You Know You’re in Dunedin When…..

You come home from work, and find 2 cubic meters of wood to stack.

Yesterday I ordered 2 cubic meters of wood to be delivered to my house.  I figured out I needed this when the prior night I froze my bu– off on a particularly cold night.  To be fair, the property agent said the wood stove would be really helpful on the cold nights.  She was right.  So, yesterday I went to Dunedin Firewood (there are two main firewood stores in Dunedin) to order up some wood for the stove.  I ordered 1 cubic meter of pine (to get the fire started, it burns fast) and one cubic meter of bluegum (AKA eucalyptus, which burns hotter, and much slower).  I ordered 2 cubic meters because then it would (wood?)  be delivered free.  And I when I got home today, there it was, in a pile in my driveway.  On the top ten list of things I was planning to do today, stacking 2 cubic meters of wood in the shed wasn’t one of them (if you want to know how much 2 cubic meters of wood is….it’s A LOT!).  But there it is, in the photo above, all stacked away under the shed cover ready for me to burn.  I was pretty psyched to get a rip roaring fire going tonight (it was cooler and rainy in the afternoon) and then I realized (after a glass of wine) I didn’t have any paper to get the fire started.  Well, maybe tomorrow night, then.  It’s not like it will be warm tomorrow.

You know you’re in Dunedin when….

You are able to work out at the hospital gym (for $45 per year).

Our hospital has a gym and a squash court (that, I haven’t found yet), and for $45 per year you can be ‘member’ of the gym.  It’s brilliant.  I can work out during my ‘lunch hour’ just about every day.  (My lunch hour is, well, whenever I want).  The gym has everything (except a heater…that’s a theme I believe).  For less than $4 per month, I can’t complain.  Soon, I’ll look like Arnold.

You know you’re in Dunedin when you pay for more parking than you do for your gym membership.

You already know the price of my gym membership…So, the parking.  Now that I have a house that’s a drive (not a walk) from the hospital I have to contend with downtown parking.   Now, don’t get me wrong, this is not New York.  I don’t have to drive around the block sixty times to find parking.  There is plenty of parking, you just have to decide how much you want to pay for it.  They is a lot directly across from the hospital.  It’s $9 dollars a day.  About 50 years farther away it’s $7.50 a day (and covered!), and then two more blocks away it’s $3 dollars a day.  That’s where I parked yesterday.  It was a clear, bright, beautiful blue skied morning, and I figured I was safe from the rain.  Sure, I had heard rumors about rain in the afternoon, but the blue sky like that, really?  Sure enough, I looked out the window at 3pm and it was pouring down rain.  Oh no, I thought, a 1/2 mile walk in the rain (and of course, I’m still a Californian at heart and didn’t bring an umbrella).  Then, at 4:30, the sun came, and by the time I left the hospital there wasn’t a cloud in sky.  One thing they say a lot here:  four seasons in one day.  And, today I found out that if I’m on call, there is a designated (free!) spot under the hospital, and there are a precious few spots for medical consultants (all specialties) but they fill up fast.  Today, I got to the hospital before 7am, and got the last one…sweet.

Tomorrow is my first day off in 12 days.  Hummm.  I might sleep in.

cheers,