the one where metro p***es me off.

So I needed to to go to Nunawading this morning.

I live near Mont Albert station.

Mont Albert is on the Belgrave/Lilydale line.

Nunawading is on the Belgrave/Lilydale line.

So it should have been easy yes?

I caught the train at Mont Albert.

The station after Mont Albert is Box Hill.

The train pulled in to Box Hill Station and the driver announced that the train was terminating at Box Hill station.

I got off the train, raced up the escalator, across the plaza and down the ramp, just in time to see the Belgrave/lilydale train pull out of the station.

A couple of minutes later it was announced that the next train on Platform 4 would be a Belgrave train.

A train arrived, I boarded it. We stopped at Laburnum station.

We stopped at Blackburn station. The driver announced that the train was terminating at Blackburn and returning to Flinders Street.

I got off the train, raced down the ramp, through the underpass to platform 3 just in time to leap aboard the Belgrave/lilydale train before the doors completely closed.

The stop after Blackburn is Nunawading.

So three trains, 2 sprints and 20 minutes later I had travelled the 4 stations from Mont Albert to Nunawading.

#metrofail

A-Z of Tapsister

Thought I'd have a go at the meme that's doing the rounds....

A. Age: read it online most mornings via press display
B. Bed size: Queen
C. Chore that you hate: Housework
D. Dogs: None now. as a kid we had Peanuts (golden labrador), Andrew (golden labrador), Murray (collie kelpie X)
E. Essential start to your day: Coffee & Angry Birds
F. Favourite colour:Depends. Usually green, purple, or maroon
G. Gold or Silver: Silver
H. Height: 5 ' 3"
I. Instruments you play: None
J. Job title: Collection Maintenance & Adult Services Librarian
K. Kids: none
L. Live: Mont Albert
M. Mother’s name: Margret
N. Nicknames: Fee, Fi, Foo, Fwowna, BFwowna, Fiff, fona, fonamarg, feestar, finyonahr, fifi
O. Overnight hospital stays: None
P. Pet peeve: people who queue jump
Q. Quote from a movie: I carried a watermelon (Dirty Dancing)
R. Right or left handed: Right
S. Siblings: Four, all younger.(3 brothers, 1 sister)
T. Time you wake up: 6am
U. Underwear: yes
V. Vegetable you hate: Cucumber
W. What makes you run late: Angry Birds
X. X-Rays you’ve had: Teeth, shoulder, elbow, wrist, finger, knee, ankles, foot,
Y. Yummy food that you make: Corned Beef
Z. Zoo animal: Giraffe

Public Holiday Monday & Adelaide

So Adelaide on a public holiday monday.

What to do, what to do.

We had been warned that 'nothing would be open' but we didn't believe them...

Buskers coffee shop in the Rundle St Mall was open so that was breakfast taken care of.

Then we walked the deserted streets to the Adelaide Zoo.

The one in which we are still in Adelaide

So we were supposed to fly home from Adelaide yesterday.

Our flight was due to leave at 3.30pm.

We got to the airport just before 2pm to be greeted with the news on checking our luggage in that our flight was delayed by 90 minutes & would now be boarding at 4.30 pm for a 5pm flight time.

reason for the delay - fog in melbourne that morning had caused a knock on effect of delays.

Okey dokey.

Luckily we had books with us, an ipad (for angry birds playage), and a Cocolat store to fulfil any remaining chocolate urges.

About 3.30pm we discovered our flight had been delayed a further 30 minutes.

At 4.30 we decided to head to our boarding gate. as we strolled past the departures board we glanced casually at our flight to double check the gate number - only to find the word cancelled displayed under scheduled departure time.

Hmmmmm.

When we got to the gate there was no one there. No airline rep bearing the brunt of traveller abuse, no one.

We split up. TappingBetty headed out to arrivals to see if she could find an airline rep, while I prowled the concourse on the same mission.

About 10 minutes after we split up TappingBetty texted me - she'd found our suitcase spinning forlornly on the baggage carousel - still no airline personnel but at least we had the rest of our chocolate belongings.

Meanwhile i'd found the airline rep.

