Someone parked their cherry picker in the Monash University carpark. Monash Uni is full of vigilant park inspectors. I wonder if this picker would ever get a ticket?

Cherry picker at Monash University

I was second in the queue to pick up my photos from the Kmart photo lab.

A young man was making pleasant conversation as he packaged up the lady’s wedding photos.

‘There you go,’ he said and handed over the photos and the receipt.

‘Great, thanks, bye,’ said the lady. I stepped forward as she turned away. She had gotten five metres away when the young Kmart employee called her back.

‘Excuse me! I forgot to give you change.’

He took the a five cent coin out of the cash register and pushed it across the counter to her.

‘Don’t spend it all at once,’ he advised her gravely.

I saw this on the way home.

Friendly neighbourhood warning

A pair of teenagers were loitering on the ground floor balcony of a Council estate. As I walked past, I heard, ‘WHOOOA! HEARTBURN!’

His friend said, ‘What do heartburn feels like?’

‘Feels like my heart is on FIRE!’

It was 8pm. I was walking home when I met a fox coming towards me on the footpath. We stopped and looked at each other.

He was long and red, pointy ears, pointy nose. His tail was very long.

We looked at each other for about thirty seconds. Then the fox casually, confidently left the footpath and climbed up the steps to one of the neighbouring Council flats.

My boss and I were on our way to an interview, walking the 15 minutes from the station to the meeting offices. We were crossing the street, about to slip behind a car stopping at the stop line when the car exploded in a shower of glass.

With one more step, we would have been rained with glass. Shocked, we saw a metal railing pushing out of the newly destroyed back window of the car. It looked like a lawnmower push handle. The mower must have reversed into the the window with the sudden stop of the car at the intersection.

‘What’s that madwoman doing?’ Jonathan exclaimed as the car drove off. It left behind mass of glass on the road.

After the next block, we saw that the woman had pulled into the side street. She was trying and failing to break off protruding shards of window glass.

I heard a funny thing on TV. It was an ad for an air freshener. It said, ‘Aren’t you disappointed when you stop noticing your air freshener? Introducing our new product, which releases a new scent every twenty minutes. Awaken your nosebuds!’

Nosebuds. What a mental image.

As Vera pointed out, it should be smellbuds.

I like looking at groups of girls.

Please don’t think the worst (or the best, depending on your point of view). What interests me is the way they dress. Time and time again, I find that girls dress like each other.

It seems to me that the girls don’t realise this. They probably think they’ve made their own fashion decisions. ‘After all, I’m wearing teal with white polka dots, and she’s wearing dark grey.’

‘Ah,’ I think, ‘but you’re both wearing dresses with belted waists and that go just above the knee. Same shoulder pads, same sleeves.’ Those were the two girls I saw today on Camden High Street.

Last weekend on the way to the post office, I walked behind a trio of girls. The two on the left wore light summer (different coloured) shirts over long dark shorts. Although their sandals had different details (flowers on one, gold rings on the other), both were flat heeled and strappy. The two girls even had the same type of over-the-shoulder handbag — puffy black bags with shiny chain straps.

The third girl was interesting. She was different. While the other two had high pony tails, she wore her hair short. Her handbag was big and pink — practical but stylish in its own way. She wore a dress.

She seemed to be her own person. I admired this.

But who knows? Maybe the three of them were on their way to meet a short-haired friend in a dress holding a big practical yet stylish handbag.

I heard a skid, then a loud thud, angry car horns, and three different sirens.

There is a big smash at the intersection near my flat.

Now there is an ambulance and a crumpled red car parked on our curb. It is flashing blue into my bedroom window as I am trying to sleep.

Around 7:30 AM, I thought I heard the clip clop of horses. I crossed my bedroom and looked outside to see a herd of horses walking on the large road in front of my flat.

There were about thirty of them in neat rows of three. The horse in the middle of each row carried a police person, who also held the reins for the horses either side of him or her. All the horses were brown.

I watched for the minute that it took to get across the main intersection. The ‘clip clop clip clop’ is a lovely sound in the morning.

I have since seen this early morning parade of horses another two times. It seems to happen around once a month.