Week 26/2025: Good news! (. . . and a trip to Melbourne)
Week of 23 June 2025
This post is wholly researched and written by me. I do not use AI in my writing. I will always bring you my stories in my real human voice.
Good news!
She’s dead! The Witch of the West is dead!
The wickedest witch there ever was . . . .
Just letting myself get carried away with having finally, after seven months, seen the movie version of Wicked.
How wonderful!
And more good news
This week started much as last week ended, with the hearing device trial and the back/hip/leg/foot pain continuing.
I went to the physio on Monday morning and told him my GP had ordered an xray. He said fine, but be careful about this because sometimes scans can show things you might not need to know about. So there’s that . . .
He ditched a couple of my exercises and I’m to carry on with the others.
Then a return to the audiologist for hearing device number four. These ones are programmed with tinnitus retraining therapy, which as I understand it, doesn’t mask tinnitus but provides another sound your brain listens to and it learns to tune that out so it learns to tune tinnitus out as well. So I have that going on as well as toning down the loud sounds.
I guess the difference between that and masking is, I have masking sounds quite loud to literally drown the tinnitus out, whereas this drowns nothing out.
What I’ve noticed with all of these devices, apart from the one that got really unpleasant, is I start off thinking they’re doing something to dampen the undesirable sounds but within a few hours it becomes obvious to me they aren’t.
So I don’t know.
While this was going on, a development with the leg pain. A good development.
I’d been able to walk for only a couple of minutes before the pain fired up, but on Wednesday, for the first time since this all started, I was able to walk for 15 minutes without any pain.
Good news indeed!
Perfect timing
The diminishing pain was perfect timing for my trip to Melbourne to see Kramstable, which we had very carefully planned to fit in with his semester break, my semester break, and not school holidays.
A fabulous break.
Because Kramstable’s uni campus in the eastern suburbs, I had booked an apartment in Box Hill, a suburb I knew nothing about other than its connection to the Hawthorn Football Club. I knew it had some tall buildings and a train station, and it was a bus ride to where he’s living.
Day one was so fun!
I caught the Hobart Skybus to the airport and the Melbourne one to Spencer Street Station (I know it’s called Southern Cross. I’m stuck in the past). After a wrong turn or two, I found the shopfront to purchase a new Myki, found the correct train and arrived at Box Hill station. It’s in the Box Hill Central shopping centre.
Finding my way out of the station was a bit of guesswork. But once I got out of the shopping centre, all I had to do was cross the road, turn left, walk a few hundred metres to the corner and turn right. I got to the apartment exactly at 2.00, check-in time.
My apartment was on floor 14 (not in the building above) and it had the best views!
Searching for a bus
I then had a fabulous adventure trying to find the right bus to get to Kramstable’s place. I had got the impression he knew Box Hill fairly well but he didn’t, so all he could do was tell me the bus number I needed. There were lots of signs but no buses, and I finally gave up and went back to the train station and asked.
Turns out— this is cool—the bus mall is on the roof of the shopping centre. It seems like a really good way of doing it because there are no cars, it’s all one-way and the bus stops are spread out around the four sides of the building.
Bus located, and the next thing was to make sure I got off at the correct stop. The bus stop signs here are designated with their geographical location, rather than a number (which until recently Hobart bus stops had, don’t get me started) so it’s easy to follow where you are both by looking out the window at the signs and checking the route on the app.
And also messaging Kramstable, who was telling me how many stops to go. It ended up being very easy because I could see the uni well before we got to the stop.
It was so good to see him and to see where he lives and to see for myself that he’s doing really well.
The rest of the extended weekend was about exploring new places, spending more time with Kramstable, visiting art galleries and checking out the views from the apartment.
I had a wonderful time.
Slabs joined us on Saturday so I went back to Kramstable’s place with him to take another look.
Some of the (non-Kramstable) highlights were
A train ride on the Mernda line to Thornbury to visit Perimeter Books.
The joke here is that in my acting class play last year, my character was travelling on a train on the Mernda line. I didn’t make it to Mernda though. The bookshop was too enticing.
Visiting Glenferrie Oval, where the Hawks used to be headquartered until football stopped being about the suburbs and became a business.
The 1938 grandstand is heritage listed, but a later stand has recently been demolished as part of the council’s plan to create a space for the community.
Tadao Ando’s MPavilion in the Queen Victoria Gardens, which is the tenth such pavilion to have been made under the MPavilion program in Melbourne. Under this program, each year the Naomi Milgrom Foundation commissions an architect to design a temporary pavilion for the Queen Victoria Gardens. These are then gifted to the state of Victoria.
I read that this one will be staying where it is for the next five years so I don’t know if that means they’ll build another one somewhere else in the gardens or if this is the last one.
The 20th Century Australian art collection at the National Gallery of Victoria, and Jeffery Smart’s ‘Rooftops’, which is not in that part of the gallery.
A pigeon visitor to my balcony.
A Sunday morning photowalk around Box Hill.
Habit tracker
I’ve fallen a bit off the habit tracking wagon these past few weeks while I’ve been injured—plus I’ve been on holiday—so I haven’t really been focusing on my lifestyle habits. However, in the spirit of staying accountable . . .
Existing habits
- Go outside first thing (7 days): 7/7
- 15 minutes morning exercise sequence (7 days): 6/7
- Hip exercises (5 days): 6/5
- Walk (7 days): 7/7
- Walk 8,000 steps (7 days): 7/7
- 9.00 shutdown & dim lights (6 days): 0
- Evening routine (6 days): 0
New(ish) habits
- Fill water bottle in the morning (5 days): 5/5
- Carry a notebook with me when I walk (7 days): 6/7
- Mid-day journalling (7 days): 1/7
- Thinking time (4 days): 1/4
- Read aloud (7 days): 1/7
Summary of the week
Some positive things
I got some good feedback from my acting classmates about my main scene in our play.
Getting a front seat on the Melbourne Skybus.
The wonderful views from the apartment in Box Hill . . .
. . . and the rooftop pool!
Watching Wicked.
And seeing Kramstable. That was the best bit 🙂
What did I learn this week?
If you have a nerve injury in your leg and you sneeze, it really really really fucking hurts.
What did I notice this week?
So many things! I was in a new place with new things to see.
It was fantastic!
What was the best thing this week?
Seeing Kramstable.
What am I reading this week?
- Into the Woods by John Yorke
- Sadvertising by Ennis Cehic
- A Flat Place by Noreen Masud
What am I watching this week?
- Masterchef Australia
- Stranger Things Season 2 and 3
- The Survivors (episodes 3-6)
- Wicked
- Bay of Fires (episode 1)
What am I listening to this week?
- Spacemakers Podcast Season 3 and Season 1
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