Our choices were: a) accept an immediate refund of our flight cost or b) be booked on the next available flight (which was 6.20am Tuesday, yes Tuesday & today was Sunday...)

While we queued to speak to the (poor) beleaguered rep we quickly surfed the web to see what our options were.

VirginBlue - no seats available til Monday $179 each.

Qantas - no seats til Monday $480 each.

Our refund - $50 each

Hmmmmmmm.

If we took the airlines tuesday morning offer they would reimburse us up to $120 each per night.

We took option B and quickly booked another 2 nights at the hotel we'd been staying at.

The one where fiona reveals she knows way too much about adelaide airport

Having spent almost 12 hours at adelaide airport over two days I feel I am awesomely qualified to comment on the airport's amenities.

Airport departures lounge (through security) opens at 4am (including security check points).

Most shops on departures concourse open at 5. (not smiggle tho)

Shops on departures concourse:

Cocolat (cafe)

Cibo (cafe)

Hudsons (cafe)

Cafe something or other (can't read my writing)

Coopers alehouse (do coffee as well as ales)

Smiggle

Virgin music

Newslink

Bijoux

Witchery

Luggage shop

Childrens playroom

Sushi shop

Hungry Jacks

Coopers merchandise shop

A taste of South Australia

Purely Australian

Gratuitous info.

It is exactly 100 paces from Cokolat to comfy couch.

TappingBetty got screened for explosives each time we went to Adelaide airport - i think she has been screened for explosives at every major australian airport except Perth - last time she went to perth explosives hadn't been invented.

Fruchocs rock. Do 5 fruchocs count as 5 serves of fruit?

Taste of South Australia makes really good coffee.

The airport police get their coffees from Taste of South Australia.

The virgin blue crews get their coffees at cocolat.

The first flight out of Adelaide in the morning is a Qantas flight at 5.50 am.

No Qantas staff got coffee while we were there.

The one where I discover there is chocolate in adelaide.

Cocolat.

I ordered a top deck hot chocolate (mix of white and milk chocolate).

We shared a 'baby' lamington and a 'baby' rocky road.

There is also a cocolat at the airport #justsaying

Cikolatte.

white hot chocolate

salted caramel macaron

Well worth the walk

Chocolate Bean

Regular hot chocolate.

Tucked down an alley near cocolat.

Blackeby's

I bought peanut butter fudge.

Tapping Betty bought perky nana's.

We could have bought sooooooooooooooooooo much more.

Swiss Glory

Bought yummy chocolate frogs and a caramel filled handmade chocolate

Then we went to Glenelg.

Bracegirdles.

OMG. Wow. Words fail me.

if you go to Glenelg you must must must must must go to Bracegirdles.

I will be blogging about all of these and more in greater detail over at Chocbytes once i've caught up on #blogjune

The one where Fiona begins to get her groove back

The short version

TappingBetty & I went to Adelaide for the Cabaret Festival.

We flew Tiger.

We have flown Tiger frequently without any problems.

We will never fly Tiger to Adelaide again.

There were media types and cameras waiting for us when we arrived at Adelaide airport.

Our hotel room is very small.

The longer version

My sister and I were flying to Adelaide for the Cabaret Festival. We had purchased ridiculously cheap tickets on Tiger ages ago - we have flown Tiger frequently (though never to Adelaide) without any problems or complaints (I realise this puts us very much in the minority when it comes to flying with Tiger), on this trip things were to change.

My sister booked for both of us and we booked luggage for one. (our usual m.o) Previously we have not been able to check in online using this configuration because of the luggage. This time when we went to check in we were slugged an extra $30 because one of us should have checked in online. (lesson learned - always scroll to absolute bottom of the page on tiger's website - a lesson that came in very handy later in the trip).

We made it to Adelaide and as we rode the escalator down to the baggage carousel we noticed a media scrum waiting at the bottom of said escalator. There were 6 or 7 television cameras trained on the escalator and a gaggle of news reporter types standing by.

None of them rushed to interview us so we assumed they were waiting for someone else, but who?

We kept an eye on them while we waited for our suitcase. Then three guys in suits came down the escalator and the scrum headed straight for them.

