This week is National Blood Donor week!

I started donating blood when I was at university, whenever the mobile blood bank showed up at the Engineering Examination Halls.

I get an email every three months, telling me that I’m eligible to donate again. My donations count towards my company’s position on a league table.

I try make an appointment for 7:30am. You can show up without an appointment but I like to get in while it’s early. You have to drink around four cups of water before you donate so I usually wake up and start skolling.

I like to go the Bourke St donor centre because it has free muffins, biscuits, coffee, chocolate milk, sultanas, chocolate bars, milkshakes, hot pies, lollies, cheese… (not that I let myself have any. I’m trying to be healthy, you see).

When I arrive at the center, I fill in a questionnaire that asks me what countries I’ve been to recently, what medication I’m taking, how healthy I am… It takes five minutes to fill in.

I put the the questionnaire into a box and read the newspaper while I’m waiting.

When my clipboard gets to the top of the queue, a staff member calls me into a small office. The person asks me a bit more about the answers in my questionnaire. Then I get my blood pressure, weight and the iron levels checked.

For the iron test, the person pricks my finger and squeezes out two drops of blood. It stings a little. My iron levels are usually very good, although my next donation will be during my pescatarian experiment and I wonder if the lack of meat eating will show up in my iron results.

Often, my blood pressure is on the low side. Once I wasn’t allowed to donate because my blood pressure was too low.

After the five minute interview, I’m taken to a reclining chair and handed over to someone else. This new person checks what my preferred arm is (I like to donate with my left arm), straps up my arm, looks for a vein, then puts in the needle.

I like to watch the needle go in. It always hurts less than I expect. One time, the nurse commented that I was brave for watching the needle insertion.

Then comes my favourite part — 15 minutes of enforced idleness. Sometimes I read a gossip magazine.

In my left hand, I have a squeezy toy (like a red foam football). Rolling the toy around in my hand or squeezing it gently makes the blood draw faster. The quickest I’ve ever done this bit is around ten minutes.

The machine beeps when it’s collected around 460 mL of blood. Someone comes around, bandages me up and encourages me to the kitchen. I’m meant to stay for a while, have some food and drink to recover. Usually, though, I’m in a hurry to get to work so I have some water, grab a snack (I’m still eating the snackbox of sultans I got at my last donation in June) and go.

The whole appointment takes around 45 minutes. It can take twice as long if you go in the middle of the day so I do recommend the early slots.

Sometimes, I ride the Melbourne Bike back to work. The donation staff said it should be okay to do that, I just shouldn’t operate any heavy machinery or public transport.

I arrive at work with a big bandage on my left arm and get lots of sympathy from my colleagues about my ‘injury’. Then I tell them that the bandage is for blood donation and they say, ‘Ah, I should do that too.’

Yes, indeed you should! Each donation helps three people. You also get guilt-free relaxation time and sugary fatty snacks. Good, eh?

I know it’s summer because I get to eat steaks of mango! Mango is one of my four favourite foods.

Here is a mega mango that my mum and dad gave us. I tried to take a photo to give you a sense of scale but the best I could do was to put the mango next to a glass pig, which was a gift from Ian and Caroline’s wedding last year.

My mum gave me a yellow banana-shaped box. It says ‘banana house’ on it.

I’m doing my best to avoid owning things and cluttering up our new apartment, so I thought maybe this banana house was one of those ‘over the top’ items, invented to solve a problem no one has.

But I gave it a go and now I like it. It is a regular vistor to my workplace.

I have just started working at a client’s office. I brought the banana house on the first day and word got around that I had this strange thing. People asked me about my ‘banana box’ when we met at meetings.

It’s necessary to choose bananas of the correct curvature. Occasionally, too, bananas can be too thick to fit in the case. Sarah at work asked me if I bring my case to the market and test out bananas before putting them into my shopping basket.

One week, we bought very large bananas. None of them would fit into the case so I had to cut the top third of one them in order to get an unsquashed banana to work.

Today, I restocked on the things that make me a girl. I met up with Bettina, who I studied with last year. We very efficiently traipsed down Oxford Street and Kilburn’s high street, and I emerged with two new pairs of shoes, two pairs of tights, foundation and matching brush, and hair conditioner.

I don’t often go shopping for non-food. It’s not that I don’t like it; there’s just some inertia to overcome.

I woke up before my radio did. I must have an internal clock; it was exactly eight hours after I went to bed.

The morning was for loose ends: spoonfuls of muesli, unpacking luggage, laundry, a bit of karaoke, then organising to meet Kate for brunch tomorrow morning.

I changed out of my sleep clothes into public clothes. I finally have a pair of jeans I like. I matched it with a red and white stripy polo top with three-quarter length sleeves. To combat the grey outside, I pulled on a black polar fleece.

It was bright enough outside to justify sunglasses — they’re prescription lenses, hanging off mauve frames. The lenses are grey because I don’t like the colour bias from looking through brown or green lenses.

Briskly down the hill I went. I haven’t walked for a long time, at least a week. I used to walk to and from the train station. Walking suddenly felt too slow. I remembered jogging around the lake at Shepparton last week. So I jogged, despite not wearing running shoes and my carry bag bouncing against my side. It did feel faster.

I saw the fluffy whiteness about ten metres ahead and slowed down as I approached. There was a cat lying on the grass under a tree. It was lying on its side; I’ve never seen a cat do that without rolling over within a few seconds. Perhaps…it was dead.

I stepped off the footpath onto the greeness. The cat had long white hair with grey patches. It didn’t move as a I hovered over it. Around its neck was a pink collar. I imagined the cat owner searching our neighbourhood and finally coming across the body. Perhaps someone had run into it early in the morning and felt enough regret to get out of the car, pick the cat up and lay it under this tree. I’m sorry, there was nothing I could do.

I wished I had brought my camera. I would have used a shallow depth of field and maybe underexposed it by a stop or two.