Palpitations

Suffered them last night, or this morning. I had a highly disturbed night's sleep overall but that was the scary bit. It was while I was lying in a lather of sweat, trying to work out what had set the anxiety attack off that I realised it I had been used to dream about being trapped in airport departure lounges with no way out but no longer do so. And I thought it so sad, since it probably reflects an acceptance of my grim fate and loss of hope for the future. Then I wake up to all that Alexander Downer nonsense and that other idiot Howard-lite creature and this doesn't seem like quite such a negative state of affairs. If only I could be happy and financially secure and living here from a position of strength rather than weakness.

Scabby Lou

Rampant Renee is one of our regular thieves, banned but that doesn't stop her coming in at night when the staff are mostly kiddies and then few and far between. She's absolutely charming about being thrown out, accepting it as part and parcel of being a drug addicted prostitute who makes her meagre earnings go that bit further by stealing anything she can. Cash is for heroin, not food or rent or anything mundane like that.

She has a friend she is often seen running about with. She's not as easy to handle, particularly when she's in the sway of her addiction. Because of her appearance I'd assumed that to be crack but I'm now told its plain old heroin too.

I've also learned her nickname, which might be revolting but its hardly surprising. In fact it sums her up quite neatly. She lives on the same estate as the couple running the cottage industry in flogging on goods nicked from us. Curious.

Scabby Lou is the thief caught today. I went up to have a nose about, one police car still in attendance. Lou was grabbed this morning while security were on the premises. When brought to the security suite for processing she confronted the security officer with a syringe.

She didn't get him and the offending (and offensive) item was removed from her. Hopefully now we won't be seeing much of her for some weeks or even, if we're really lucky, months.