the problem with the work he’d already done. He suggested seeing a brake specialist in Bendigo – talk about passing the buck. John wasn’t keen on that idea – so many car people do not like playing with Landrovers!

So, the brakes issue was not really resolved. Didn’t know where we would go for future work on Truck, but it wouldn’t be back to that incompetent clown.

This morning, I’d arranged with daughter that I would collect grandson from school and walk home with him. Daughter assured me that it “wasn’t far” and that the Preppie would really enjoy this, instead of the usual after-school care.

John and I left at 2.30, walked briskly, and just got there at 3.15. John’s “good” hip (the unreplaced one) hurt badly, but he pressed on. Grandson was happily surprised to see grandad too. John got the grand tour of “my classroom” and met “my teacher”. The former primary school Principal was most impressed with the facilities.

The walk back seemed never-ending. Grandson took us on a short cut that involved a big hill. I was carrying his backpack: how on earth can a Prep kid have a pack that weighs a ton? By the time we got back from this expedition we were hot and tired and my feet hurt.

After some grandparent recovery time and refuel for junior, we were off again, in Truck this time, to go watch the weekly swimming lesson. Then, grandson’s day was really made because, for once, he could get changed in the boys’ room, with grandad to supervise, rather than in the girls’ with mum.

Over dinner, I challenged daughter’s sense of distance. Turned out she had never walked the school route, just driven it, and it “didn’t seem all that far”. (A couple of days later she texted me to say that she had measured it – 3kms each way. So we walked 6kms!)

Whilst he had been back in the vicinity John had called back in to home – to the surprise of the house sitters – and collected some forgotten items: the sheepskin bed underlay he needed for the deteriorating hip, and my sleeper earrings. There is always something forgotten…..

After all of today’s activities we needed a VERY early night.