Right. Where were we?
I alerted everyone to the world-altering news that I had written a parody of a certain tally-ho pilot from last century and that I was starting to post it – in chapters – on a thing called Substack.
Then my 87-year-old mother broke her leg.
Femur, to be exact. Top of, to be precise. Buggered it utterly, to be CT-scan specific.
The surgery has occurred- very successful - but we’re still in the middle of public hospital Christopher Nolan Inception-esque Unreal Reality. My sister and I are helicopter-parenting our parent and visiting far more than the staff would like and, being old hands at public hospital schedules, retinues, routines and its almost constant and inevitable fog of information-underload, we ask too many questions, question too many decisions, and need more nurturing than the actual patient.
In a nutshell, they can’t wait for us all to transfer to rehab. Not the Amy Winehouse cool version. The take-five-more-steps-today, let’s-try-taking-a-crap-on-an-actual-toilet rehab. Not particularly hip. Way more reconstructed femur. I think ... yes ... I can see Oscar Wilde shaking his head in the wings.
Anyhoozie.
Here we are. No more Goggles for a week or so. Apologies. For those who’ve subscribed, thank you that’s very kind. There will be more. If you’ve not subscribed, I think we’ll all cope within the larger framework of the universe, all the possible Gods and Endgames, and online popularity as oxygen. Although a book deal would be fun. No pressure.
What lies ahead? I mean, that’s the Massive Question on any day of the week, but a smidge more so when one’s mum has inched another couple of metal rods closer to becoming Jaime Somers (ask ChatGPT) and is due home at some point. Will there be a Community Nurse? Will there be a Zimmer frame? Will she, in fact, return to driving to Sydney every week? Going to art lectures? Being somewhat independent? No no yes yes bloody yes thank you if I have anything to do with it. Which - are-the-Kennedys-gun-shy? - I will. Poor mumsy. Has she ever seen ‘Rocky’? There’s a track suit and a flight of steps leading up to a war memorial or some such in her near-ish future whether she knows it or not.
To wring the hell out of a popular local expression: she’ll be right, mate.
Right. There we are. My explanation for why the latest Goggles instalment has not been installed.
Hasta que el fémur haya sanado, baby. (ChatGPT is gagging to help you.)
