I wasn’t really sure what to write about this week… I had planned to write about being tired. I have had all the tests, and physically I am fine, it’s more a kind of mental exhaustion that carries over to the body. I am sure that a whole lot of it is the busy-ness, but it is also grief.

Anyway, that was my initial plan for this weeks blog… but then my friend and I went on a ‘vape run’ to a suburb about 15 minutes away (I don’t smoke, he does), and now there is a whole other story to tell!!

I don’t know how many of you smoke, or if you are aware of how difficult it can be to procure both cheap cigarettes and or vapes. It is now a case of – if you know a place that has them, you let others know and you then hope that the place is open when you want them to be and that they haven’t been raided. It can feel quite illicit and is fascinating to watch who comes and goes.

Anyway, we had it on good authority that the place we wanted was open and had stock. It is in a suburb that is in a lower socioeconomic area, and has a reputation for being just a little bit dodgy. The shop is located next to one of Queenslands oldest hotels, which was established in the mid 1800’s as a rest stop between Brisbane and Ipswich. It is a proper old school pub with exactly the sort of characters you would expect, in fact duelling banjos in the background would not have been out of place!

We decided once the vape purchase had been made, that we should absolutely sit with the locals and have a beer! In fact, the question was: ‘are you game!?’, and I am not one to walk away from a dare!

Initially we got a whole lot of looks – we stood out for having all of our teeth intact and were dressed reasonably well, but eventually one grizzled older gentleman started chatting with us about a book he had helped to write about China discovering the world… very interesting, and I probably had a million questions to ask, but there was a huge distraction taking place just over his shoulder that took all of our attention.

We were sitting facing the street, and directly across from us was an older Queenslander style home. As I was talking to the grizzled local, a police van pulled up right in front of the house, and two officers came out and went to the front door. There was some banging and shouting, and as they went into the home, we watched a young woman sneak out of the back door along the side of the house.. crouching as she passed under the windows and ducking right under the house a couple of times to stay out of sight.

There were quite a lot of us invested in the outcome, and there was almost a collective cheer as she made it to the top of the driveway and then legged it down the street! It was an impressive burst of speed that took her down to the corner and into another house, moments before a second police car came driving past.

Seemingly there was some negotiation that took place between the other residents of the home, because it wasn’t long before one of the cops drove himself down the street and we watched him arrest the young woman in question and bundle her into the car.

We have been speculating ever since about what she might have done, and have definitely got plans to go back to the pub to see if there will be another instalment on a different day – At the moment it is also an easy place to get a vape if you’re so inclined!