Science fiction fan refuses to go to bed.

She was a bit tired, she told me. The doctors had said the rash was shingles, her vision has worsened and she swallows a small mountain of pills. No wonder she was tired. 92. Or is it 93?

‘Oh, no,’ she replied. ‘I’m not tired because of any of that. I stayed up late watching War of the Worlds.’ What time did it finish? ‘Three in the morning.’

She had a series of medical appointments. My sister, who lives in that earthly paradise in between south Gippsland and Wilson’s Promontory, was planning to travel by bus to the city (three hour trip) to accompany her on the days I wasn’t available. She called me unexpectedly. ‘I’m in town already,’she said. ‘In the Alfred hospital. Peter was making another batch of beer. He had the water, three gallons, up to a nice boil ... .' She didn't have to say the rest.

Skin grafts on his foot, and less severe chest burns. Could have been worse. He was in for five days. My sister stayed at the ancestral home in Deakin Street, visited Peter, ran the art colony and her teenage children (they stayed nearby with their father) and the dogs and the goats by remote control, spent the middle weekend with us at the beach cabin, co-ferried our movie-watching mother to appointments early in the new week, then went home; Pete, bandaged, beside her, rolling down the highway in her little car to that bucolic haven where the vast vault that hangs over the land contains its own special blend of moon and stars.

I visited my mother yesterday. She said her eyesight was deteriorating again, and that she'd watched Day of the Triffids into the small hours. Lucky you're not completely blind, I said.