The theatre tea room at the private hospital is so nice it’s called the Koru lounge. Currently it provides an excellent view of the worksite where the new hospital is being built.
It reminds me of a house we lived in when I was growing up. It was in the grounds of a psychiatric hospital where my parents worked, and for a year while we were there, there was a whole lot of new buildings going up right next to us. That building site was just a huge playground for us kids whenever the workmen cleared out. We used to spend hours there, climbing over everything, getting into all the buildings and tunnels and drains. I remember climbing up the scaffolding around the laundry block chimney. About 50 metres up there was a thick hose dangling down the side. We used to grab it and swing out over the muddy worksite below, around to the other side of the chimney. It was exhilarating. There were probably signs around somewhere saying “no trespassing” but we paid no attention.
All was fun and games until the time I was walking along a steel beam up in the air somewhere and I trod on a nail on which I became impaled. I cried because I was a big baby, and got my little sister to go and get my parents (how old was she?? I must have been about ten so that would make her eight.) By the time they drove up I had pulled my foot off the nail and was climbing shamefacedly down. My foot got infected after that, and I had cellulitis all the way up to my thigh so that I couldn’t walk and had to crawl around the house until my mum finally weakened and gave me antibiotics. Ah, those were the days!