My hour for tea is half-past five, and my buttered toast waits for nobody.

Forgive the previous post. I’ve been up all night bailing buckets – in the lounge room. Then I was locked outside in the storm for over two hours (because the door stuck), and the cat has lost all faith in me, as well he might.

And there’s no cheesy tv on at lunchtime, like there was last week. I was particularly down, being refused leave yet again, so I needed cheesy tv, like seven types of American cheese, and found The Bionic Woman: Fembots in Las Vegas, and yep, that’ll do nicely. (Please note that I made it to August before scrolling through the midday tv guide). Alas, no such luck this week (and not all the coffee in the world will prop up these little eyeballs, glazing over the dullest texts in the land).

Rain keeps smacking the window. (Sighs like historical drama heroine).

Really, aside from the crushing of my holidays dreams, I was loving the whole WFH thang. No office mean girls clique (at least, not much), and I had my old desk back, amusingly frozen in time since I’d become chained to the office desk. I like having my old desk back, now a pleasing mix of old stuff and new, a souvenir cup to hold my pens, my dalek teapot once more by my side. And the radio was still set to triplej when I turned it on.

I’ve had a chance to do some much needed tidying (still a long way to go, but getting there) and I’d returned the brambles into some semblance of a yard and garden again. Why, we even had fish and chips on the new chairs once . Yes, days before the over the fence campaign stepped up, damn me, I was enjoying myself. Yes, even the weeding, and pruning, and digging holes, and sawing (haven’t done any of that for a month now, and you can tell, boy, can you tell). I’d even bought a bird bath.

I think it all went wrong the weekend we spent watching the Mandalorian and the original three Star Wars films. And the Muppet Movie. With our big box of Haighs chocolates that had arrived via post. I feel like I was just enjoying myself too much.

It was like this. Suddenly, it all went to streaming. Plays I had tickets to, plays I hadn’t bought tickets to. Concerts and comedies. And I wanted in. But I had an old, old telly. Like from last century, made in some communist country that no longer exists, but damn, it’s a fine telly, and it still works mostly. And we didn’t have the NBN, so there was no point.

But then, we get the NBN, we get all these streaming channels, we get locked down, the National Theatre introduces NT at Home. Well, damn. So I bought a telly. Online. It was very cheap, less than $800. And, as the monitor I’d had to buy for the WFH set up was much, much smaller than anticipated, well, I wasn’t expecting much.

So it arrived. And we could barely carry it up the stairs and indoors. I had to rearrange the furniture. I’d misread inches as centimetres (and the low price wasn’t a clue). So I now have a somewhat larger than expected telly. And it was bloody marvellous. We’ve watched plays and plays (National Theatre, The Globe, RSC, Sydney Theatre Company, Old Fitz) and concerts (Riverside, Opera House) and films, so many old favourite films.

One glorious weekend we just binged on Star Wars, and it was so much fun. And ever since…there’s been a blanket over the tv, a tarp on the lounge and buckets on the floor. I just feel like I had too much fun, you know?

Well, I made it as far as August before the rain, the possums and a minivan load of not very nice people got me down.

Maybe, if the rain ever stops, I’ll just wear headphones and ignore the searchlights from Stalag Zement as I continue on with gardening in my own backyard. Maybe.

So I finally watched the less than lauded Sherlock episode, possibly the last ever, and if the mission was, somewhat oddly for a commercial enterprise, to leave us not wanting any more today, thank you, then mission accomplished?

I wasn’t as outraged as some, but then I knew where it was going the moment I saw the sword come out of the umbrella (fancy yourself Steed? Think again). As Himself remarked, about halfway through you were thinking Emma would have figured it out by now, and (and he really should have popped in a pipe or started pointing with it as he carried on with his comments) if they had to rip off The Avengers, why chose two episodes of the colour series not held in terribly high esteem by the fans (House That Jack Built, Superlative Seven) when there are much better bland and white episodes to dabble with.

I know, everyone’s a critic these days. Everything is so damn derivative. When I was trying (and failing) to write as a kid, I hated myself for how derivative I was. If I accidentally borrowed a scene from a film I’d seen six years before I’d rip myself for it, for months. Now, well, anything goes (not me, of course, I just edit articles about dog shit, yes, really).