After the interview one of the suits, followed by a lone channel 9 cameraman waited opposite us for his bags. (If you looked carefully at the channel nine adelaide news on friday night you would have seen TappingBetty & I in the bottom left of screen - I'm wearing a riverdance t shirt, Ky is wearing a melbourne tap festival shirt)

Turns out the 'suits' were Mark Ricciuto & 2 others from the Adelaide Crows. Ricciuto had been inducted into the AFL hall of fame the previous evening (along with Vossy)

After we left the airport (and our 15 seconds of fame) we headed for our hotel.

We had booked an economy 3 star room at the Mercure Grosvenor Hotel in Adelaide - it's located a short walk from the cabaret venues and central to pretty much everything.

To get to our economy room we walked along a very, very, very long corridor (wishing we had a ball of string, or a packet of breadcrumbs) took a dogleg right at the end of the corridor, continued down a half flight of stairs, along a short corridor, turned left into another long corridor and finally found our room two doors from the far end.

The room did exactly as promised. 2 beds, a tv, bar fridge. A very small bathroom - no room for a kitten, let alone swinging a cat.

Still it would be home for the next two nights.....

Too much information & blogging mojo

The first part of this post is rambling, narcississtic, selfish, pointless & self indulgent.

But it's my blog and i can say what i want - so there (you may imagine me petulantly sticking my tongue out)

Feel free to skip ahead to tomorrow's blog post. Move along, nothing to see here.

It's been a pretty ordinary start to June jobwise. I went for a job & didn't get it (no surprise there).

what did surprise me was how upset i was. I should point out that I was disappointed that I didn't get the job but what upset me was not the 'not getting the job' but more the ramifications (for me) of not getting the job, and some things that were said to me when I was told I didn't get the job.

The ramifications are pretty clear - there is no future for me in that organisation - if I wish to use my skills and knowledge I am going to have to find an organisation that appreciates and/or can & wants to use my particular skill set. This should come as no particular surprise to me (or to people who know me well) but it can be upsetting when you finally see the writing on the wall.

The second - the words. Even I was surprised by how what was said upset me. I should point out that it was tactless rather than malicious but it was (and is) hard to deal with.

Because I am a confidence person (in the sense of confidence & esteem not the trickster sense) if my self esteem is down then I struggle. (Though I usually bounce back pretty quickly - this time it took a bit longer).

This kind of sucked the life out of my blogging mojo and for a week or so blogging was too difficult.

Anywhoo that's my excuse for falling so far behind on #blogjune.

END OF SELF INDULGENT RANT & RAMBLE

Now to start to catch up on this whole blogging thing....

Talking the talk, Walking the walk , Crumpling the crumpler

I talked about crime novels and JM Barrie at the Hawthorn booktalk today.

The JM Barrie was Peter Pan's First XI by Kevin Telfer which is the story of the cricket team formed by JM Barrie and some of the leading literary figures of the time who, luckily, were much better writers than they were cricketers - except perhaps for Arthur Conan Doyle who dined out on the story of when he dismissed WG Grace (admittedly Grace was in his declining cricketing years...)

The crime novels were: Outwitting trolls by William G Tapply; On the line by SJ Rozan; The reckoning by James Jauncey, & The missing by Jane Casey.

After I left the talk I headed for the tram - a walk which unfortunately, or fortuitously, took me past the Crumpler bags factory seconds shop which was having a 30% of everything sale.

I now own a crumpler backpack & a laptop bag (both were 50% off).

I think i will attempt toclaim them as either (a) on tax as a work related expense as I was on my way from work to work, or (b) from Petal as her booktalk was the catalyst for my mini shopping spree...

Gilbert the gecko

so i was reading the local paper at work today (it's ok i was on my lunchbreak) when I spotted this little gem in the positions vacant...

I rang the lovely Rita at our Hawthorn branch and told her I'd found a job I wanted ( I didn't tell her what it was though) and would she be my referee.

I'd worked on Saturday with Rita and she'd been so wonderful and supportive and we'd talked eco the gecko antics...

I told her where in the paper to find the job ad and asked her to ring me back after she'd had a look at it and tell me what she thought.

Five minutes later she rang me back, giggling her head off.

