what a strange week…

it was a lovely long weekend with no work - an enjoyable friday evening with irene visiting and leaving louie to stay until Monday – then catching up with steph and pete monday afternoon - they're going to italy for a few months so won't see them for a while - we ambled down fitzroy street, found somewhere outside to sit and shared a bottle, some food and wonderful conversation.

unfortunately all good things come to an end and my four glorious days off work were fading into a memory already - it was time to get back to reality and work…

and the mountain of returns in the chute room that greeted us on tuesday morning was just a taste of the week to come!!!!! it’s been absolutely chaotic at st Kilda all week… everyone’s just been soooo weary…

so, as you'd expect, none of us were looking forward to working the weekend - especially with the system down all weekend for network maintenance - luckily (for me) I was only doing 1-5 today – but after the frantic week would we survive the day with our sanity intact???

well, what a surprise when i arrived - i walked into a very sparsely populated library – there was hardly anyone on the computers, nor were they booked up for the rest of the day – unheard of on a Saturday – and happy staff!!!! it was a tad surreal!!!!

there had even been an extra staff member arranged for desk – I think there was an extra shelver too - everything that could be done without the system (shelving and interfiling dvds) was pretty much up to date – i can’t remember us ever being ‘over-staffed’on a saturday or everything being 'calm and relaxed' (in a fantastical 'this can't last' sort of way) in the 12 years i’ve been at the library!!!!

so of course, in good team spirit I offered to stay for the lunch cover and then go home if there were too many of us – and to my surprise my offer was accepted - thanks Kitty - our weekend budget has been a bit 'over-extended' lately too so it worked out well all ways round (hope the sunday team have the same 'cruisie' time we did... although who knows what happened when den and i left at 3... and aren't i glad that i don't work mondays - now that's going to be a day of pure horror!!!! good luck everyone...)

cool, i could do some shopping at the health food store and then come home early to my furry companions – if i was lucky there wouldn’t be any piss to clean up because i hadn’t been gone long – now that’s wishful thinking with me old girl’s incontinence!!!

but how fortuitous the timing… walking down loch street just around the corner from home i noticed a beautiful black labradoodle (just like the one opposite only, well, black - more a greyish black) looking very distressed, very lost… he was trying so hard to find a familiar smell – and when he just ran across the road and almost got hit by a car i couldn’t just leave him to a terrible fate so i crossed over and started talking to him – he came straight up to me and snuggled - he was a friendly boy – jet was his name – and luckily he had a mobile phone number on his tag – well, even more lucky was the fact that i had my mobile with me (i quite often walk out of my flat without it!!!!)

and yes, his human companions were frantically searching for him – he’d made his quick escape when someone opened the gate… we exchanged more pats and nuzzling while we waited for his family to find us, and then jet and i said farewell, told each other how nice it was to have fleetingly crossed paths, and went our separate ways…

ahhh, all’s well that ends well…