Happy holidays, all you lovely people. The Mothership said they've forecast 35'C back home...

We'd sent an ambulance round to a wee old lady who had fallen. I called back later to see how she was faring.

"I'm fine now hen," she said with a crumbly giggle. "What happened was, I fell into my Christmas tree."

"Crikey!"

"There's needles and tinsel everywhere. Will you come over and help me put it back up?"

The back shift always goes on forever. It gets dark so early, so I sit there hoping they will go to bed or at least stay very still. But they don't, so Saturday night I was bellowing Are you okay Mr McWrinkly over the roar of the Pop Idol final on their televisions.

And then it started to snow. Slowly slowly it wafted down, not looking like much at first. A few hours later I took a break from rescuing geezers and stared out the window in amazement. It was as though a crack team of CWA ladies had been out, coating the world in marzipan. It looked surreal, almost fake. I couldn't stop babbling, Dude, it's my first snow! My Canadian colleague told me that I should try living in Calgary if I wanted proper snow. But this was my first time, and even as she shoved a snowball down my shirt I couldn't stop grinning.

Right up to that point I'd believed I was still living in Australia, just in some remote pocket where people talked funny and ate a lot of lard. After my shift I got the bus back into town, along the same road we'd come in from the airport nine months ago. Only now, gawking at snow-coated cars, did it finally sink in that I was in Scotland.

A familiar face got on at the Edinburgh Zoo stop. Memories of Paris flooded back -- I could never forget those watery, bulging eyes; those freakish spectacles! It was Afghan Hound Woman! I couldn't believe it. What was she doing out at 11 o'clock on a snowy night? She clung to her handbag, looking as terrified of the world as ever. Her wobbly eyes were glued to a bunch of scruffy kids clattering down the stairs, punching each other and yelling, Look at the fuckin' snoooow!

It took me half an hour to get home from Haymarket, shuffling through the sludge. My shoes were drenched, my legs were frozen. I smiled at people going by as they stabbed at greasy chips in polystyrene boxes.

I stopped on the canal bridge with the shivering ducks and stomped around a bit. It was like a thousand Lemonade IcyPoles crunching underfoot. It had stopped snowing and now the sky was soggy and pale.

And it felt so fanbloodytastic to be there, under the watery streetlight. To have reached a point of familiarity in this town where you know someone on a bus, yet there's still enough unfamiliar left that a new day can knock you off your feet.

Ahh, Mr. Photocopier, I said. So we meet again. I have travelled thousands of miles across the seas just to let you spit your inky crap all over my hands.

It should have been a brief encounter, I only had ten pages to copy, but the display was shrieking CHANGE TONER. Beside the copier was a sign that said SEE SHAUNA IF TONER NEEDS CHANGING. As far as I knew I was the only Shauna.

I'd been shown how to change it four times already, but it's like changing a tyre. You can watch it being done a million times but performing the deed yourself is a different story. Being a stubborn buffoon, I wasn't about to ask for another demonstration.

No worries, I said, taking the new cartridge from the box. I studied the diagrams. All I had to do was stick the cartridge thingy on top of the long thingy, then pull this little plastic thingy that empties the ink thingy until it says STOP. Righto.

I gave the plastic thingy a good firm tug, just to show it who was boss. Sure enough the STOP message came up. But it didn't stop! I'd pulled too hard! The flat plastic thingy that holds the ink inside ended up in my hands and the whole apparatus just sort of exploded. Ink powder vomited into every crevice of the copier, black dust pouffed up into my face. It was chaos.

I stumbled back into the office, "Help! I've fucked up big time!"

Two colleagues came to investigate. "Marshy, that is the fuckup of the year."

I wanted to cry. Today on the bus I'd decided I would write a Proper Entry, not just another episode of Shauna Screws Up. Where's my profound travellers experiences? My personal growth? They fetched me an old t-shirt, a bucket and some paper towels. I spent the next hour on my hands and knees, scooping out ink by the handful. I scrubbed and swore and entertained passers-by with renditions of Mammy.

The ink was a sneaky omnipresent bastard. As soon as I wiped it from one place it would laugh and splatter elsewhere - on the screen, the buttons, under my nails, over my official Talented Athlete Program shirt.

But as I sat there trying to pull back my sleeves with my teeth, I tried looking at the situation in a different light. If I was back in Australia at my old job, would I have spent the morning on the floor with a bucket of water, colleagues cackling at me, ink up my nose? Oh no. I'd have commanded some admin slaveboy to tackle the task!

So really, this was a new and exciting experience. I brushed and scrubbed, brushed and scrubbed; slowly and tenderly uncovering lost bits of machine from under the rubble, like my own personal Pompeii.

Cross-posted to Lost In Transit.

It was dark when I walked to the bus stop this morning. The full moon was still squatting in the sky as beanie-d people scraped ice from their windscreens. Later on at work, we put up the Christmas decorations. I stood on top of the bosses desk with an armful of tinsel, gawking out the window in a "Holy Northern Hemisphere, Batman" moment. I'd never seen fog like this. It was so thick it seemed fake, like a smoke machine shrouding an 80s metal band.