Take La La Land (please). Look, I was in Canberra on a Friday night, so bored and alone goes without saying, and the telly and interwebs at the hotel didn’t work, but I was curious as to what all the fuss was about. I remain so. Bold choice, staging a musical with leads who can’t sing or dance. And they really don’t know how to sing at all – I seem to have had more training just for a school choir in a poor suburb (they always think choirs are so improving for impoverished urchins). Charmless, too (Ryan Reynolds was totally robbed). But the fact that the whole thing was a badly stuck together mashup of Singing In the Rain and Funny Face? As a fan of both those films, I have to say ‘hey, now’.

Then again, Rogue One wasn’t entirely shiny and new either, slamming somewhat haphazardly between reprising scenes from Star Wars with the sort of dogged devotion one used to only find in fan films, you know, the really humourless ones, and those old WWII films they used to always screen on Channel Ten (Dirty Dozen et al).

Again, and it might just be me being old, grumpy and permanently concussed, but I didn’t dig that as much as I’d hoped. Maybe I didn’t have enough red wine. The Dendy Canberra brought in two enormous art house sized glasses of red (I’d forgotten I was in an art house theatre, they give you enormous glasses that hold half a bottle instead of the usual tiny capful, so it was a very rosy viewing) and so, despite all my misgivings, I was actually enjoying La La Land, though the next morning there was a lot of regret and what-did-I-do humiliation.

Speaking of red wine, lil Chris Pine should ease up on it a touch, if some recent interviews are any indication. Either that or he’s letting his freak flag fly, which is equal parts adorable and alarming, depending on my mood (sometimes I get distressingly maternal and wish he’d smarten himself up).

My plan to watch all the dvds in my Twelve Days of Chris festival never happened because of a heatwave/concussion nexus of please just let me die, but there were a few of the standard staples on telly (Star Trek, Jack Ryan, etc.), so I did get a Chris fix. And fix is the right word. I don’t know why I decided that Chris Pine was going to be the opiate du jour of this mass, but it works, mostly, and unlike his British brethren (Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch, etc.), far more likely to be somewhere on the schedule (unless, of course, they’re in the same movie as young Chris). I mean, I’ve obsessed before, ahem, once or twice, over a jolly little actor, but it’s never been the three films daily scheduling that some Pine Nut at Foxtel manages to schedule. So it’s a steady drip feed, which I suppose keeps me slightly sane.

Harder after yesterday (I’m going to need something special, Chris). Well, it’s this whole week, really. Back at work, heatwave, over an hour’s wait just to get on a crowded bus. I fainted on Monday and caught my hip on the shower stall. I fainted again yesterday while holding a cup of peppermint tea (which I’d only fetched because poorly) and ended up dripping with peppermint tea. At least I don’t have any meetings, thinks I, gazing down at myself sopping self. Oh yeah, I suddenly do, to be told I gotta apply for my own job, and I can’t even manage a cup of tea without passing out. Fine, ok. Even better, the job I was doing that afternoon took me to my old site (what have they done) and I saw the project I was working on two years ago finally got up and done. It made me sad. And dripping with tea. And soon to be redundant. Again.

So, you know what? Not going to apologise for the Chris Pine and red wine. I need all the help and comfort I can get, and it’s just a flickering screen and a few tannins, so be it.

The one thing film did cheer me up over the last couple of weeks was Fantastic Beasts. Not a Harry Potter fan, at all, but it had Colin and Eddie in it and was set in a version of 1920s New York so I went along expecting Bedknobs and Broomsticks and it kinda was, but with an odd dollop of Peaky Blinders thrown in as well, which was startling but pleasing. My goodness but Crooks Like Us has a very long tail these days. I mean, I’ve loved that book since forever (signed, my copy, been to two author talks) and I know it off by heart, so when I see it clearly being used as a reference on a film set, which it is these days, so often, I can giggle when I see a gaggle of men on film, like oh there’s p43 and p27 standing with Mr p73. So that was funny.

But I liked the film, it made some pointed anti-Trump speeches (good old JK), most of the characters were kind of sweet, and yeah. I was only a bit sad walking home because I missed my friend (I have hardly any friends, so I miss the few good ones I’ve lost along the way).

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