Step In, Step Out

Mister Fixit's employers have forced him into a month of night-shifts, using a loophole in their Enterprise Agreement which allows temporary shift changes.  It's to do with how shaky his industry is in Australia at present - most airlines are opting to outsource the regular 'heavy' maintenance of their aircraft (the 3-5 day complete overhauls) to Asia, where the labour costs are significantly lower.  Only the really unavoidable services, the overnight ones, are being done in Melbourne.  Hence the mandatory night-shift: surprisingly, very few people put their hands up to do voluntary night-shift. Particularly when it doesn't come with any extra income.  He is working 4 nights from 8pm through to 6.30am, then he has 4 whole days off to see his family and change his bodyclock back round.  And then we're back to greeting each other as he creeps in from a long night just as I'm getting up.

The reality so far has not been as bad as I anticipated. I was pretty worried about Mister Fixit's tiredness levels but so far he seems to be coping pretty well. His great gift is that he can sleep at will.  Famously, he once dozed off riding a motorcycle home along the freeway, but jerked awake before he came to any harm.  But it isn't particularly family friendly, and even less so because we've had school holidays and visitors (harder to keep quiet during the day).  Also, the childminding for the nights I work has been haphazard, because our regular sitter is away and it hasn't been worthwhile getting someone else in owing to Fixit not leaving til 7.30pm and me being home at 8.45 or 9.45pm - it doesn't feel like a long enough shift to offer someone.  My visitors (my sister and my mother) kindly helped out whilst they were here. Fixit started late on one occasion. I don't really know how we'll swing it if it becomes a long term prospect.  But I suppose where there's a will there's a way, my newly adopted proverb of choice at this stage of my life.  We'll find a way, we always do.

Meanwhile, holiday snaps.

My sister and kids came to Melbourne (as did my Mum but I didn't get a photo of her)



We saw two movies, Monsters University and Despicable Me 2.  Minions! Purple minions!!
 

We hung out with friends



We kept the house in order, mostly.

 

We went to the Zoo.  We had a great day at the Zoo! The seal show is absolutely fantastic and I can't believe we've never seen it before in all our years of visiting.  Gordo the seal is so clever. And Cherub and I discovered the trick to attracting butterflies to land on you in the butterfly house: white hats.  Climber was ever-so-slightly jealous.

Big Brown Bear


Daddy Lions


Meerkat watching


Phone photography


At the Carousel


Watching seals from under their pool


Seal in training out the back


Gordo the Seal making waves


Butterflies definitely prefer white hats


 Best ever hat for attracting butterflies to land