Everyone's saying how Christmasy it feels. My colleagues whistle carols as they stagger in with their lunchtime shopping bags. Down in Princes Street, there's German Christmas markets, an ice-skating rink and a giant ferris wheel.

Yet I'm struggling to adjust my thermostat. Christmas to me is the blast of December heat when you leave an air-conditioned shop. It's invitations to barbeques and sitting in outdoor cafes getting plastered. It's fretting about how white your calves are. It's mangoes and pavlova and prawns and the smell of chlorine. It's the faint dread in your stomach, knowing you're in for a day of petty family squabbles, bawdy jokes and the annual enquiries about your piddling career and lack of love interest.

But now here's my sister and I, thousands of miles away from all that. There's an occassional twinge of homesickness and longing for sunshine, but we're secretly chuffed to be excused from the usual festive routine. We won't be driving round the countryside, my right arm turning pink, listening to our Xmas 2004 Begrudging Family Tour mix CD. We won't be swearing coz we can't find a petrol station, we won't be watching cousins fake gratitude at gifts, we won't be eating salad. Best of all, no one's going to be asking us when are we going to meet nice boys.

Our Christmas will probably mean slopping around the house in our tracksuit pants, hoping it will snow. We'll cook roast lamb and potatoes and indulgent desserts and scoff the whole thing ourselves. We'll sink a few bottles of Aussie red and drink to the strange scary sweetness of freeeeeeeeedom.

This is the sad and sorry tale of what happens when you take obsession and anticipation much too far.

When I saw Radiohead live in Sydney in early 1998, I was so euphoric I could barely breathe, and declared I'd happily sell my mother to see them again. Finally six months ago I got tickets for their Glasgow show. Since then the anticipation quietly simmered, then hotted up to a mighty boil, until last Sunday morning the day finally arrived. I woke up so wired I only manage a gleeful squeak, 'CONCERT!'

After a hectic day, we were standing at the bus stop waiting for a bus to take us to another bus that would take us to Glasgow. After fifteen minutes of anxious hopping around, I studied the timetable again and realised I'd looked at the wrong route. This left us ten minutes to get to the Glasgow bus. Arrgh!

We ran down the road in search of a taxi, bodies screaming in protest at such unexpected exertion. Finally a bus came by, and an excruciating ten minutes later later we were running down Princes Street, just like Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting, except without heroin to make us speedier.

Then we couldn't find the fucking Glasgow bus. Cue third sprint session and breathless cursing. By the time we found it and left Edinburgh, it was almost 6pm.

I was edgy. The M8 was an endless stretch of roadworks and the traffic shuffled like an arthritic pensioner. The road signs taunted me with their lack of metric-ness.

SHAUNA:  Hey. What's 35 times 1.6?
GARETH:  Hmm...
SHAUNA:  Jane! Ask Rory what's 35 times 1.6?
JANE:  Rory, what's 35 times 1.6?
RORY:  Hold on...
G:  52.
R:  54.
G:  No wait, 56.
R:  Actually it's 56.
S:  56 kilometres to go! That's AGES!

It was 7.30 PM when the bus plodded into Glasgow. I was clawing the armrests in frustration.

"We're going to get a CRAP spot. The doors opened half an hour ago."
"There'll be plenty of spots!"
"The hardcore people camp overnight, you know."
"You're in Scotland now! Everyone will still be at the bar."
"No! You don't understand Radiohead fans!" I shrilled. "They're GEEKY and OBSESSIVE!"
"Yeah?"

Finally inside the SECC, I got my shoving elbows ready and prepared to burrow as close to the stage as possible. And it was true, there were still a lot of people at the bar. When support act Asian Dub Foundation began, we'd scored a reasonably central spot, wriggling closer after every song. ADF were great, but I was distracted a vision of loveliness lurking at the side of the stage. Behold! It was Ed! Ed O'Brien! Ed O'Brien from Radiohead!

Long-term WNP readers will remember the enduring obsession that sparked such cringe-worthy entries as this. It had been almost six years since I'd seen him in the flesh, and he had aged gracefully (except for needing a haircut). He busied himself with various percussion instruments throughout the ADF set, dancing and singing along in his long and luscious way.

What a guy. I noted a faint rumbling in my stomach, a weakness in my limbs. I put it down to the rush of hormones.

Soon ADF were done and the crowd closed in. We pushed forward, our view of the stage increasingly cluttered by tall skinny folk in black t-shirts. Then two tall skinny chicks beside me lit up cigarettes. I felt my stomach backflip as the smoke curled around me.

All at once the over-excitement and lack of food and water hit me. Things were getting woozy. I closed my eyes for a quick nap. Then I remember turning round to ask how much longer until Radiohead would start, but my voice sounded distorted and I couldn't hear properly.

"I think there's a mosquito buzzing round inside my ear," I frowned.

