Houseminding In Glebe

Friday: Day 1 of 12
I come in late and stonkered after an unusually long day at work and dinner at the Eathouse Diner. I have brought, a suitcase packed for the weekend and the bag of extra toiletries. I wish I could travel light for all my house-minds, but actually I'm going away for the weekend: I'll be back on Sunday night.

I am dismayed: the place is immaculate. Proper clean at the end of my stay will be in order. Deb had protested of course that the place would be filthy. Ha!

I brush my teeth and go straight upstairs to the cosy dormer bedroom. I admire the cotton coverlet, decorated with lavender roses, and strip, fall into bed and fall asleep.

Saturday: Day 2 of 12
Off to Canberra. Up at 5am and out by 5.40. I have a shower and am concerned at how steamy the little bathroom gets. Glebe slumbers as I drive off into the waxing day. I get lost and my friend Sally must wait for me, but that's another story. A fine day... the last.

Sunday: Day 3 of 12
Rain accompanies me home to Sydney, and stays for a week.

Stopped in at my sister's (my house-mind "resting") on way back and pick up the rest of my things - clothes, kitchen, computer, cameras... at Glebe, unload the car and fill the small front room with this essential impedimenta. The house smells like my shampoo. Am I going to Clare's for tv? Much incomprehensible texting. I check my Facebook on the huge computer screen. Later, after dinner with Clare and her mum and auntie, I nearly fall asleep on Clare's Jason recliner, and later still drop straight into bed when I get back here. Yes I don't think I even brushed my teeth.

Monday: Day 4 of 12
I get up late, and shower - the steam is a concern again - I spy a vent high up under the ceiling, it looks like it has moving parts hiding behind it - I find the switch at last, it is in the bathroom cupboard. Who knew. I shave my 12 day growth off with two blunt razors. I look less dashing, younger and fatter. It is novel to look in a mirror while shaving, it is not so novel looking less dashing and fatter. The last house-mind had no bathroom mirror. People's houses are all different and interesting.

I start a shopping list. No "lazy coffee at a cafe on the walk to work" for me! I drive to work - because the street outside is 2 hour parking only, but so is the street around the corner, and the next one down, and all the streets in Glebe. The nearest free parking is in Arundel Street, which is where I park when I go to work anyway. Incredibly, there is a free space at 9am. At 9.02 I am in the office.

Twelve and a half hours later I leave work, it's wet and windy and rainy, I do NOT ride my bike home, as planned. Plus I must eat, so I drive home, eating takeaway on the way, like in an Edward Hopper painting (I fondly imagine). I worry about the steak I bought in Canberra on Saturday, but it's just too late and wet to bbq it tonight. I get home, pick up some mail hiding behind one of the pots on the porch; inside I brush my teeth (praise God!) and go to bed.

I reflect that I am not spending much time in this lovely little house. I reflect that Deb's instructions on how to run the air-conditioning are probably not going to come in handy as I zip up my polar-fleece vest and, huddling under the light coverlet - embroidered with lavender roses -  and cotton blanket, hug an embroidered pillow to my chilly chest.