days like these

The radio alarm rouses me at 6:15. I contemplate lying abed for another minute or two or even till the news at 6:30. But no. I need to be on the 7:32 to Ringwood so I swing the legs out from under the warm doona, make to stand, lose my balance, put a hand on the bedside table for balance. The top flips up, catapults the clock-radio, a torch, glasses case and candle across the room.

I climb off my knees and cross the floor to the light switch. I retrieve the flung items and replace them. I cook porridge and make toast while rounding up clothes to wear. The toast burns. I rush it to the back door and Frisbee it into the garden. I cut another slice and continue about my business. This slice burns even quicker. I sling it after the first, cut another piece of bread and eat it raw.

I allow extra time at the station to book my ticket for Ballarat, but the bloke behind the glass tells me the system is down and he can’t sell me a ticket. He suggests I go to Mooroolbark, though I can’t imagine why. The tannoy announces that the 7:32 won’t run today, nor the train after it. I begin to wonder what sort of day this is going to be. The portents are not propitious.

I sit on a cold steel seat and wait for the next train, barely able to see the platform’s edge for the gaggle of frustrated commuters in front of me. At Ringwood I alight and cross the ramp to the Eastland side of the station. The unglued sole of my boot trips me at the bottom of the ramp, pitching me into some street furniture.

  

I’m being picked up in the furthest corner of the underground car park before the Vic MM team motor down Eastlink to Frankston.

The second day’s training is awful. Sasha and I confabulate sotto voce about our misgivings. Neither of us feels we could present this PD in its current format—bloated with meaningless PowerPoint slides and in no order we can make sense of. Just before lunch the participants brains grind to an inevitable halt. Just after lunch I can take no more and abscond early.

The Frankston train to the city is delayed—an incident down the line—but I’ve given myself plenty of time for mishaps. The rest of the trip to Southern Cross and on to Ballarat is uneventful. My last evening of training Ballarat mentors is uninspiring. Only three of ten impress me. But I can’t knock them; they’re volunteers and giving much of themselves.

I do ask myself how a city of 100,000 people can’t do better. Tomorrow I run the second evening’s training for mentors in Castlemaine; all 21 are fabulous. This from a town of 7,000. Doesn’t make sense.

Today is not the best day of my life, but I’ve been philosophical about it since getting out of bed. Nothing has fazed me. In the end it’s a perfectly acceptable day. John Lennon knew there’d be days like these.

Rock on.