There were great murky blobs across my vision and the crowd melted into a blur of spaghetti limbs. I closed my eyes. I dreamed that I was falling, on a jaunty angle of approximately 45 degrees. Back in the real world, eyewitnesses reported my face drained of colour and my lips turned white, then I stumbled in drunken fashion, smacking into the two smoking chicks.

Next thing I knew Gareth was dragging me out of the crowd.

"What's going on?"
"We're getting you to First Aid!"
"Nooooooooooo! We've got a good spot!"

I turned around to sneak back in, but then realised I couldn't see. I was cranky and confused as a First Aid guy sat me down. It wasn't until I gulped some water that my vision cleared and I realised what had happened. I had fainted at the Radiohead gig. Goddammit!

"Are you on any medication, miss?"
"No!"
"Do you have any medical problems?"
"No!"
"Have you passed out at gigs before?"
"Noooooo! I've been to MILLIONS of gigs!"
"What did you eat and drink today?"
"Vegemite toast and two cups of tea!"
"Ah ha. Dehydration for sure.'

I was just contemplating escape when another First Aid dude approached with a clip board.

"Oh nooooo, you can't write this down."
"It's just for our records."
"Arrgh!"

What a blow to ones credibility! I'd spent all day crowing about what a fucking rock veteran I was; speculating on the setlist, demonstrating shoulder-barge techniques to secure the best spot. In the past I'd sniggered at those skanky chicks being hauled from the mosh pit, their bodies limp and useless. "Amateurs!" I'd scoff, "Can't hack the pace! G'wan, get outta here!". But now here I was, pasty-faced and pathetic, sipping water from a paper cup.

Suddenly the lights went down and crowd screamed. I tried to stand up.

"Come on!"
"Just sit for a minute and relax!"
"You don't understand. It's my favourite band!"
"Just five minutes."
"No!"

The drums were calling me; low and rumbling, signalling the start of 'There There'. The First Aid dude handed me a couple of glucose tablets and I shoved them into my mouth, like Popeye with his can of spinach, crunching and spluttering and getting to my feet.

"I'm going in!"

We'd lost out centre spot, but our new perch on the Ed-board side offered a perfect sweeping view of the stage. Best of all there was room to breathe. By the time the boys barrelled into '2+2=5', I was BACK, baby! Sugar surged through my veins and I jumped and screamed like a madwoman.

The boys were on fire, I tells ya. In 1998 they were intense and spectacular, but the crowd was strangely still, as if overwhelmed. The band in turn seemed overwhelmed and weary, but then again they'd spend the last year with the world humping their collective legs in ecstasy after the release of OK Computer. That'd be tough on anyone. But now they were comfortable in their skin. Thom actually smiled and cracked jokes now. The music was more ferocious and physical than last time, they just plain rocked!

The crowd soaked up their energy. The old hits got the drunks singing and snogging and slopping paper cups of Carling. But it was the new songs that really grabbed you by the guts. Take a song like 'Myxomatosis', so irritating on the album that I wanted to clobber the stereo with a brick. But live it was raw and menacing, you could feel the guitars buzzing right through your chest. Woooooo!

Oh I was doing so well, riding high on life and traces of Hovis Big 'n' Bouncy White Sliced Loaf. But when Thom wobbled his way into 'Idioteque', my stomach started wobbling too. Just five more minutes, I urged my innards, This song is so good live, please hold on. But soon I was clopping around the perimeter of the venue with my hands clutched to my stomach, looking for the loo.

I made it back in time for the encores. 'How To Disappear Completely' was so lush it made your bones ache. 'Karma Police' was marred only by cheesy twats with cigarette lighters.

The final song was 'Everything In Its Right Place'. I could have made it, but everything in my stomach was in its wrong place. I bolted out again, hand clamped over mouth. I spent the last moments of the show perched over the loo, alternately swearing and gagging. I'd missed my boys leaving the stage. I could have cried!

But what a way to make a gig memorable! On the way back to Edinburgh we pondered where it all went wrong. There is the scientific view that one cannot live on tea and toast and adrenaline alone. Even when said toast is slathered in the nutritional goodness of Vegemite. But let's not rule out that Ed O'Brien was possibly so saucy that he could cause me to squeal and swoon like a boufantted Beatlemaniac.

photo: rory associated press.
author's lifeless body: not pictured.

My new post at Lost In Transit features the following words: Tinsel, fake, beanie, twinge, arm, longing, the, [and] of. Have a squizz!

Meanwhile, we're still manning the phones on weekends for Scotland's seniors. Many clients have extreme temperature sensors installed, which means we automatically get a call if there is a sudden rise or drop in temperature inside their house. Rhiannon recently had a classic moment with a 95-year-old lady, let's call her Mrs McElderly.

RHI:  Hello Mrs McElderly. We've had a call from your Extreme Heat temperature sensor. Are you okay there?

MRS McELDERLY:  Oh yes! I'm alright hen! I was running a very high temperature early today actually. But I've taken my pills and I've been in my bed so it's come down a lot, I'm feeling much better now. Thank you!