We both agreed that very few applicants would be able to provide a recent portfolio of gecko performances.

Pandering to the masses?

I was weeding today (the book kind not the gardening kind) and had decided to weed the 800s.

Now like many libraries we shelve the australian literature (A 800 - 899) in a separate sequence to the 'rank and file' 800s.

Anyway as I was weeding away I got to thinking.... why do we still separate the aussie lit out?

Could we interfile?

We could still have the A on the spine label to indicate it's australian but one sequence of 800s seems to make sense to me.

We already interfile junior non fiction and teenage non fiction with the adult non fiction so the A before the call number wouldn't be a problem (we already use J or T)

I think that often the 2 sequences confuse borrowers.

If they are looking for 821 and find A 821 but not the book they wanted - do they ask a librarian (occasionally) or do they leave the library thinking computer says book on shelf but book not on shelf?

I say interfile - one sequence of 800s is the best way to go.

* might mention it at the meeting tomorrow and see if they go looking for the nearest tree to string me up or whether i can convince to listen to my idea...

Adelaide - research

So Tapping Betty & I are off to Adelaide next weekend for the Adelaide Cabaret Festival.

As part of our due diligence we have researched chocolate shops in Adelaide.

So far we have seven 'must-visits':

Haighs

Cikolatte

Chocolate Bean

Cocolat

Chocolate World

Adelaide Chocolate School

Bracegirdles

Any others we should know about?

Main problem is fitting in the chocolate around the cabaret or the cabaret around the chocolate.

On the upside lots of potential june blogposts for theatremad & chocbytes

Pets

I've just joined another online community which wants me to choose a secret question such as "what was the name of your first pet?"

As a child our first pet was a dog called Peanuts (he was a peanut coloured labrador - hence the extremely clever name).

After Peanuts we had a golden labrador called Andrew. (my mum was pregnant with one of my brothers and wanted to name him Andrew - my dad refused to have a son named Andrew so we got a dog called Andrew and a brother called Cameron).

After Andrew we had a dog called Murray. He was named after Fitzroy Football Club legend Kevin 'bulldog' Murray. (the little girl next door renamed him Murray Dog Malcolm). Murray Dog wasn't a bulldog - he was part spaniel, part terrier, part everything else.

My niece has a dog called Maggie, and my littlest nephews have 2 cats Sodapop & Chili.

My youngest nephew desperately wants a dog and he has suggested that they give the cats away so he can get a dog. (we think when he was asking for a dog someone pointed out that he already had 2 cats so he worked out that if they gave the cats away he could have a dog)

****

gratuitous cat (sodapop) photo just because....

Pod People

My youngest brother and his family have a new house.

They moved out of their house 5 weeks ago.

Since then their old house has been demolished and this week their new house was craned in.

The new house was built in a factory (in modules) and then craned into place.

The whole street had to be blocked off (they live in a fairly narrow street) for two days.

It was only supposed to be one day but the 92 ft crane accidentally took out a water main which slowed the 'craneing' down.

Here is one of the 'pods' being craned into position.

And the two youngest residents of the new house watching the big crane build their house.

They start moving their possessions back in tomorrow and plan to be fully moved in by Thursday.

The whole thing is pretty impressive - windows, joinery, almost everything was done in the factory.

The whole thing (demolition, factory house building etc.) was filmed for Better Homes & Gardens.

Can't wait to see the whole process.

It looked pretty impressive from the progress photos my brother showed me; looking forward to seeing the film version.

#blogjune Day 2.

Another week another 'fiona career fail'.

The emotions are running pretty high at the moment.

Normal blogging will resume tomorrow.

Day 1. #blogjune A star is born...

I've decided to take part in blog every day of june again this year.

In a moment of madness I suggested that 'my' library service does likewise.

So some days I'll be blogging twice.

I may need myhead examined.

Anyway on to my blogpost.

Yesterday at work i donned a marbled gecko costume and entertained (terrified?) the kids at pre-school storytime. It was a special storytime for world environment week and I was 'eco the gecko' (or E the G for my rap or graffiti tag)

Only made 2 kids cry (1 because I was leaving)

It was fun.

Took me back to my calisthenic years.