Social action

Tuesday night: Interhouse Aths tomorrow - I have to be a track judge all day which I haven't done in more than a decade. Not sure if the organisers knew I had knee surgery just two weeks ago, but I decided not to wimp out. Still, hope it doesn't get too sore. Going back to see my Godfather orthopod straight after school, so I guess any tenderness will be easy to spot after a day of standing around outside.

Today was very frustrating - kept losing things, including my phone which I just hope is somewhere in my office. Worst case, it's fallen out of my pocket and could be anywhere. Next worse case scenario, some kid has swiped it, though I think that's pretty unlikely (I hope).

Last Sunday night was interesting. Church had organised for a roster of people to go to a local supermarket near the uni and stand outside (looking like we were kind of picketing it, though we obviously weren't), handing out little strips of paper asking people to buy an extra non-perishable product to give us so we could give it to the poorer folks in another parish. If they came back and gave us something, we gave them a thankyou card with parish contact details on the back. There was no picking the people who chose to participate! International uni students, lefty looking kids, older wealthy-looking people, etc etc. Apparently, there wasn't much cut-price soup left on the shelves, thanks to us! I was there for the last two hours before closing, and it was actually a lot of fun in a strange way. I was there with "elder" Ruth K and a bloke I've never met called Murray. He's been going to evening services for a long time, but as a morning service person, I'd never met him - a bit weird. He's into aviation and conservative politics, as it turns out; at one point, he introduced me to the local LNP member who turned up in his shorts etc.
Murray was replaced by Natalie B, a charming architect who's also apparently a regular at evening services who I'm also certain I've never seen before. Standing next to her passed the time very pleasantly indeed. Lots of parishioners were on the roster at various stages, but (and not trying to be too self-righteous here) I'm rather surprised there weren't a heck of a lot more people on board. As soon as I heard the concept, I signed up straight away. If Anglicans can't even go and stand in the street and encourage people to help out the needy, then what can we do? I'm delighted to report we collected (over Saturday and Sunday together) a huge amount of groceries. Don't know how often we can repeat the exercise, but it would have to be tempting to go back sometime and see what else we can pick up.
OK, it's 10pm and I vowed I would hit bed at this hour after a day of being tired and out of sorts, so ciao for now. Finished Breath last night but will review tomorrow.